East Yorkshire author Wendy Mitchell dies from dementia aged 68
Author Wendy Mitchell has announced her own death in a message written before she lost her high-profile battle with dementia.
In a blog post shared by her daughters, the writer, who penned two acclaimed books about her condition, said she had stopped eating and drinking.
She wrote: "If you’re reading this, it means this has probably been posted by my daughters as I’ve sadly died.
"Sorry to break the news to you this way, but if I hadn’t, my inbox would eventually have been full of emails asking if I’m OK, which would have been hard for my daughters to answer. In the end I died simply by deciding not to eat or drink any more."
Mitchell, from Walkington, East Yorkshire, was diagnosed with early onset dementia and Alzheimer's in July 2014, at the age of 58.
She rose to prominence in 2018 with her memoir Somebody I Used To Know, which she followed up four years later with What I Wish I Knew About Dementia.
She was a vocal advocate for assisted dying before her own death at the age of 68.
In her final blog post she wrote: "Dementia is a cruel disease that plays tricks on your very existence.
"I’ve always been a glass half full person, trying to turn the negatives of life around and creating positives, because that’s how I cope. Well, I suppose dementia was the ultimate challenge. Yes, dementia is a bummer, but oh what a life I’ve had playing games with this adversary of mine to try and stay one step ahead."
She added: "Sadly assisted dying isn’t an option in this country. With something that will affect 100% of the population, regardless of wealth, intelligence or ethnicity, it’s amazing how such little value is placed on the act of dying... The only legal choice we shouldn’t have in life is when to be born; for everything else, we, as humans, should have a choice; a choice of how we live and a choice of how we die."
The paperback edition of Mitchell's third book, One Last Thing: Living With The End In Mind, is due to be published next week.
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