Permission Granted:
To Come As You Are
A closed virtual circle for women who love someone living with Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia-related illness
Almost everyone asks how your loved one is doing.
But almost nobody asks what loving someone through it is doing to YOU.
There are resources that explain dementia, tell you what to expect, and help you navigate what comes next.
The exhaustion of being needed again before you have recovered from the last thing.
The visit you dread, then feel guilty for dreading.
The thoughts that follow you home.
The anger you do not feel allowed to express.
The impossible combination of missing someone, loving someone, and desperately wanting relief from everything their illness has changed.
You may not identify as a caregiver.
You may be a daughter, wife, sister, daughter-in-law, friend, or someone whose relationship does not fit neatly into a label.
What matters is that you love someone living with a dementia-related illness and have been looking for somewhere you can speak honestly about what this experience is doing to you.
This is that place.
Created and facilitated by Katie Berry, LCPC, whose Mom is living with Alzheimer’s disease, this circle brings together skilled facilitation and genuine lived understanding.
Request a Welcome Conversation
Schedule a (free) 20 minute call with me to ask questions, share concerns, and to see if this Circle feels like a good fit for you.
Founding-Circle Details
Six live virtual gatherings via Google Meet
Every other Wednesday, 7:00–8:30 p.m. Central Time
September 9 through November 18, 2026
Six women maximum
Founding-circle rate: $400 for this inaugural fall 2026 offering
Gathering Dates
September 9
September 23
October 7
October 21
November 4
November 18
About Katie
Katie Berry is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and the founder of True Colors Healing Collective.
Her professional work has long centered on women carrying grief, trauma, anxiety, emotional responsibility, and the invisible pressure to keep functioning.
Her connection to this circle is also personal.
Katie’s mother is living with Alzheimer’s disease.
She brings both skilled facilitation and lived understanding to a room created for women who are rarely asked what this experience is doing to them.
Read Katie’s personal essay, The Part of My Brain Alzheimer’s Took.
You Do Not Have to Arrive Composed
You do not have to organize your thoughts before you speak.
You do not have to find the positive side.
You do not have to prove how devoted you are before admitting that you are angry, exhausted, resentful, relieved, numb, heartbroken, or several of those things at once.
You do not have to protect anyone else from the truth of your experience.
You are invited to come exactly as you are.
What the Gatherings Will Feel Like
Each gathering will begin with a thoughtfully posed reflection question. From there, the conversation will open into whatever the women in the room most need space for that evening.
There will be no lectures, presentations, homework, or pressure to arrive with something profound to share.
You may speak.
You may listen.
You may cry.
You may laugh at something almost no one outside the room would understand.
You may say, “I do not know what I need tonight.”
You may pass.
Listening is a valid way to participate.
Katie will guide the flow of the conversation so that every woman has room, no single voice takes over, and no one is expected to carry or solve another participant’s experience.
When helpful, she may also share from her own experience of loving a mother who is living with Alzheimer’s disease.
This is not a space where you will be expected to become better at managing dementia.
It is a space where you get to remain a person inside everything dementia has changed.
What This Circle Offers
Permission Granted: To Come As You Are is a small, closed virtual circle limited to six women.
The same women will return every other week for six 90-minute gatherings. You will not have to introduce yourself to a new room each time or retell the entire story before anyone understands why today feels hard.
Over time, the women in the circle will come to know the people, relationships, decisions, losses, and changes behind your words.
They may remember what you shared two weeks ago and understand why something feels different now.
Free support groups and dementia resources can be deeply valuable. This circle offers something intentionally different: a small, consistent room where you can become known rather than simply introduced.
Not a solution to dementia.
A dependable place to feel less alone inside everything it has changed.
This Circle May Be for You If...
✦ You are tired of being asked for updates about your loved one while almost no one asks how you are doing.
✦ You censor your real feelings because you are afraid they will sound selfish, unkind, or insufficiently loving.
✦ You feel alone even when other people know what your family is going through.
✦ You want connection with women who understand that love, grief, anger, relief, tenderness, resentment, and exhaustion can exist at the same time.
✦ You are not looking for another class about dementia.
✦ You are looking for somewhere you can finally exhale and tell the truth.
What This Is, and What It Is Not
This is a live, facilitated support circle centered on honest conversation, mutual recognition, and connection.
Participants will be invited to speak from their own experiences rather than give unsolicited advice or try to solve one another’s situations.
No one will be required to speak.
No sessions will be recorded.
Participants will be asked to respect the privacy of everyone in the circle and not share another woman’s identity or personal experiences outside the group.
Because this is a group setting, Katie cannot guarantee that every participant will maintain confidentiality.
Participants are expected to join from a private location, use headphones when needed, and refrain from recording, photographing, or taking screenshots of the gathering.
The same small group will remain together for the full series, with no drop-ins or new participants added after the circle begins.
This is not group therapy, dementia education, medical guidance, or crisis support.
Participation does not establish an individual therapy relationship with Katie, and the circle is not intended to diagnose or treat a mental-health condition.
Questions I’ve Been Asked
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No.
You may be providing daily care, visiting someone in memory care, helping from a distance, or trying to understand what the illness has changed in your relationship.
You only need to love someone living with a dementia-related illness and feel drawn to the kind of space being offered.
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No.
You will be invited to participate, but you will never be required to share more than feels right to you.
Listening, reflecting, and passing are all valid ways to participate.
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The circle will hold real and sometimes difficult experiences, but you will not be expected to fix, advise, or emotionally carry another participant.
Katie will guide the pace and flow of the conversation so that no one woman becomes responsible for holding the entire room.
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Because this is a live, closed circle, gatherings will not be recorded or recreated.
Participants are asked to make every reasonable effort to attend all six gatherings so that trust and continuity can develop.
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Free support groups can be deeply meaningful.
This circle offers a more intimate and consistent experience: no more than six women, the same participants each time, skilled facilitation, no drop-ins, and nine hours together across the full series.
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Once you schedule your welcome conversation, you and Katie will meet virtually and discuss the Circle.
If you feel it is the right fit for you, you’re in.
Interested but unable to join us this fall?
Permission Granted: To Come As You Are will be offered again. Join the waitlist to be among the first to hear when the next Circle opens. There is no commitment, just a simple way to let me know you might be interested in a future offering.