Anyone else getting flashbacks?
It is over 4 years since mother died. Due to our very difficult relationship, I did a lot of grieving before she passed and haven't needed to do that much since. So I don't think this is so much related to her as to my own aging. I am 85 and inevitably think about what lies ahead. The visual which is with me right now is the sight of the Hoyer type lift in the shower room mother had in her bedroom at her NH. I also had a friend who died of metastasized breast cancer who had a Hoyer lift in her house where she stayed, with help, till close to the end. I think it symbolizes for me the absolute helplessness that can happen to a person as they near the end of their life and I don't want that! Nobody does. Yet these devices are so very useful and help to make those last years and months better. Anyone identify?
1) the hoyer lift
2) those traffic round-a-bouts
Since I hurt my foot 3 mths. ago I've found myself feeling really isolated because I'm not mobile. I find myself contemplating old age and all it entails. I must admit it scares me. The thought of feeling helpless and dependent on others. Even now, watching hubs go into stores while I wait in the car for him makes me feel really depressed. I watch elderly people limping around and think I'm I already there? My foot is healing very slowly. I'm scared it may never be normal. Walking is my form of exercise. What if I can't anymore? Take care of yourself people! The older you are, the slower it heals. Don't fall! Listen to Golden. Take your calcium and protein etc.
But flashbacks? Not really. I have a hard time letting my mind go back to those caregiving days. I think It's a form of avoidance. If I'd allowed myself to dwell on those times I think I would have spiraled into a dark place. So I deliberately don't go there. I miss my mom but just don't think about her much. I hope if she's watching from above she understands. I just can't.
To be honest I hope I die before I get that old. Sounds selfish I know but I just don't want to go there. My mom was so sad and I was so sad for her. I don't look forward to being in that place. I pray I die in my sleep while I'm still somewhat healthy.
https://leg.wa.gov/legislature/Pages/Bill2Law.aspx
Contact your legislators!
I recently learned from webinars and books, that dementia begins 15-20 years before diagnosis, and is caused by several factors coming together, not just genetics. Dr Dale Bredesen's recent books, Dr Daniel Amen, and Dr Joel Fuhrman books and websites have a lot of information on remaining mobile and functional throughout life through lifestyle and changing to thier recommendations for healthy diet.
Thinking about my mom's decline after being very sedentary, I try more than ever to stay active through the things I enjoy like gardening, and service work, and by exercising. While no one has all the answers, I keep being admonished to exercise and do strength training, and my friends say their kids also keep on them to exercise and do more to maintain strength also, lol. They want us to avoid long term care they say. Wow, do they have it right!
I am listening.
Here is an extensive list I found by googling.
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/list-of-comedians.php
This is a favorite stand-up of mine.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=US7uFkpkNSk&fbclid=IwAR1f7wwNbBUcY_pNiJ16KVe5xhmgZHGKxzxK0HW4a51kvTQa6tDWbHIxYtU
And a channel I watch sometimes. Different comedians.
https://m.youtube.com/@DryBarComedy
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz4eDDjaIbM
Just found all the episodes of Dad's Army on Youtube. Should be good. James Herriot's book are humorous. I am into reading more than watching these days.
These are visuals mainly of my mother, and of my youngest son who died aged 23 many years ago. The emotions accompanying them have blunted though I will never be completely comfortable "seeing" my son on his death bed. I am not in distress when I "see" these images. But they are a reminder of difficult times in the past and, as others have mentioned, flash forwards to the future.
I think it only realistic when you are 85, which I am, to recognize that one's quality of life may decrease and prepare for it mentally, emotionally and financially,. Mother lived to 106 and there is longevity on both sides of my family.
I have always found it better to face difficult things head on. I am not worrying about my future. I have plans for my care and enough resources to carry them out. Fortunately Alberta foots most of the bill for nursing homes. Mother was in a new one, state of the art, her own room etc. and her carers were good. I could not wish for a better place for myself should I need it.
I am not one to take my own life but to each his or her own.
I do also get flashbacks to my childhood, the tension in the house, mother screaming etc. but again the feelings have blunted over time, thankfully.
I think going out into the woods and just leaving this world would be great.
Jesus is in my life and I trust Him and God's plan implicitly.
I totally agree with planning and looking after yourself as much as possible. I eat healthy, watch my weight, BP and blood sugar. I can do squats, and work on having as good a lifestyle as I can. I am in the process of downsizing the family home and moving to a condo with my sig other further south where the winters are shorter and there are more resources. I look forward to new opportunities there - gardening on and further developing a lot I have, meeting new people, getting involved in the ME/CFS Association there and so on. Dinner theatre!!!
No one wants to decline and become helpless. It is not a happy thought and not a thought to dwell on, I agree. Thankfully I have much more in my life than those thoughts. I appreciate everyone's feedback and experiences. Most of my friends have already passed so I don't have many to talk these things over with. Younger people have their own different issues and interests, which are also interesting to me. I do have one older lady I talk to and we laugh as we commiserate about the changes that come with age. It's great to be able to have fun over them.
One of my current goals is to bring more laughter and humour into my life. I have downloaded, some Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes and Pogo cartoons to help with that. Still looking for more!
Have a great day, everyone and look after yourself!
To remember my loved one’s great life and allow myself and others to also experience that life.
I’ve channeled my pre-grief into action, such as saving pictures and comments from that person into a special folder on my PC, so that when the memorial time comes, and and everyone else can rejoice in a life we’ll lived.
I do this for my elderly in-laws, and myself as well.
I also do appropriate music and put those songs on a CD for the memorial service.
After reading all the different ways memory care patients suffer and end up locked up, I'm really wanting a Mai Tai and a handful of Fentanyl.
P.S. For me, caretaker flashbacks are about witnessing the demise of a love one and realizing I, too, might find myself stuck in that reality. No, no, no!!!!!!!!!!!!
However, it is important to note that the purpose of this article is to highlight some quick and concrete strategies to help the person re-orient or “ground” during or after an acute trauma reaction, and it is not intended to imply that anyone in a personal relationship with another trauma survivor should take on the role of being an actual therapist. Think of the information in this article as a “first aid kit” for flashbacks – it’s to help you when you need it and should not be used in place of actual treatment from a trained professional.
Sudden difficulties communicating or responding
Person seems disoriented
Frozen, wide-eyed stare, clenched or fluttering eyes
Inability to make eye contact
Dysregulated, uncontrollable flood of emotions, such as crying, screaming, shaking (panic)
Calling out for help, repeatedly saying “no” or trying to run away
Curling into a fatal position or trying to hide
Seemingly unaware of or disconnected from the present
Making movements or gestures as if responding to something that is not really there.
Matilda
The flashbacks that I get are from my growing-up years dealing with her screaming at me for minor infractions and saying mean things like "you walk around like dead flies are dropping off of you", and (when I didn't want to clean the toilet) "you're not too good to get your hands dirty". This from a woman who refused to clean the toilets.
DIdn't empty all 8 wastebaskets, vacuum the entire house, set the table and do the laundry before she walked in the door from work? Let the screaming commence, complete with the red face.
Any question that I asked her that she felt was too intrusive would also usually cause her to scream at me that it was none of my business.
Anyway, that voice - that tone - that scream triggers me and flashes me back to those days. Ugh.
By doing this, it could help you dealing with the present.
You aren't alone. It's insane that we humanely put animals to sleep but let humans linger and suffer. That isn't going to happen to me. I'm moving to Mexico for starters. No way am I aging and dying in this country and if I must...again...Oregon is where I will reside.
Ever since taking care of my mother who died from Lung Cancer (after having a decades long heart trouble), I read about Oregon's Death with Dignity program and the beautiful young lady who had brain cancer and decided to depart before the ravages consumed her................I knew that I would follow in her footsteps if a terminal disease would ever come to visit me.
Thankfully, we do not all need to move to Oregon, it is now available in multiple states and one of them is mine!
https://deathwithdignity.org/about/
My mother used to say, I think it was while caring for my grandmother, that she was just going to go out in the woods during the winter, fall asleep under a tree and freeze to death (my mother has always been able to sleep anywhere, anytime), at the time I was horrified by this and fearful she would do it as she did suffer from depression. Now I understand exactly where she was coming from and I also understand that the problem with this is that by the time she was in the place she might have been talking about she wasn’t able to do it. I often find myself wondering lately if she is really happy or even content being alive, I’m not sure how to answer that. I know there can come a time when we are keeping our loved ones alive for ourselves not them but I’m not sure where that balance is. For now I know if we were to stop the interventions that help keep her quality of life she would die a slow and painful death full of more hospitalizations and interventions than she currently has so it’s clear, I do not want her to suffer any more than is necessary. I do think about what I would want for myself when making decisions for Mom but we have always been very much on the same page when it comes to that so I can but the separation gets harder and harder as we both age. So yes I do identify with what your saying. Mine are still flash forwards though rather than flashbacks.
It's been very difficult caring for my mom without him here; he could say one sentence when things were rough, that put things into the right perspective. We've lost those precious words and it's harder to keep a right attitude without them. Mom has so many health problems, and it seems like something new crops up about every week. Twice we've been told she was dying, and twice she miraculously hasn't. It seems like all we're doing now - all three of us - is just surviving.
But last Christmas Eve, as we sat in the living room with Christmas carols quietly playing and gazed at the lit Christmas tree, and my husband read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible, and we warbled a few carols in our aged, off-key voices - Mom very quietly said, "I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here."
She obviously gets much better one-on-one care in our home than she could ever hope to receive in a nursing home, and she's very appreciative of our work on her behalf; but it looks to me like there's nothing for her to live for.
We rarely have the energy for fun anymore; there's too much work to do, and it takes all the energy we have. We had moved shortly before Mom and Dad moved in with us, so we have very few community connections and very few visitors other than hospice caregivers. It's mostly just us. Mom reads a lot of newspapers and cuddles her cat and does Bible study, spending most of her days alone in her room except for getting care and a little talking time with one or both of us. She usually feels too tired to go out to the living room.
But she accepts that this is all we can do. She smiles through her exhaustion and her pain and gives us her love and understanding.
I've talked to the hospice nurse a lot about this, wondering if our dedicated care is actually causing Mom to suffer longer. The nurse reminds me that nobody knows how much time Mom has left, and if we don't give her the best care we can, she may well develop health issues that don't kill her but make the rest of her life much worse. And if we actually are prolonging her life, there's nothing wrong with that. Like Dad, when she's ready to go, she'll go.
So I hang on to those words Mom said - "I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here." Although I don't understand how she can be happy here, I know she was speaking the truth. She is where she wants to be.
We now know up-close-and-personal, what nearing the end of life at an advanced age can be like. Like you, Lymie61, we "flash forward", and what we envision is our kids struggling to care for us. We want to go quickly without draining them. We willingly made the choice to do this for my parents, but we don't want our kids to have to do it for us. We know, of course, that we'll just have to accept whatever happens, regardless of what we may wish - hopefully as gracefully as my husband's parents did, my dad did, and my mom still is - if we reach that point where we can no longer care for ourselves.
I doubt that what I've written is going to help anybody. I think I just needed to say this. It's in my mind and heart every day, and it feels good to put it into words... It's just reality.
Do the very best you can to be healthy mentally and physically. If you are getting weak ask your doctor to order physical therapy at your home every few months. At least you can learn some simple exercises and stretches.
Get in touch with old friends or make new friends. Socializing is so important. Go back to church if that interests you and join a ladies group that supports a charity. Great way to meet people.
Do you have any hobbies you used to love?
I wish this chapter of your life to be joyful and have peace!
But…of course we all know that elder care is big business. They make millions off memory care units, and home health aides, and devices, and medication, all designed to keep people alive for as long as possible. My father’s doctor sends me notices to bring him in for COVID boosters, flu shots, to refill his blood pressure medication (which he refuses to take anyway), to get his heart checked. Why? He won’t go anyway. He wants nothing to do with doctors and I am done fighting him on it. If he ends up in the hospital with something, as his MDPOA my instructions will be to keep him comfortable and pain free and that’s it. No life saving measures, no treatments to prolong life, no let’s get him better and then send him to rehab, then skilled nursing, then if he survives all that, memory care. Nope. I won’t do that to him. I know my father and what he would want.
In fact if there was a way to get him to Switzerland, I would do it. Because this isn’t life.
It’s interesting to think about how some people live so long. Look at your mom, Golden! Geeeeeez, I can’t imagine.
My mom was shocked to live to 95. Her brother lived to be 96 and sadly, her sister died at 46. She had kidney disease.
My parents took in my cousins to raise as their own.
I have a cousin who just turned 100.
I agree that life teaches us lessons. We learn what works and what doesn’t work.
And I want to go before my brain does! Do not let me go where mom was!
I have memories of the sadness of losing my mom, but wouldn't call them flashbacks.
I don’t consciously dwell on the difficulties of my past. I subconsciously learned to block out my feelings when I was young to protect myself.
Plus, I grew up in a ‘hush hush’ generation. No one spoke openly about issues. We were instructed to keep quiet. Now, there are tons of support groups. A long time ago there weren’t any.
I suppressed a lot of emotions in my youth. In the long run, this doesn’t usually work. My therapist explained this to me.
Suppression only works for so long and then something triggers an occurrence and our emotions and memories rise to the surface.
So, we have to address our issues. We don’t ‘get over it.’ We work through our issues and it takes time. Rarely, does it happen overnight.
I have flashbacks if there is a trigger. It can be something really small like a certain song playing, food, certain phrases that people say, etc.
A friend of mine who had an awful time with her mom said that she cannot be around anything that is ‘rose’ scented. Her mother loved rose scented cologne, soaps, etc. She detests smelling it because it brings back horrible memories.