Loneliness, does this apply to you?

I feel quite isolated and lonely and as i am getting older and more injuries occur i am feeling anxious as i am not able to do the things i used to, heck i couldn't take the rubbish to the bins today because of my knee, the daughter promises to come and help, she's been saying that for months, i get very frustrated with myself as i am a very independant person, everything gets put in the too hard basket.
 
Jillaroo said:
I feel quite isolated and lonely and as i am getting older and more injuries occur i am feeling anxious as i am not able to do the things i used to, heck i couldn't take the rubbish to the bins today because of my knee, the daughter promises to come and help, she's been saying that for months, i get very frustrated with myself as i am a very independant person, everything gets put in the too hard basket.
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Being independent is great, isn't it, until there are things one just can't do any more, for whatever reason.

I am really bad at asking for help...it makes me feel that I then owe back.

This is an ongoing problem for me, and I haven't yet worked out a solution...
 

This is a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.

My husband and I are practically hermits, we have a few close life long friends, but even now they are in worse physical condition than us, so they are no help.

I'm 61 and the mister is 65 so we don't feel old really yet, but we won't have anybody to speak of when we get on in years to call for help.

But I do wonder about things like you say Jilli, when the time comes for me I'll figure out something then. (hopefully)
 
I never feel lonely, and like the relative isolation ( have neighbours a few blocks away but never or seldom see them) but a certain amount of vulnerability goes along with that, and when, like Jill, I have a string of 'baaad' days and can do practically nothing and the garbage bin turns into a boulder on wheels I have to face facts that I'm just not really 'independent' at all any more.

Things that I never gave a 2nd thought to doing a short while ago suddenly become like cliffs.
I bit the bullet and tried to set up a support chain that I could contact for help if and when I need it only to find that the Govt's assurance of a wonderful, integrated, community health system doesn't quite stretch it's coverage to allow me to do more than register on the interim waiting list to get onto the official waiting list. 2 to 5 years, depending on need was mentioned. Well buggar that!
Even though I can pay for a cleaner to come in, there just aren't any. Or none around that you'd trust in your house.

I can, (damned well have to...grrrrr) move into a retirement complex where at least the permanent staff do extras for the 'independents' on a user pays hourly rate to boost their wages and that's fine by me, at least I'll know who they are. And the centre office arranges tradesmen and repairs and smoke alarm battery changes.

The aging's isolation and disconnection from normal society is only going to get worse as more and more of us reach that point. Especially if the trend of rapidly dispersing families continues.
 
Old Hipster said:
This is a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.

My husband and I are practically hermits, we have a few close life long friends, but even now they are in worse physical condition than us, so they are no help.

I'm 61 and the mister is 65 so we don't feel old really yet, but we won't have anybody to speak of when we get on in years to call for help.

But I do wonder about things like you say Jilli, when the time comes for me I'll figure out something then. (hopefully)
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I have to be the usual voice of doom OH and say that one day I was independent and the next I wasn't! I'd thought about aged care, and knew a bit about how it worked from experience with Mum, and knew my health history would go downhill on the same track as hers, but I viewed it as something quite a few years off. But it wasn't.
I aged 20 years in 3 months.

It does no harm to research the options and hope like hell that you are wasting your time. I hope you will be wasting it too but if something goes wrong in a hurry a backup plan can be damned handy. I was lucky to have a relative who did the leg work, found the unit that wasn't even on the market yet, because they're hard to find, did all the paperwork that I couldn't get into to town to do etc. Without him I honestly have no idea how or if I'd have survived the sudden change in circumstances.

It just bears thinking about. Just because there are two of you, you will have far less chance of finding yourselves in the dire situation I did, but it's still something to at least know and think about a bit in advance. Too late when/iF it happens and you have no one to help you with it.
 
This getting old business just sucks sometimes, but better than the alternative to some degree. Di you were very fortunate that your cousin stepped up to helpl you. As attested by some on here, not everyone is so lucky to have someone who gives a damned whether they are alive from day to day.

Mr. O and I fall into that category, except for one of my brothers who has helped us tremendously. He lives in another state, and while he's been wonderful with the physical labor, he would mentally be of no use in a caretaker situation.

I was just talking to a friend last night that is in the same situation of having no one. Of concern to both of us is our dogs, who like so many people without family have become our family. We have sorted out that we would give each others dogs a home if either one of us goes first. But as for the rest of it, it's a scary proposition.
 
The main concern of mine is what will happen to our dog if something happens to us. I do have an Aunt and Uncle we are close to in age, hopefully we can depend on each other a bit.

for right now I am just being Scarlet O'Hara...and yes I know it's foolish.

"I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."
 
I never feel lonely but I am pretty much alone when here at home. physically I can still do most things and I don't like asking for help, either....maybe I should after my ankle sprain.

i did do volunteer work at the hospital in the surgery waiting room until recently but had to stop because of their strict schedule, it messed with my traveling.

If I could find a volunteer job where I can just come in when I feel like it, that would be great!
 
We're also pretty much on our own here too, no friends and family nearby and no kids to come to our rescue if something happens. My worst fear is one of us passing on, and the other one developing Alzheimer's, where we couldn't function on our own mentally. I think if either of us just become physically impaired, we could work around that. They say that interacting with others and socializing helps to avoid dementia in old age.

Jilly, I feel bad for you because you do have a daughter that can help out and refuses...that's very sad. When she's old and ailing, I wonder if there will be someone there for her. Vivjen, I'm like you. I've always been very interested to help others in need, and don't even have to think twice about it...but I hesitate to ask for the most simplest favor from others. I'm making an effort now to get in better shape physically, that will definitely help with remaining independent in the future.

So far, with my husband here, I don't feel alone or depressed at all, but we are very close and that would likely change quickly if something happened to him and he was no longer here with me.
 
I was born alone and I'll die alone - nothing new there.

About the dying part - that's one of the reasons I'm thinking of moving to Florida - at least I'll be semi-warm when I kick the bucket, homeless and alone, on some nameless Atlantic-coast beach.
 
Diwundrin said:
My dog is the one thing that I haven't really comes to terms with yet either OH. I know she'll be okay and looked after without me, but I'm not so sure about me without her. :(
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Di, I don't understand why the assisted living place you're moving to won't allow seniors to have a pet. Most of them here do allow a dog or cat as long as the person is able to take care of it. Pets are proven to help seniors cope with loneliness, isolation and the feeling of being needed.

It can be hard for people that have never formed an attachment to an animal to understand how much a part of our daily lives they contribute to. Animal are what keep a lot of people going, knowing that they have to get up to take care of them everyday. Losing an animal can be as much a grieving process as much as losing a loved one, if the animal is fulfilling an emotional need for the person.
 
CeeCee said:
Florida is too humid for me, after living here I don't know how I lived anywhere with high humidity.
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Like the old saying goes, "It's not the heat, it's the humility". :p

I think if you live there long enough you might still dislike it but your body acclimates. At least, that's how I remember it being when I was down there for a while.

Still - rather die in the humidity than in the freezing cold. I don't want to end up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining ...

the-shining-snow1.jpeg
 
SifuPhil said:
I was born alone and I'll die alone - nothing new there.

About the dying part - that's one of the reasons I'm thinking of moving to Florida - at least I'll be semi-warm when I kick the bucket, homeless and alone, on some nameless Atlantic-coast beach.
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No, no, Phil! Don't do it! There are those who will disagree with me, but Florida was never intended for human habitation. Had it been, there wouldn't be sand fleas and land crabs, not to mention alligators.
 
GeorgiaXplant said:
No, no, Phil! Don't do it! There are those who will disagree with me, but Florida was never intended for human habitation. Had it been, there wouldn't be sand fleas and land crabs, not to mention alligators.
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LOL!

I'd rather my corpse be left to those denizens of the sea than the rats, bed bugs and cockroaches I presently room with.

Now Georgia, that's another story ... my son is at Georgia Institute of Technology chasing his Master's degree and the stories he's told me about THAT place! :cower: :playful:
 
Well. Yes. Georgia is, um, different. Our weather often has wild "mood swings" and some of the natives don't care for transplants. However, there are more immigrants here than natives. Among my 11 clients, there are only three who were born in Georgia, and they're all well-educated folks who welcome everybody and like the diversity.
 
Interesting that there are more transplants there - what, did they get a flat tire on 95 near Kingsland and, like that Twilight Zone episode, they couldn't get the penny fortune-telling machine to release them? :p

twilight zone.jpg
 
Phil, probably has a lot to do with how big the city has gotten and how many big companies have relocated their headquarters here. It's low- to medium-COLA compared to other major cities, lots of very good universities (Tech and Emory among them) and transpo in and out of the area is good.

That Guy, my kids are all native New Mexicans; there aren't too many of those left, either!

As for me? I'm a native Yooper; not many of us leave, and when we do, not many are successful at staying away.
 

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