Dear Pj:

You can talk to me, and to other members, right here in your thread, whenever you feel alone. I’m here every day and have been for almost 9 years (excluding a 6-month pause). Also, there are support groups for caretakers such as yourself. You can look at senior lifestyle. com/ 40 resources for adult children taking care of aging parents.

“seeing my mother suffer at the end of her life…  and the fact that my mother would be gone forever crushed me“- would you like to share about your mother, has she been a good mother to you? What did she teach you.. ?

“I don’t know the purpose of this life anymore & where this life will take me. I’m lost“- less than an hour ago, I submitted a post to another suffering member on the topic of purpose in the midst of suffering. In it I quoted from Viktor Frankl’s famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, a 1946 book about his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War 2, a place of much suffering.

Here are a few quotes from the book: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself”.

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire… The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

The title of your thread is “Should I start over”?“- yes, please do start over and share about your new beginning here, will you?

anita

Dear Pj

I am sorry about your mothers deteriorating health. Having someone bedridden is both physically & emotionally draining.

Can i ask how did she become incapacitated? Was physiotherapy an option?  My father is 93 with dementia and he will eventually loose the capacity to walk. He does have days when he is not weight bearing, this happens when he is ill with a chest infection or he regularly every six weeks or so has 2 days where he is more asleep than awake. At these times I wonder if he is going to be able to walk again, but I keep trying to keep his fitness levels up, as I know if he was in a carehome he would deteriate more quickly as they are not encouraged to wander about especially if they are deemed a falls risk like my father

There are exercises that she may be able to do whilst in bed to help with muscle wastage and I have noticed that dad tries to follow exercises that I play on you tube he enjoys chair yoga that has songs that have subtitles so that we can sing along with.

I start each day by kissing him on the forehead and telling him that I love him and that is also how I finish our day.

kind regards

Roberta