We come into this world completely helpless, and parents take care of us, spending sleepless nights at the crib. Over the years, the roles change, and it’s our turn to “serve a glass of water.” We understand what care for elderly relatives turns into in practice and how to cope with guilt.
According to statistics, 30% of octogenarians suffer from dementia disorders. At the same time, according to the forecast of Rosstat, in 10 years there will be twice as many representatives of this age category in Russia. This means that the problems of caring for the elderly will affect many families.
Guilt – or life
The traditional Russian way of life implies multigenerational and indispensable care of family members for each other. Any step aside is condemned by society. Therefore, adult children decide to cope with the problem on their own.
65-year-old Dina does not have an overwhelming sense of guilt before her mother – she spent 9 years at the bedside of an elderly, almost completely paralyzed woman suffering from a severe form of dementia. From time to time, Dina still worries about whether she was an attentive enough nurse, but something else gnaws at her much more strongly – her daughter grew up without her, at the other end of Moscow. They saw each other at most once a month – leaving a helpless mother even for half a day was worth unimaginable torment. Nobody reproaches Dina, but she herself is tormented by guilt before her adult 40-year-old daughter.
Another close friend, Katya, raised her son, became a grandmother, then became a widow, but in a couple of years she gathered her strength and continued to live, working as a chief accountant in a large company. Then another misfortune happened – two strokes bedridden the mother. The father is healthy and receives a good pension. Katya’s earnings are also above the average. But the father even refused a temporary nurse – after all, they “have a daughter”, who now for the second year has been coming to her parents’ house three times a week to look after her sick mother, and at the same time for her father and the apartment as a whole (refusal of the housekeeper by the father also argued by the presence of a daughter).
All adult children experience guilt.
Shopping, cooking, difficult and responsible work in every sense, own house – everything is on Katya’s shoulders. As a result, the woman fell into a deep depression. But no one thinks what might happen if something happens to her. She is only 48, but in such conditions and with such a load, how much longer can this super-responsible daughter hold out?
Stereotypes remain the same: to give a loved one to a nursing home is a terrible betrayal. This is partly due to the Soviet “housing issue”, when they tried to get rid of the elderly in order to free up housing for the young. Now, horror stories about the so-called “pirate nursing homes” are adding fuel to the fire.
Absolutely all adult children experience a sense of guilt when faced with a situation where elderly parents lose their independence, and in the worst case, their connection with this world, pose a threat to themselves and loved ones. They forget to turn off the gas, they leave, and then they can’t remember where they live. And here even round-the-clock experienced nurses do not always save.
At first, there is an understanding that you yourself, with the help of your family, cannot cope. Then – that you need to accept this feeling that everyone has.
“100% of the people who contact our call center are people with an overwhelming sense of guilt. There are simply no other calls. We reassure everyone: it’s normal that you feel this way, but let’s talk about what your loved one really needs,” says Alexei Sidnev, head of a network of private pensions for the elderly.
Other cultural codes
If you look to the left on the map, for example, towards Germany, then you can see a different cultural code there. People also grow old, decrepit and need outside help. But the attitude of themselves, and those close to them, and those around them to all these processes and needs is completely different.
This is partly due to the fact that the family is traditionally built differently. Each new generation grows up and separates. They go to university or go to work and rent their own accommodation, sometimes for several people. And parents help them with everyday issues and tuition fees exactly as much as they can, and most importantly, they want. And it doesn’t occur to anyone to complain. There are no obligations, there are lovers. Well, or not loving, that’s how it happened. But after coming of age, there are no obligations on either side.
When the age comes, imposing certain physical limitations, a nurse appears in the house. Initially, a student girl from the countries of the former socialist bloc is taken to the role of an assistant. She provides comprehensive assistance, and at the same time practices in German. It helps to go for walks: under the arm or in a stroller. And the usual entertainment of German pensioners – gatherings with coffee or beer, dice games, bridge – are moving from cafes and pubs to living rooms. Later, a professional nurse appears.
It is important that relatives are not afraid to talk about their feelings.
When basic needs become a problem, a person moves to a nursing home. Sometimes the initiative comes from the children, sometimes from the parents themselves. But no one here considers this a betrayal and a reference to certain death. And no one needs to prove that this is not so. After all, Grandma wants to keep playing bridge with her girlfriends – only now moving not on foot or in a taxi through a couple of streets, but in a wheelchair through a couple of floors or rooms. Children, grandchildren and friends who have not yet lost their strength come to visit.
Don’t be afraid of feelings
The new Russian private pensions have experienced psychologists who work not only with elderly parents, but also with adult children. They have something to tell on this topic from their own practice. Elena Ivanova has been working in such boarding houses for five years, she advises: “It is important that relatives are not afraid to talk about their feelings.”
For example, 52-year-old Margarita brought her 83-year-old mother Tatyana Petrovna four years ago and suffered for a long time. It is good that she did not hide her feelings, because it is easier to work with people who openly express fears and doubts. They understand that there is an internal conflict and it is necessary to solve this problem. Elena agrees that doubts cannot be left unanswered: they are detrimental to both children and elderly relatives (even those who are in the deep stage of dementia still feel the mood of their loved ones). In addition, this creates problems for the staff: children are unnecessarily distrustful and full of unfounded claims.
Margarita and the psychologist worked for a year until the woman realized that her mother is in good hands, and this is precisely the highest manifestation of child care. After that, the mother’s adaptation to the new place also became easier. Moreover, the new situation was more difficult for Margarita than for her mother.
“If you sent your parents, grandparents, uncle, aunt, wife, husband to a boarding house for the elderly, this does not mean that you abandoned them! You continue to care, just in a different form. Including, in order to save the strength to earn money and provide decent care for elderly relatives.”
As a rule, those who have not gone through it themselves are condemned.
It happens differently, continues the psychologist Elena Ivanova. When children know for sure that they offer the right solution, and parents agree with them no less confidently. Nikolai Petrovich is 90 years old, and he did not notice any changes in his wife, 82-year-old Olga Ivanovna. The first signs of dementia were noticed by one of the children, a doctor. After a family council, it was decided to send the mother to a boarding school. After some time, Nikolai Petrovich also wanted to move to her – this is also possible, to live with her husband.
The specialist is sure that adaptation is needed for the whole family – both for those who brought their loved ones to the boarding house, and for those who moved here, to a new place of residence. Even if an elderly person does not feel that he has been abandoned, written off, he will have to get used to a completely new life, get to know new neighbors, “adapt to cooperation” with employees. This takes time. And often it is the new settlers who need more time than their children, because this is a completely new stage of life. It is necessary, for example, to learn a new daily routine. It takes from a couple of weeks to a month to settle down, but it may take two.
Aleksey Sidnev shares his memories: “There is 1968 cognac in the office. It was brought by a client as a token of gratitude for what we have done for his mother and brought peace back into his own life and the life of his family.” Nine months earlier, says Alexey, a 50-year-old man, a successful businessman, a happy husband and father, appeared on the threshold of the office. He couldn’t hold back his tears as he talked about how hell his life had been the last few years. The mother’s mental illness (Pick’s disease, a rather rare type of dementia) was expressed in aggression, the nurses ran away, the mother suffered. She was given professional help in the hospital, but her son could not take her into the family, she had to think about her own children, who would be frightened and traumatized by such things. He decided to place her in a private boarding school. Relatives stopped talking to him. As a rule, those who have not gone through it themselves are condemned. Now the mother is unrecognizable: the right approach, trained staff have done their job.
Love is
In Malakhovka, a psychologist who teaches music therapy classes (this practice works well in working with dementia – slowing down and stopping cognitive impairment) talks about a recent incident. Right in the classroom, one very demented patient began to cry bitterly. At that moment, a “window” opened for her – in the case of dementia, this means that memory is returned to the person in fragments. The woman explained: she is crying because the children are suffering because of her, it hurts them to see how she cannot remember them, and she is terribly sorry for them, she does not want them to suffer.
Guilt in a situation where parents become less and less independent is inevitable. The departure of relatives is a sad event, but such is the course of life. We anticipate it. Whenever someone in the family is preparing to leave for another world, we feel the emptiness that will arise in the place of a loved one. This forces us to try to prevent the inevitable. But these attempts will never be crowned with complete success. It is necessary to turn the question over: how to make this care bright. We all came here and we all will leave sometime, religion and psychotherapy can be of great help.
“If a person, trying to help another, does it to the detriment of his life, then the psyche works in such a way that he begins to gradually hate the one to whom he only wanted good. Instead of caring for parents who are losing their independence with love, children begin to look forward to the departure of an elderly person and suffer from such thoughts themselves. This is very wrong,” says SOAR-certified therapist, psychologist Natalya Petrova. – The attention and visits of children may not be as frequent, but it is important that this is done with pleasure. It is better to hire a professional or transfer to a boarding house, where, in addition to proper care, there will be competent medical and psychological assistance and society. At the same time, love, come, but save your life and family, than wait for the death of a loved one, without admitting it to yourself.