Never work in a nursing home.
Here in Australia (and also in Germany, where I think it’s been somewhat more effective.) there were pushes to give these people jobs and social lives. They’re still very isolated though, but there’s a guy with Downs Syndrome I often meet on the train. He works in a warehouse and follows the Rugby team I say I like if pressed so we just have a chill chat about that.
The Liberal government keeps cutting services though so not good.
Working in that environment is an experience I think everyone should have and nobody should have to have. I’m not sure about the residential home side, but when it comes to nursing homes you’re exposed to every terminal condition and every kind of vulnerability. The ways a thing like alcoholism ends are so horrific that I wouldn’t wish them on 5% of my enemies.
I studied psychology as my first degree. As part of the practical preparation we were assigned to different institutions. I had to volunteer at a place for children with severe cognitive disability. It kinda really messed me up, and was the major reason why I changed my field almost immediately after.
I’m helping take care of my elderly relatives, some of whom have been absolutely devastated by dementia and Alzheimer’s. Every day for them is scary, confusing and frustrating. At one point my great-grandma woke up screaming because she had it in her head that she was still 12 years old (actually 91) and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t move her legs or why her skin looked so craggy.
I’ll say it again: I 1000% unironically hope that before the U.S. crumbles and all the silicon valley billionaires take off for Elysium that they’ll figure out effective anti- or reverse aging treatments. Or at least some way to reverse brain deterioration. Say what you want about death, but aging is a universal curse; a debilitating disease that needs to be cured like any other.
No one deserves to go through the kind of hell my relatives, or the person who made this drawing, are currently going through.
I know. I had a friend die recently. They went relatively quick and with the best palliative care money can buy in a country where you don’t have to pay unless you want the gold plating. It was a “good death” by modern healthcare standards.
But no matter what they say and how much drugs you have in your nice room, it’s bad. The body always tries to live, and what we know about the rate of coma patients having some awareness doesn’t give me comfort about what the final moments feel like.
For a less gruesome example. He was around music his whole life, but in the last week, he was so sound sensitive he couldn’t handle so much as a lullaby. Fucking shattering.
Fuck death, find the grim reaper and impale him on a sickle and smash his head in with the hammer.
My condolences comrade. Caretaking for a condition like that is an impossible burden and it’s equally impossible to separate the person from the disorder. It completely poisoned my relationship with my grandparents until I could accept that they died the day they were diagnosed. The systems that force it should be burned to the ground along with everyone responsible for such barbarism.
:meow-hug: Thank you, and condolences and solidarity to you too. I’ve accepted that the people who helped raised me are effectively already gone, but it’s still hard to see them struggling and know it’s only going to get worse.
Alzheimer’s is a curse like no other, you have my solidarity. I grew up with my grandmother having early onset Alzheimer’s and she moved in with us in the final years when I a teen. I didn’t realize how it effected me until I spent some time processing years later. She was an amazing woman who dedicated her life to advocating for Alzheimer’s after her diagnosis but I only ever got glimpses of that growing up. Some of my earliest memories with her are when she would “give me the talk” that she had Alzheimer’s several times a day and I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hurt more. Best of luck to you.
You’re giving them a level of rehumanisation they wouldn’t have in a nursing home. That’s the best anyone could ask for given the circumstances. There’s absolutely no shame in taking that step for their own protection when your own abilities are exhausted but either way you’re protecting them at their most vulnerable moment.
Hey it looks like my notebooks
Unironically I draw “help” like this all the time and I dont know why
Ghosts are trying to contact you in order to solve their unresolved murders. It’s the only explanation
