Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinner
How the heck do you slow down a stubborn mid 70's parent before they crash their car or fall down the stairs 
Stubborn would be an understatement, impossible would be a better word.
She gets dizzy/loses her balance regularly, tried to get this diagnosed without luck...
I believe she "self medicates" ie, takes meds when she thinks she needs to, (one of these or two of these etc.)
Yeah I know, as I wrote that I realize that needs to be controlled first... but how, raid the house and steal her drugs ?
How can you control what she takes, she's too active as well, volunteering for the church etc.
Outsiders don't realize how bad off she is so they let her do things she shouldn't be doing.
Once again, I'm afraid she will take a bad fall or crash her car, she lives in an ultra small town and hardly drives.
If we could slow her down it would help alot. |
"Slowing down" would be an admission to herself of her advancing frailty, that there is no upside at her age, only the continued surrendering of more and more priviledges younger people like yourself take for granted.
My experience is that this predicament is commonly met first by anger and a greater determination to continue on in the face of the obvious.
At some point, acceptance may finally arrive.
Moving from a lifelong residence into assisted care is essentially the same thing.
I guess I would suggest looking at it from her point of view. Freedom/privacy isn't an easy thing to give up.
And she knows that once she does give it up, it's permanent. There is likely no going back.
This is a very difficult moment in anyone's life. She was as young or younger than yourself at one point, with all the same vitality.
She'll get to the acceptance part eventually. Probably. You might need more patience than you've got to help her get to those decisions. Sometimes those decisions might have to be made for them. Hopefully it's not the latter.
Cowperson