Aging sucks.
Why?
Because as you age, people who are not in your age bracket see you as less vital. They suddenly think you’re now unable to chew your own food, that you drive 20 in a 50 MPH zone and that you should stay in after dark. You don’t dare become ill and need hospitalization because that’s where a real downturn in your life takes place.
I’ve seen it time and again with older friends who, even though they are more lively and interesting than most of the younger people we know, become invisible once they get into a hospital situation. Doctors and nurses no longer speak directly to them about their conditions. Caregivers immediately presume that the children now have custody of the parents. Our friends have been overlooked and treated by the caregivers as though they are nothing but old sacks of bones lying in a hospital bed. What kind of ‘care’ is that?
The kids are no less guilty in propagating this myth. They often come on the scene thinking it’s their place to mind their parent’s business. I know one family who, once their 
mom broke her hip, decided that meant she needed to be railroaded into doing whatever they decided was best for her. Yes, a broken hip required surgery and rehab. But it didn’t affect their mom’s mind nor her ability to go back to real life once she was healed. The kids have become paranoid over their mom’s safety to the point that they’re trying to railroad her into an assisted living facility.
Unfortunately, they have created a situation where this once strong-willed woman, now questions her every thought. She speaks and a son says ‘Mom, you shouldn’t say that.’ She wonders if they’re right and she’s wrong – all the time. Every move toward reclaiming her life, sends the kids into further paranoia. Faster and faster she’s losing her grip on autonomy. Thank you kids.
Who is actually on her side? And who really understands what she’s thinking, how she’s functioning, what she wants?
The family just doesn’t get it: they think their mom lost her right to live at home when she broke her hip. How dare she! They no longer see her as a viable human being. Now she’s become someone they have to put somewhere so she’ll be ‘safe’. Everyone’s so busy with their own lives, the only room left for her is at the assisted living facility. Worry over; case closed. Peachy.
The woman she was has gone missing, hidden by the wants, desires, needs of everyone else. Unfortunately for her, internally she’s still a viable, thinking adult who wants to live her life in a way pleasing to herself. It would be so much easier if she was out of her mind, but she’s not.
It’s unfortunate that the kids can’t take a step back from their own paranoia. Really and truly, no matter what the kids think, this is not all about THEM! Just like this woman could not protect these kids from every single, negative life event, neither can they protect their mom. Unlike her realization that the kids had to go through things that she couldn’t prevent, these kids refuse to realize that it’s her right to do the same. Maybe what she really needs to be able to thrive again is for the family to lift the net of paranoia and give her a real chance to show she can still do it all in her own way. Maybe handing her back her original freedom is what she really needs to be able to get back to normal.
Who knows what could work? But I wish they’d give her more of an opportunity to regain herself before they dump her in some facility just so they can have peace of mind.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Government, Healthcare, Jimmy Carter, Jobs, News, Over reaction, Poll - Take One, Racism, Taxes, Work
Ladies and gentlemen.
I have experienced a dearth of ideas, meaning I just haven’t had an idea for days. Until today when the world has seemingly gone mad all at once (again)! Now I have about a half dozen ideas.
So, starting at the top – pun intended.
The criticism of President Obama and Jimmy Carter’s assessment.
First of all, I don’t believe, as Jimmy Carter is saying, that people are necessarily criticizing President Obama as a person, as a partial African American, nor as a man. Nope, I’m pretty sure they are not.
Many, if they are criticizing him, are taking cracks at him because of his infinitely unwise decisions.
Remember back in the campaign days when Mr. Obama assured us – as have so many before him – that he would hold down the spending and especially the pork barrel spending? Yet in the middle of the campaign, both he and John McCain ran back to D.C. to vote for the first $700 billion bailout. This turned out to be an $850 billion bailout that included numerous pork barrel items and one of the first instances where words didn’t 
match actions for either Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain.
Our displeasure in these people had nothing to do with either man’s race. Their actions, however, should have caused a lightning bolt action running through our psyches telling us we shouldn’t vote for either man, black, white or otherwise.
Then there was the auto maker’s bail out. I was really against this one but Mr. Obama championed the cause and the senators and congressmen yet again, did not heed our tortured, crictical screams. Next thing you know the American taxpayers became the not-so-proud owners of the Government Motors Company. Our displeasure had nothing to do with Mr. Obama’s race – only with his stupid response to a ridiculous situation that would have been better off left alone.
A small aside here: General Motors handed their bail out money to the Chinese government in order to extend their factories and auto production in China. I’m not sure why they didn’t ask China for the bailout? Oh, wait, yes I am. The Chinese government wouldn’t have given them one red cent. They’re not that gullible.
So now Mr. Obama is promoting a healthcare plan that will cost the American public $835 billion – so far. The plan is so unwieldy that I’m pretty sure no one, not even the lady who had to type it all up, knows what it says. The one thing that has been noted is that families who don’t subscribe to some form of health insurance will be fined $3,800. Maybe that’s how Congress plans to raise the $835 billion?
Stick with me here while I do the math on all this. $850 billion + $35 billion + $835 Billion = 1.720 TRILLION dollars of non existent taxpayer dollars earmarked for spending in less than a year by our first, partially African American president.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not on this rant because Mr. Obama is partially African American. I’m on this rant because I do have a brain and I am living and breathing in America. I’m ranting because I do resent someone who would give my hard earned money to crooks and thieves who have either stolen from the accounts of or raped the American people by stealing their jobs and giving them to the Mexicans and Chinese in order to make greater profits.
I am ranting because it is unbelievable to me that anyone would look at what has taken place in the last year and still have the gall to say people are picking on Mr. Obama because he’s our first partial African American president!
Have you lost your minds? Do you seriously think the caucasians would be sitting around saying ‘gee, we’re so glad the white guy in office dumped us into the cesspool of a 1.720 trillion dollar debt’ if John McCain had gotten into office and committed these financial atrocities? If you do, then it’s time for more than a change in American government; it’s time for a change in its people.
9/16/09 – 11:25 p.m.
I love the line in the movie ‘Father of the Bride’ when Steve Martin (as the Father) in speaking with his daughter’s fiance, tells him that his daughter comes from a long line of over reactors. He then proclaims the lineage that includes his mother, himself and, naturally, his daughter.
I love that part because, misery loves company, it takes one to know one, and I recognize myself in that particular segment.
Some people would say that those of us who do overreact to situations or conversations or any unnatural life circumstance that causes us fear are probably just plain crazy or high strung. I don’t think so.
I think the real truth of the matter is that we are people who vibrate on a higher stream of consciousness than most. Unlike most plebeians (plain folks to you) we are not rooted to the earth but rise above it, allowing our electrical vibrations a more free and intense reign. We have a sixth sense and connection to the invisible world that allows or causes us to experience things more acutely, thereby making us over reactors rather than just reactors. Those rooted in the ground basically don’t have the ability to quake at a 7.5 level. We do.
In the king’s English, that just means that we make mountains out of molehills. We listen to the anecdotal stories of others and adopt them as truth. We take Xanax to quiet our out of control electrical vibrations so that we can stand to hear the truth when it’s delivered.
The truth is like a bucket of very cold water tossed on a couple of mating dogs: it strikes us to the ground where all vibration stops. We come out of our electrically charged state and return to the dull lifelessness that we resemble following a major quake phase. Breathing returns to normal; thinking clears; and the headache sets in. The aftermath of the quake is that we feel silly.
No matter how many times we go through this, when we’re done, we tell ourselves that we’ll never allow that to happen again! Next time, we say, we’ll remain calm until there’s a real reason not to remain calm.
It’s a lie. We can’t do it. Next time something happens that frightens us to death, we’ll begin to vibrate again, well beyond normal human rates, out of control, making ourselves crazy, raising our blood pressures, letting our minds tell us that only the worst is possible. And while the worst just may come, there’s a greater probability that it won’t.
Regardless, we’ll vibrate out of control until the truth is revealed and we once again feel silly. You can count on it.
