Can you have a positive attitude towards losing your mind?

Tags

ageing, alzheimers, being old, dementia, dementia therapies, losing your mind, positive ageing, sensory gardens

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I went to a conference a couple of weeks ago about Positive Ageing.

I’m all for positive ageing. Positive anything, really (especially bank accounts).

Part of the discussion was around how you could make life much more meaningful for people with dementia by involving them in sensory experiences like music, sensory gardens and other things which don’t rely on your cognitive abilities.

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So, concluded the researcher/therapist, even people who don’t remember their own names can still experience ‘successful ageing’.

Ok, let’s redefine success. As living.

There’s a lot of bullshit talked in ‘helping’ circles.

That said, anyone who does have a relative with dementia might find these therapies interesting to read about, because (up to a point) dementia can be slowed and soothed.  As the brain falls gently away, a person can still find pleasure at last in the things that brought them pleasure at first – touch, warmth, security, rhythm, melody, fragrance.  When the present loses meaning, for a while the past becomes the present, so that a person who forgets the face of their grown son can see it again in their four year old grandson.

When your mind is active but your body is failing, then you are as much you as ever you were.  But when your mind is failing, dying piece by piece, who are you? Where are you? When are you, not?

The Oldest Drug Fiend!

Tags

ageing, drugs, humour, old age, old people

My best friend Captain Savage writes about the difficulties of getting old and his mum’s Alzheimers.  I reckon I’ve been thinking about getting old ever since I was, what, twenty? It never hurts to plan!

My vision is that I’ll have a little flat on my daughter’s country estate.  On this estate, there will be all manner of cuddly animals, and I’ll sit on my rocking chair on the verandah patting the goats and dogs and cats and guinea pigs and sheep and…you get the picture, and sipping lemonade.

If I do go dotty (and I already am, a bit) it won’t matter too much, cause I’ve always enjoyed brainless pleasures like the sun on my back and mud on my feet and looking at grass and birds and ants and flowers and eating chocolate. I probably won’t get too worried about who I am and where home is and who is that strange woman with the small children hanging around, because I live in the moment now and I probably will when I’m old too.

On the other hand..my mum is 91 and not having the best of times.  Life is boring and painful, and she misses my dad, who died a decade ago. She’s still got plenty of marbles but not her sight or hearing and she can’t go for a walk because of arthritis (and recently it’s got even worse than that – but I won’t go into that now).

Every time I visit her she says she’d rather be dead (she’s a pretty cheerful would-be suicide, mind you).  Taking note of all this, I asked a nurse friend the other day HOW one could off oneself, if the need arose – and filed the answer away just in case I ever need it (for me, obviously, not for mum).

Plan B is this: I’ll go to a place of ill-repute (probably my grandkids will know some) and score a whole lot of hard drugs.  Then I will go on a massive bender.  Come to think of it, I’m kind of looking forward to my 90s….

I’m here to tell you – it really IS hard being too beautiful!

Tags

ageing, beauty, humour, losing your looks, models, samantha brick

I agree with Ms Brick (the most beautiful woman in the world other than moi, and thank you Lord for not giving ME that last name!) that we really should feel sorry for people who are too beautiful.

But not for the reasons she puts forward.  Maybe the hardest thing about having beauty – any beauty, from a nice set of teeth to a body like Beyonce’s -  is losing it.  It’s hard to lose even a small part of one’s beauty, but the more beautiful you are, the harder it is to adjust to life without it.  Your whole life has been built around the central truth of your essential gorgeousness.  And then, gradually, through no fault of your own, that’s taken away from you.

IT’S NOT FAIR!!!

Why don’t people run up to you with flowers any more? Why do they look through you? Why isn’t your path through life as smooth as it used to be?  Even I used to be prettier than I am now, and I feel a bit sad to think that whatever I once had is now fading to obscurity. How much worse would it be for someone who hasn’t had to use their brain and their charm (such as it is) to get ahead in the world, and now finds themselves wobbling on a crumbling pillar like a one-legged stork.

And the other hard thing about being beautiful is that once you’ve got it, it becomes central to how other people perceive you.  You’re never allowed to forget it or transcend it.  My beautiful niece wants to be a model. She’d be perfect for it. But once a model, people are going to be looking her up and down and saying things like, sweetheart, you’d look even better with bigger boobs, or a different nose, or a size zero dress size, and pretty soon she’ll feel compelled to be beautiful, rather than having it conferred on her like a divine privilege.

My child is beautiful too but I hope she’ll never be a model.  I hope she’ll never be so beautiful that her character and intelligence aren’t far more beautiful than her face.

Also, I wish I’d really been born gorgeous so I could be drinking champagne with billionaires instead of blogging about beauty and other guff!