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Fear of losing parents

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  • #101747
    humour
    Participant

    I’ve been feeling this lately. It just comes in bouts, I cry and move on. How to deal with this? Its hurting really bad!

    #101761
    Vesper
    Participant

    humour,

    Are these fears founded in any legitimate concerns? Are your parents gravely ill or in danger in some way? Are these just general concerns that come with watching your parents age and knowing the inevitable will eventually come to pass?

    #101763
    humour
    Participant

    Hi Vesper,
    I would not say they’re in danger but yes they’ve had their share of health issues. I should say its a general concern.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by humour.
    #101891
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    I have thoughts about your post. But I would like you share more about your fear and your own thoughts about your fear. Would you?

    anita

    #101893
    Vesper
    Participant

    humour,

    If it’s just a general concern, then I’m not sure I’m the best person to offer advice on dealing with obsessive thoughts and fears – I too suffer from this condition. I have a feeling you’re going to get much more helpful advice from Anita, but I did want to comment on your response – and thank you for responding.

    I realize, as do you, as do we all, that eventually your parents are going to die. We all do. The reason I asked the questions I did was to ascertain how real your fears are.

    From my own experience, I sometimes find myself playing a fear over and over in my head, and I’m so consumed with worry about HOW I’ll deal with it I don’t stop to logically look at whether or not it is unfounded or based in some reality.

    I used to have a terrible fear of what would happen if I drove off the road into a lake with both of my kids in the back seat. How would I get them both unbuckled from their car seats and escape the car before we all drowned? I would have dreams along those lines. I would wake in distress and the dream would stay with me for days.

    When I told my husband, he asked, “So, how many lakes do you drive past in an average day?” His question stopped me cold. NONE. So why on earth was this fear so all-consuming when it was ridiculously implausible? I came to realize it represented something else, maybe feeling overwhelmed or not in control of my life. Who knows, but as soon as I applied a little logic, it was a lot easier to push it away when it surfaced.

    That is to say, I was more easily able to banish the obsessive thoughts from my head. That didn’t change the fact I was still completely overwhelmed and as a result, that issue just ended up resurfacing in some other form later.

    If your fear of losing your parents is just that, genuine fear of being without them, then it is not such an unfounded fear. It will eventually happen and there isn’t much you can do about it except to live every day between now and then. None of us can know what tomorrow will bring. I lost my father when I was 23 and he was 59. It was sudden and came much sooner in life than I ever expected it would. If I’d had time to worry about it in advance, I don’t know if it would have changed anything. There was nothing I could have done to stop it. It was his time.

    So, I guess I’d begin by looking hard at the reason behind your fears, applying a couple logic “litmus tests” and see if you can determine what is driving them to reoccur for you. That may help you find the key to master them. Hugs to you. ☺

    #101930
    humour
    Participant

    Hi Anita, thank you for responding:) I guess the concept of mortality has sunk in. If you go back in time to childhood, you have this memory of them being strong individuals and then comes a time where you see them not as strong and its hard. Its the period of old age, suffering etc that I am finding hard to come to terms with.

    Vesper, I agree with you. Some fears are irrational while some are rational. Its true, we can’t stop anything from occurring even if we worry truckloads about it. All I can do is make good memories and spend time with them. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the part about applying logic to filter out things we cannot change. Love and hugs to you 🙂

    #101936
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    We are all in this together: we are all aging and we will all die. Everyone knows that, right? Do we all really know that? Or do we pretend we will live forever and death, when it happens to others surprises us, as if it is exceptional and therefore a terrible thing?

    It is something else, to come to terms with death and the approach there. Although there is a 100% that your parents will die, there are 10 possibilities of the order it will happen for you, your mother and your father. Out of those 10 possibilities, only in five will you be in the situation of living without your mother, your father or both. Did you think of that?

    We don’t know who is next.

    And this is the reality of it: who is next? Who reading these very words I am typing here, who is next?

    And there is nothing we can do about it all other than increase the statistical chances of living longer by taking care of our health, being mindful so to minimize accidents, not abusing others so to not increase their chances of dying sooner than later (through illness, accidents, bad choices).

    There is nothing we can do. Try to relax into this reality.

    anita

    * Dear Vesper: You are so humble, writing that I am more likely to give helpful advice than you, but I don’t think so. You have much to offer that I am not capable of offering, and you have already, here on this thread and elsewhere, offered it so generously and kindly. Your input is very valuable and may very well be very helpful while mine is not at all, possibly here on this thread!

    #101939
    humour
    Participant

    It’s very thoughtful & practical of you to come up with possibilities in this matter. Haha.. It helps a lot to be practical rather than emotional, sometimes. There is nothing one can do other than ‘relax into this reality’. Have a nice day Anita:)

    #101941
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    Thank you, and you have a nice day too! I agree: it helps a lot to be practical, to fit our emotions to reality. Reality is often unpleasant but it is better for our mental health to relax into it than to resist it.

    anita

    #101947
    Vesper
    Participant

    humour,

    Another coping mechanism I’ve learned to rely on is to take things in small bites. When you look at losing your parents, you see the entire “process” at once, from illness, to awareness that the end is near, to death, final arrangements, grieving, coping, trying to move on. It is daunting and scary, but try to remember it won’t happen all at once. You will move through the process one stage at a time and you have to trust that on the other end of that tunnel is peace and normalcy once more (a new normal, true).

    Sometimes when faced with a long journey, if you look too far off into the distance you convince yourself you can’t make it. Instead, look down at your feet and move along one step at a time, dealing with only what is happening in that moment, on that day. It may be that in the end (your parents’ end) they may be ready to move on, and you may have had enough time to say your goodbyes that you are ready to let them go, or to let their suffering end. We always think “I can’t do this” but if you must, you will find a way – your own way. My hope for you is that you won’t need to for many years yet. 🙂

    *Anita – Thank you. One day soon I will begin a thread of my own and we can chat more. I look forward to that day. Happy Friday! 🙂

    #101951
    Anonymous
    Guest

    * Dear Vesper: I’ve been looking forward to a thread from you ever since I read your story on that thread. Still looking forward to one and Happy Friday to you too!
    anita

    #102004
    humour
    Participant

    Thank you for sharing your feelings in the previous post, Vesper. Life does seem like a series of ‘new normals’- an experience followed by learning lessons and then another challenge with a different set of lessons to be learnt and so on. It’s a solace to know that we are all in this together at least in understanding(not understanding)birth and death even if we don’t share the complex weird life that happens in between. Thank you both Anita and Vesper for taking the time to share your thoughts 🙂

    #102007
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    You are welcome. Anytime.
    anita

    #104471
    North
    Participant

    Your parents dying is inevitable. you will have more strength to live thru it than you think. There are numerous combinations of what will occur and who will go first, but I just went thru this. It is not the one that is gone that is hard to deal with, it is the surviving parent that is left and that you have to be strong for them because although you are grieving they hardly notice that because they lost their spouse and they are grieving more and you have to help them. This a tremendous task. And then they aging is accelerated. I was not prepared for this aspect. Foremost have all their financials in order. There is no time to waste on this, no matter what their mental state is, it could change overnight. I did this without barely any time to spare. My surviving parent digressed so quickly and now caring for her is a full time job and very exhausting. I am not trying to scare you but being prepared is critically important, I can not stress enough.

    #106804
    humour
    Participant

    I am sorry for what you are going through north.
    Good advice there. Its been a while since I made this post. Right now I am feeling much better about’ death’ and ‘unknown’ and stuff along these lines than I did earlier. Thank you for your reply. Really appreciate it. And take care.

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