We will all (hopefully) get old.

[dancingqueen123]

And it's fucking crap.
Currently watching my beloved parents navigate a crumbling NHS along with declining health and my mother trying to hold it all together with our support.
She's quite down about it at the moment and as much as I'm here for her & would do pretty much anything either if them need me to do.... it's just horrible getting old isn't it.

I'm wondering what the answer is.

This must be a small minority?

and mum is well connected, loves her house etc but it doesn't stop the awfulness of getting old.

I tell ya, we should all get £100000 and a cyanide pill at 70. Your choice how you use them.
My Dad died at 63. Now I'm not entirely certain that that was worse than watching my Mum at 82. She has outlived one of her children, had major surgery and is rapidly mentally declining.

Is it though?....I definitely don't want to get "old".... Old to me is 80+.... I don't want my children to care for me, I don't want to be kept alive in ill health with medical intervention, I don't want to live in a care setting with dementia (1 in 2 will).... I want to live a good life, die at home with my family around me knowing they have not had to make sacrifices for me..... Life is for living....

Yes, it's why mum refused one ten years ago - and now it looks like she's going to suffer old age anyway.

glad OP posted this thread, it's been on my mind all day. Mum has had so many near deaths and just gets weaker after each one.

i had friends die in their 20s and although it's awful for those of us left behind, we do know that they shall not grow old.

That said, OP title and posts seem contradictory!

It's fine if you stay fit and active, at least until it isn't. All my grandparents lived to a good old age and none had prolonged illnesses, though one did suffer dementia eventually. My parents travelled a lot in their 50s, 60s and 70s but my mother, previously fit and active, suffered a stroke in her 70s. Recovered well but later developed dementia. There was never a time when she couid have decided it was the right time to die as the decline was gradual until it reached the point that she couldn't have made that decision.

I'm now 60ish but still feel as mentally and physically fit as I ever did, well maybe with a few aches and pains I didn't have before. It's odd (and scary I guess) to imagine I might not have many more years of good health. But I don't feel I am remotely at the point of planning for my old age. I've also experienced the unexpected deaths of several people around my age lately - a relative and some acquaintances - none could have been planned for - a couple could have been mitigated with some input from the medical profession but those people chose to neglect the warning signs since they were living active lives before they were suddenly struck down.

There are no easy answers although the NHS certainly doesn't seem to be in a good place now.

Getting older is a bugger. I am drawing my pension now, so not in the first flush of youth and in the last 10 years I have had a fractured foot (which never mended and makes using a stick necessary), a hip replacement (which has never worked and needs re-doing), a husband slowly and wretchedly dying of Parkinsons (died 2.5 years ago), a slipped disc for which I needed surgery, 2 cataracts removed, osteoporosis, a heart arrhythmia and problems with my balance.

I have natural dark brown hair still and have inherited my family's non-wrinkle gene so I do not look even vaguely my age. But by golly I feel it! So many things I cannot do that I wish I could.

I am ploughing on with running a community choir, singing in a choral society, organising village events, chair of school governors, but every day it feels harder and harder; every day I realise that a point will come where these things that give my life meaning will be out of my reach. And I do not like this prospect. I do all these good things but have to return to an empty house and face the future on my own. Truly it is not great.

I have wonderful adult children and delightful GC - but I definitely do not want them to have to devote any of their prime of life to looking after me. That is not why I had them and not what I brought them up for.

It is a bugger - it really is, because inside I am 30.

It’s horrible to watch, isn’t it. Thinking of you too.

@Mischance you summed it up for me, I wanted to ask how 'older' people feel inside. I am 39 and in my head I still feel about 16 (It feels like I stopped in time at that age even though I must have kept growing as I am a perfectly strong and capable woman)
My grandmother was mentally sharp but her body failed her in the end. It upset her a great deal BUT she 'put up' with it as she loved seeing her great grandchildren, I remember her holding mine and my sister's children as babies and she had never looked so happy!
She came to my wedding when she was 81 and had an amazing day with her family.
I'm waffling but I suppose my point is if you have a family that loves you and wants you involved does it make being old bearable? I am NC with my mother and father so they will have a lonely old age (never needed any friends apparently) so I wonder if it will hit them harder than my grandmother for example.
I think if my family are around it seems okay to be old but if for any reason I end up alone I would want the choice to end it .

This year I've lost family members at 35, 84 & 90.

The 90yo was a sprightly 85 yo, but age caught up from 86-87. The niggles developed and never really went away. The final year was constant shuffling between home/ hospital/ social care and ending up too weak to get their 6st body out of bed without a 2 person lift. They didn't want to be here in the final year and lost interest in everything. A long hospital stay 13m before dying seemed to be the beginning of the end where the mind detached from living. Not assisted by 2 years of strict Covid restrictions in their country

Fortunately family was pragmatic and unaminous about accepting the inevitable and medical care focusing on pain relief, and there was no point in aggressively fighing infections to prolong life and be back at square 1 six weeks later repeating the cycle. Death was a relief to all.

Having lost family young and old in a multitude of circumstances, for me the ideal is to get old, live out the potential of quality of life of your mind and body and then have a fairly swift ending without painful, joyless lingering and waiting for the total fail of your body. Your loved ones can accept that your time has come without too much grieving as you approach the end of life.

Neat endings like that are too rare though.

@Honeyroar, I absolutely agree about luck and genetics. Some people are fond of implying that it’s somehow the person’s own fault if they got dementia, because they weren’t physically/mentally/socially active enough, or there were lifestyle factors.
My FiL never smoked, hardly drank, was never remotely overweight, was cycling playing tennis well into his 70s - he still got it.

Ronald Reagan, Maggie Thatcher and Harold Wilson all got it. Ditto a relative by marriage of a DSis - a woman who was highly successful professionally in the New York arts scene, and very active in NY high society. She still ended up a doubly incontinent wreck, unable to hold any sort of conversation, no clue about anything.

As for keeping people going regardless, for some years I was on a forum for carers of people with dementia. Almost the worst case I heard of was someone over 90, already well into moderate stages of dementia, who was given a pacemaker. This was the choice of the family, even though they’d been told - after asking - that without it, the person would most likely drift away peacefully in their sleep.

Really, this determination to view the topic of ageing as all doom is aggravating. While some people do develop dementia, and some physically crumble and crumple and require a nursing home, many old and older people live interesting and rewarding and long lives.

The individual incidence of dementia has actually dropped over the last twenty years, with greater public awareness of health risks in general, but heart health messaging in particular (all the things that are good for the heart are also good for the brain and good for preventing or delaying the onset of vascular dementia, ditto Alzheimer's) leading to lower rates of smoking, etc etc.

The reason why there is governmental concern worldwide re the aging population and dementia is simply the numbers - the Baby Boomer cohort is so large; not because a higher percentage of people are getting it, but because any percentage of a vast number of people is a lot.

My parents died in middle age - I don't extrapolate from that that all adults die rather horribly in middle age.

I am sorry for those who are dealing with sad outcomes for their older or elderly parents and other loved ones, but population-wise, more people are healthier for longer and able to enjoy an increased healthspan as well as lifespan nowadays.

@Remaker Dying with dignity isn't about getting rid of old people while they're still able bodied and well. It's about not ending up with a catheter, lying like a vegetable in a hospice on a load of meds while nurses give you a bed bath. That's how many people end up.

Old age can also bring on illnesses which means life becomes unliveable. Death can be messy and very very undignified, and scary for all involved. There's needs to be options for those who don't want to get to that stage. Your mother is lucky, but not everyone is.

@Mischance has summed it up perfectly, I’m only in my fifties but have significant health issues. I can still manage two voluntary jobs because if I’m having a bad day we’ll it’s fine to not attend. I’m ill with a stinking head cold and have been in the house for a week and I hate, makes me feel down.

I would be up for a trip to Dignitas except that its a difficult trip to do on your own.( I have researched it quite extensively) you shouldnt have to make this sort of journey, it should be available in this country. I dont want a painful and undignified journey to death which is what I am facing

milkyaqua I'm glad to hear dementia rates have dropped.

re the increased healthspan you mention, a lot of it depends what you consider to be good health.

also, if a person wants a long life, that's one thing. But I think for many people, even with good health, there's nothing appealing about a long life because what's new, after a while. If you have children you will likely see their health issues. Then there's the finance side and lengthening work years.

culturally, you may see changes you don't want to see. Mum is very saddened by the tech age excluding her, or causing problems for her. And so am I. That may not be age related but what I mean is ...is there really enough good stuff in life to make longer life a good prospect?

When younger, old age and its complications are a distant country. I know I never though for a minute that I would EVER get older!

Somehow I reached the age of 65 and had that AHA moment when I wondered how did that happen? I woke up one day and asked myself "am I really 65?, how did that suddenly happen FGS". It was a bit scary TBH.

I am rather invisible now. You know, not deemed to be a member of the Instagram influencers society, not able to keep up with the young mums in fun runs and mini marathons, not considered hip enough for many things as I don't drink, smoke or take drugs lol. Just older.

I personally don't think of myself as "older", in fact I feel exactly the same as I did when in my 40s and 50s. I am reasonably fit and healthy apart from a few well managed health issues that can happen at any age. I'm just baffled at how I arrived here. It seems as if the last 25 years didn't exist and I'm suddenly heading for the pension!

But I am philosophical about it. It is a privilege to get old provided you are not suffering a devastating illness or condition that ruins QOL.

Sorry for going on. Sorry also for those who are ill, who have relatives that are ill, or who are just fed up of crossing the middle to older age line.

greenhouse I don't think of 65 as old. For me, crossing 80 is probably where that happens.

I don't feel invisible, but, like you, I somehow feel I blinked and the last 40 years just vanished. Busy busy making a living, bringing up children, nursing a sick OH - no time to appreciate being fit and well, till that started to slip away - then I noticed!

I constantly tell my DDs (who are probably sick of hearing it!) to enjoy their youth and strength. But they do seem to be grasping life and enjoying all that they can, so that is good. I have no intention of blighting that joy by being burdensome - but they are loving young people and want to help when life gets tough for me - a bit of a conundrum. I do not want to refuse their caring offers of help and give offence, but neither do I want them to have to waste their prime helping me. A puzzle.

I think it depends on how your life turns out. Both my parents are in their 70s and fully fit and healthy. I expect them to live a lot longer yet. Me however in my 30s I’ve got medical conditions and probably won’t make 60.

I don't agree with you there.

Some lives are simply not worth living and I have already got plans in place to ensure I don't linger on for years requiring carers

Agree that the last 25 to 30 years seem to have passed in a flash. Sometimes it seems like someone has played a trick on me - I can't believe I'm at an age that others consider 'old'. It's ok not to feel it, I don't particularly, but I look at my contemporaries and can see they look 'older' and hate that I must do too to younger people. Though I'm blessed by having always looked girlish and younger than my age, inside I feel only too well aware of my age. The only solution I feel is to try to make the best of what you have and not peer to far into the future. My dc are still living at home so that helps me feel younger.

That was my mother until 83, then it went downhill. She had a more active social life than I've ever had. It's not that part of old age that the OP is talking about. My mother developed heart failure and became so infirm that she could no longer go to all her clubs and classes. In a way her extrovert lifestyle made it harder to accept declining health.

I had breast cancer a few years ago and gave a great deal of thought to how to end it on my terms if it became terminal without impacting on family. It's not as easy as it sounds.

It's not that part of old age that the OP is talking about.

OP, and many others on this thread, are globalising from their own limited circles of experience. Old age is not all just dementia or Dignitas. It is so varied. Even extreme old age is varied. Some people - especially once they reach their nineties - do enjoy reasonable health, and then reach a point where they just die.

I don't happen to agree that it is "just horrible getting old". It certainly can be. But it isn't always that way at all.

Not always.

My dad is in a care home with dementia. It’s a living hell for him and everyone who loves him.

All the craft activities and nice lunches in the world don’t bring quality of life or give him any relief from the living hell of being trapped in his own, terrifying mind.

I pray everyday that he will die suddenly of a quick heart attack. I wish that had happened two years ago before he lost his mind and I have to watch him die slowly with no dignity.

In his lucid moments, he begs to be allowed to lol himself. The “solution” was to offer ant depressants. It’s awful, it really is.

I don’t know whose benefit he’s being kept alive for. It’s certainly not his, his life is a living hell that’s only getting worse each week.