To find it unbearable how my parents are aging

[SunflowerSpirit]

My parents are still relatively young (mid-sixties) but due to a combination of mental and physical health challenges they have both aged a huge amount in the last couple of years. Not helped by drinking (not to a crazy amount, but enough for them to not be very present in the room / behave out of character at times).

I find they become irritated by the most minor things and fixate on really small ‘issues’ or people / things they don’t like, wanting to rant and discuss them all the time. The repetitive conversation drives me mad. Especially when they ask me the same questions over and over again, without processing the answer and sometimes trying to provoke me into saying something different. They don’t seem to have the energy to do anything other than watch TV or the odd morning out and it makes me so sad that their world seems to be getting smaller and smaller. They don’t take an interest in things that they’re not interested in and judge / criticise so much more than they ever did. I feel like I can’t talk about my life as they either mock it or stop listening entirely, launching into their own story / rant.

I find it really unbearable to be around, to the point I almost zone out in their company (and then feel really guilty afterwards). The past couple of days I’ve felt so down and sad, almost grieving who they were before and what life was like before. I often struggle to know what to do - address some of it with them, to try and help them / find help? My default seems to be to park it to the back of my mind and I worry this isn’t good. Sometimes if feels so painful I just can’t engage. But is that me just avoiding the issue? Or is this part of the transition when parents age? My friends don’t seem to be going through the same so it can feel so lonely.

When you say this change has happened in the last few years, I wonder if Covid played a role? My mum is a decade older, and she has acted 'old' for quite a long time, but I definitely think the isolation of Covid hit her hard and has really caused her long-term problems. She seems to have lost a lot of confidence and positivity. I know friends whose parents have had the same issue.

Were they a lot of fun before all of this?

I do think people can get like this because they start leaning in to the idea of being 'old'. My ex-MIL, for example, was late 50s when I first knew her, but would tell you she was 'retired'. She'd never worked, so I think imagining herself as a retired person felt better than explaining why she didn't have a job. So she'd sort of back it up with a lot of 'goodness I'm far too tired to do that' or 'you wouldn't expect me to be able to do that'. Your parents are quite young to be retired: I wonder if there's an element of that there?

I worked in a sector where tons of people get a job as a 'second' career after retiring, usually part-time, and I knew lots of people in their 60s and even 70s who you would never have realised were not in their 50s. I used to work with a woman who was 70 and still running around doing quite heavy manual labour. What I noticed with her was that she was fairly sensible - if she couldn't do something she didn't do it; she knew her limits. That made it sustainable for her to work 2-3 days a week of quite hard work, and it was obviously good for her physically to do that.

I'm 63 and still running marathons and involved in many running related things, admin and otherwise . I lost my husband 9 years ago and am more active now than I was before he died. I don't think of myself as old, although when I see running photos, that's a different story.
I do find I have less interest in the things that used to interest me when I was working. I don't know as much about what's going on in the world as I no longer listen to Radio 4 on my way to work everyday and generally politics kind of bores me now. I suppose I have a seen it all before kind of attitude these days.
I worked for 41 years and brought up 2 children. I tend to please myself more these days and if I'm not interested in something , I don't pretend I am anymore . Obviously politeness stops me from being downright rude but I'm not afraid to say that I don't know much about something.

My Dad is basically the same as he ever was but my mum has aged very dramatically in the past 5 years and its really upsetting to see. She was fine up until she was in her late 60's and then it happened quickly. I don't feel it was her fault at all. I can imagine that if you feel they are responsible that it does make it harder to watch. I think seeing our parents decline is always painful.

My mum is like that now but she’s 91. She’s only really aged in the last couple of years, but still goes out walking every day, plays Scrabble in a Scrabble group and belongs to several other societies - opera appreciation, church teas, etc. Until she was 85 she helped out every week at the church playgroup, playing the piano for the little children.

I would echo what others have said. This is not normal for mid 60s. I work in primary care, so see a lot of older people. My mother is 80 and nothing like this. The ones that age earlier, as you are describing your parents, are the ones where inappropriate/too much alcohol is used, and the ones who do not keep their minds and bodies active.

Is it actual retirement that does it, though? Or have they decided to retire BECAUSE they have changed and working has become too difficult? Sometimes I think it's very hard to tell the difference.

If people thought they could be more active physically and mentally by working for longer then surely they'd just work longer? And most people don't. Most tend to finish because they are tired and can't cope with it all anymore. So the decline is already there. The lucky ones decide to finish work because they want to travel or whatever and have plenty of money to do it, just not enough time, and they realise their time is limited.

So perhaps "successful" retirement depends on how physically well you are to be able to go off and do things and also how wealthy you are to be able to go off out and do things and plan adventures. Maybe it's more difficult to slow the cognitive decline if your world shrinks because you can't afford the petrol to go for days out, or for regular theatre tickets etc.