I live next to one in Texas. On numerous occasions a very exasperated young lady has pounded on my door asking if I’d seen an old man wandering about.
Honest question, why are people so obsessed with living? I’d want to be euthanized at the first sign of dementia. Just give me like a week to get my affairs in order. It’s bizarre that people would rather exist as mindless husks than die peacefully at a time of their choosing.
Maybe it’s fear. Most humans live and think like animals whose impulse to survive overrides rationality. Or is there another explanation?
I genuinely want to understand.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I am an atheist and I do not believe in an afterlife, so I want every single second of life on this planet I can possibly get. I have had a lot of bad things in my life, including ongoing serious health problems. I have been to 10 on the pain scale multiple times. Dementia doesn’t scare me. I understand why some people don’t want to go out that way because it was the way my father went out, but he went out angry because he was an angry man and eventually didn’t even know why he was angry. I certainly understand why Robin Williams chose to end his life because his mind was his gift to the world.
But I’m not like that. I want to be alive as long as I still know what life is.
I’m personally of the opinion that if I (consistently) can’t remember the day before, life isn’t worth living.
Doesn’t matter if I’m happy every day. Because I feel like memories are what make me, me.
But if I can remember a whole week or even a month I’m not so sure anymore. In a week I could at least learn something and recall what I did yesterday and the day before that.
How do you define a life not worth living? Because I lost the genetic lottery in huge ways-
Does that mean reaching 10 on the pain scale every day for a few years due to a rare nerve disorder? Me.
Does that mean not having any solid food apart from a couple of bites with my mouth completely numbed since last August? Also me.
On top of that, I have type II bipolar disorder and no job.
A lot of people would say that life is not living, especially when it’s this nerve disorder.
But I would say it is.
This is precisely how my grandfather died. The VA knew he had severe dementia but weren’t paying attention and he wandered away and ended up passing away. My family sued the VA, not for money, but for them to tighten up their rules about dealing with veterans with dementia. We won, although I’ve never followed up to see if there was any significant impact from the rule changes.
Ah, the ‘leave the elders on the ice floe’ method of senior care.
Lmao, why am I not surprised that when I see someplace I grew up around in the news, it’s only for bad reasons? Still sad tho, tbh
