In the psychological sense, is it more difficult to deal with life changes when your old (80 or above) compared to when your younger? Obviously it’s more physically difficult, but wouldn’t you know after living for over 80 years, not to sweat the small stuff and deal with life’s ups and downs? I don’t mean to sound insensitive, it’s just that I’m watching my Grandmother deal with some things and I’m hearing everyone tell me to be ultra sensitive to her needs and almost baby her. I would think it would be the other way around where she would be telling others not to worry about her, and that she will be fine because it’s just another one of life’s twists and turns.
Do any of you Dopers out there see changes in your Parents/Grandparents dealing with life as they grow older? Or do they handle things just the same?
It’s not so much that you know after 80 years not to sweat the small things, it’s that you got to be 80 years old because you didn’t sweat the small things.
One of the consistent findings in studies of longevity is that the people who live the longest are those who are most capable of adjusting to loss. As time goes on, we all lose our parents, our siblings, our friends, our SO’s, etc. There are many stories of people who, having spent a lifetime with a spouse, die soon after that spouse passes on. It’s the ones who don’t, who are capable of adjusting to the constantly changing world, who end up living the longest.
My grandmother, who lived to be 94, was someone who “went with the flow”. She lost her first husband after 48 years of marriage, and her second husband after 6 years (he was already 80 when she married him). She was still trying to find a date for New Year’s Eve well into her 90’s.
But just because someone has the emotional fortitude to cope with change and loss doesn’t mean she can’t use some support in tough times, especially if she’s your grandmother. You might want to be gentle with her simply because no matter how tough she is, she’s not going to be around forever. Also, you don’t say what she’s coping with, but one thing to be aware of is that it does not get any easier to deal with mortality as you get older. My grandmother had a great attitude toward life, but she was very much afraid of death, moreso as she saw it approaching.
Whether young or old, some people simply cope better than others. Another possibility is that some folks just get worn down - they’ve been coping for so many years, it just gets tiresome and they become more impatient and less tolerant of things and people and stuff. They’ve been going with the flow for so long that maybe it should be time for the flow to go with them - but , of course it never does.
You should read the book * Life Is So Good*. It’s an autobiography of George Dawson, who is now 102 or 103, co-authored with another. He’s black and grew up in Texas, sharecropping at 8 years old. He worked hard every day of his life, doing all kinds of menial tasks, mostly in the South where he was segregated from the whites and treated like a “nigger.” He traveled around some, to Canada, and finally back home to Texas.
Well, he finally had to retire from his day job at age 65 but still worked at odd, tough jobs and still treated like a “nigger.” He never had time to learn to read… until the age of 98. At age 98, he returned to school and still attends school every morning. He told his ghostwriter that he doesn’t think his life has been long, but, on the contrary, too short. And he said, “Life is so good, and getting better.”
This is probably the case with many neurologically healthy older people, and I hope you grandmother is one of them. On the other hand, the neurological problems that afflict older people very often do make it more difficult to adjust to changes.