I ask this adorable child how his first year of elementary school is going. With her baby seal eyes, her gaze scans the horizon of our intimacy. In all confidence, he admits to me: “I’ve gotten a little old. This is how he described his transition from kindergarten to first grade! When he asks me if I sometimes worry about getting older, I hold back a giggle. For me, the teenager at the time, his guardian and confidante, growing old corresponded to the joy of becoming a free and independent adult.
In those distant times, talking about aging, in the family circles that I knew, was as taboo as talking about dying. It was in the order of things. Nevertheless, the ancients were worthy of admiration for their knowledge and skill. Their words, their advice and their sorrows were valued.
We are fighting for the mental health cause. However, few testimonies are heard or read, even at the beginning of 2022, from the elderly. This surprised me. Why is that ? Out of modesty or discretion, they dare not admit their distress, even their distress? Towards them, do we feel discomfort more than empathy?
Shouldn’t we learn to better listen to, accompany and support the psychological suffering of aging people in an aging society like ours?
How to react to an elderly person who adapts badly to everything imposed by the pandemic? What to say to an octogenarian mourning her husband, when she thought he was safe at the CHSLD? What to say to seniors who admit they can no longer give meaning to their lives? Who feel both alone and isolated? By giving so much priority in Quebec to the marginalization of retirees in their habitat outside the social mix, we come to take for granted their degree of contentment, even resignation, by their voice outside of social “normality”.
Unpacking
Since March 2020, I have been faced with the desire to die because of moral suffering. In my family alone, three elderly close relatives have had suicidal thoughts. One of them tried to take action. His urgent hospitalization did not cure anything, he was returned home without adequate and sustained psychological support. It’s as if it were natural to suffer so much when you reach an advanced age, which is moreover in cognitive decline.
The physical, cognitive and social deconditioning of the elderly, a collateral effect of the pandemic, should we not be concerned about it at the highest point within society in general as well as in so-called closed environments, such as establishments accommodation? Suicidal ideation among seniors, the feeling of extreme loneliness, pandemic idleness, shouldn’t they be taken more seriously, as a matter of priority with all the necessary resources, by workers truly trained in the matter, in a follow-up as structured as relevant?
We tend to forget the elderly, who also have a great need to regain some semblance of normality.