Member-only story
Needing Help Doesn’t Make You Helpless
This year, resolve to accept yourself (and others) even if you need help
What do people fear as they get old?
Hint: It’s not death.
Or at least, it isn’t exclusively death. In a 2019 poll, over 50% of Americans over age 50 said “they would rather die than live in a nursing home.” The study further cited individuals’ concerns about being able to pay for such care, loneliness, and loss of independence as some of the reasons why so many people fear that they will one day need to live in a skilled nursing or memory care facility.
I have read many essays and articles in which writers share their stories about the difficulties of caregiving for elderly relatives. Many of their stories are based on the impossibility of trying to help people who need help but who don’t believe they do, or who are unpleasant about accepting it.
Many countries in the world, moreover, boast populations with large percentages of people over the age of 65. Not everybody needs the same amount of assistance as they age, but as our bodies develop conditions that make it harder for us to drive, shop, cook, or maintain our own homes, it seems a certainty that many of us are going to need a lot more help than we will feel comfortable accepting.
