Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2007. Mattie was five years old. That day we walked down to Constitution Avenue, by the National Mall, to watch the Veteran's Day parade. Ironically this was the first and last parade we ever saw. When I was listening to the radio this morning, the commentator mentioned that THIS YEAR is the first National Veteran's Day parade on the Mall in Washington, DC. Prior years it was funded by the city, which explains why the parade was not an annual occurrence. I am so glad we experienced this event as a family and we captured Mattie in the moment. In retrospect, life was much simpler and happier then.
Quote of the day: I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death. What ended was the possibility of response. ~ Joan Didion
I was reading the newspaper the other day, and came across an article about loneliness and social isolation. So I went to the internet to read more. Here is a link to the article, if you are interested..... Loneliness or social isolation linked to serious health outcomes, study finds.
The article defines both social isolation and loneliness as.........
Social isolation occurs when someone has an objective lack of contact with other people and can involve having a limited network or living alone.
Loneliness, on the other hand, refers to the subjective distress people feel if there’s a discrepancy between the quality of social relationships they actually have and what they want.
People who experienced social isolation had a 32% higher risk of dying early from any cause compared with those who weren’t socially isolated. Participants who reported feeling lonely were 14% more likely to die early than those who did not.
The article mentions that Americans are spending more and more time in isolation and yet we don’t see it as a danger — particularly if it is by choice. People assume that it’s okay and may even be good for us to be isolated if we don’t feel lonely,” Yet data confirms the risk associated with social isolation regardless of and independent of loneliness.
Social isolation and loneliness caught my attention because I think both can easily be prevalent with intense caregiving. Naturally I am not socially isolated per se because I have a full house of people. But what happens when my primary contacts each day have dementia. It is a form of social isolation that the article doesn't account for because the kind of mental stimulation and connections I have with cognitively intact people is quite different.
Naturally given my full days of caregiving, managing doctor appointments, paying bills, cooking, cleaning, and laundry, loneliness can be pervasive. I am not complaining as I have friends who are in contact with me daily through messaging and though I feel out of the loop, they remind me that I am important in their world. Which is lovely, especially when I don't know which way is up some days.
What I can say is that loneliness can be a killer. It is a topic I am familiar with, as when Mattie was diagnosed with cancer, our world changed on a dime. I was unable to teach, I was unable to serve in my association leadership role, and I was unable to serve as the chair of the licensure board. My world came to a grinding halt, and instead it was replaced with living in a two by four of a hospital room, facing medical decisions and life and death issues on an hourly or minute by minute basis. The nature of my environment was socially isolating and could of produced loneliness. However, I do think the human mind and spirit adapts. I found comradery in Mattie's medical providers and in our community based Team Mattie. This group of people provided me with a protective factor on the most dire of life's circumstances.
Though I am faced with intense caregiving yet again, the situation is different. I don't live in a hospital and the kind of daily support I received back then is not applicable in my current situation. But not unlike with Mattie's illness, caregiving can play a mind game on me and it takes a great deal of inner strength to recognize that I am not socially isolated. All that said, I am cognizant of the toll my current situation is having on my day to day existence and my future.
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