I hear every one of you. With a hopeful future becoming more and more elusive… it’s very difficult to keep driving into the wind.
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Been a little over a year since my aunt passed and I am still raw about it. She signed her rights over to me and I had to make the decision to start the end of life process. She never told me what she wanted and by the time I was notified of her choice in medical advocate she was incoherent. I wonder every day if I made the right choices for her. I just don’t want to feel this anymore
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Have you looked at
This is a startup we fund with a good friend CeCe, and the idea is to make human-centered online therapy a lot more accessible to a lot more folks. I’d love to hear anyone’s experiences with it.
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that really sucks and im sorry to hear that. that goes for all of you going through heavy stuff rn. specifically, Troy, i think the fact that you are wrestling with this means you aren’t a terrible person. having said that i think that means you almost certainly made the best decisions you could in an incredibly difficult situation and that’s really all any of us can ask of one another
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The underlying facts as you presented them are so: you were basically thrown into an incredibly difficult situation without any foreknowledge or a way to prepare. That alone is traumatic and will leave scars on anyone. It’s obvious your aunt trusted you to make the right choices because you are the one she thought of to be in that position.
As someone who has faced some very difficult health situations lately, I can say that I’m certain your aunt was also facing difficult circumstances. When you are faced with situations like this… in a hospital… you have doctors and advocates and advisors coming at you on top the trauma of the needles and tubes and cords… but those people are coming at you very bluntly telling you what your future is and putting on the spot to prepare for it. It is very overwhelming and I’m sure her head was spinning. This of course is assuming she wasn’t hindered in some way by medication. All this to say that she might not have had time to prepare for this either. I don’t know specifics but end of life situations are rarely smooth and easy.
My family faced a difficult situation when my grandmother was approaching her end. She had Alzheimer’s and got to the point where the doctors told us they could put a feeding tube in because she wasn’t aware enough to eat. But if they put the feeding tube in, her mind was so far gone that her stomach wouldn’t digest the food. So on and so forth it was basically… we can can keep her body alive but she is no longer there, nor will she ever come back. Tough decisions had to be made. It can really weigh on you once all the dust settles and you have time to think it all over.
It sounds to me like your aunt trusted you and you did the best you could. Just make sure you weigh that in heavily when you feel weighed down with the negative.
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Thank you for sharing and for a better perspective on this. I really appreciate it. The whole experience has really left me without words. Her face and how quickly things devolved is just burned into my mind’s eye. This has been the most I have talked about it and it feels like it just happened. It’s honestly what drove me to make an account on this forum and try to interact instead of just clam up. I have been hoping the dust will settle and I can just get a grip. I just find myself worrying another family member or friend is going to die and I will have to figure out how to handle it all again(irrational i guess). Having to clean out her house was even more devistating. I couldn’t get all her belongings. To watch an entire life of things get dispursed,all these emotions come up. I see my meager collection of stuff and think, wonder who will have all this when I go? What is the point when it all eventually ends up scavenged or in the trash? In the end she trusted me and I tried my best to honor that. This is something that I try to hold on to. But it just hurts and the reruns of thinking could I have done better? Were there options I wasn’t aware of? The hypotheticals blind side me and just wish that I could rest confidently knowing the choices I made were the best for her. Thank you all for talking to me about this and for sharing your perspectives
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Thank you. I never thought about it like that
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The last time you were caught unaware so this time you make sure you are prepared well in advance. You gather the family all together and announce to them that this was all too much for you and that you would very much appreciate it if no one else ever felt compelled to put you in that position again. You can tell them that you know how great you are and all… but surely there must be someone else… Then serve them a nice meal and move on.
What you can rest knowing is that the choices you made are the choices you made. I can assure you that you will play those hypotheticals out for the rest of your days, they will come less and less frequently with time though. All of this is part of the grieving process, trying to figure out how we deal with all of it and move on from there. Like @Splizacular said… if it didn’t weigh on you then that could indicate a lack of humanity. Somewhat jokey somewhat true. Anyways… just being able to talk to a listening ear and knowing someone else understands can help a lot. Hang in there.
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It’s so awesome how you are helping to make resources like this available as well letting people know. 
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