Inner Child, Inner Mother

Probably most of us have come across the concept of our inner child, the memories and feelings of the person we were and our experiences growing up. Inner child work, means at a basic level, going back inside and helping to heal the large or small scale trauma that we experience as we grow up. We can't, of course, change what happened, but the work is done by in some ways, changing the meaning of that experience as we held, and currently heal it.

Well, make room, inner child. It's time to start dealing with your Inner Mother ( or father, brother,etc.). Esepcially for caregivers, in the work I do, we often have to let go of, or deal with our inner mother.

Today I was talking to a client whom I will call Janice. Janice told me that her mother, now 83, is still able to "push her buttons"in the same way she did when Janice was growing up. When we explored this a little bit, this meant Janice was never quite being good enough, and always having to try just a little bit harder. Today, as Janice deals with her mother who is suffering from a moderate dementia, the mother can still trigger the same feelings of inadequacy that she triggered all her life. In some ways, Janice is not responding to her mother now--she is responding to the dynamics of a relationship that occurred many years ago. She is responding to her inner mother.

How do you deal with this? Counselling can help. Find other referents, by talking to people, when you get triggered. This can include a support group, both of which can help to anchor in the reality of the present. You can do other things--write a letter to the ïnner mother." Do a role play with a friend in which one of you plays the child, the other the mother.

In general, recognize to whom and to what you are responding. It can help free you up.

Peace of Mind

Still no Christmas message, but Peace of Mind is kind of close to Peace on Earth in a six degrees of separation Kevin Bacon kind of thing so, this could be considered Merry Christmas, except that it is rapidly closing in on the 27th of December, and most of you are out shopping anyway, not reading this blog, but for the one person who is....

a new client of mind was hospitalized on Christmas Night, and is still there. Half her family had to leave to go back to their homes out of town, one daughter stayed.

I spent three hours with them in the hospital today, talking about care arrangements. visiting, etc.

If you want to know what care managers really do, in the end---after we arrange the care, and go to the hospital, and hold some hands, and advocate, and push, and .....

Most families will say, when asked what they receive is "peace of mind." That's worth a lot.

Christmas, Chanukah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, My Birthday

Well, I suppose I should have some stirring comment about the needs of seniors or heart warming story about something for the season, but truth to be told, and why wouldn't I do so I have nothing to hide, I don't.

And it is actually nowhere near my birthday, in case you were thinking of sending some good wishes, which in any case I will accept, good wishes being something all of us can always do with, but and however, birthdays are a celebration, so I thought it could go in the list in the title.

Reverse Mortgages--A Somber Warning

A client of mine shared this story with me. I share it with you:

Shocking sticker price of a reverse mortgage

I recently have been helping an elderly gentleman sell his condo and although he had said that his reverse mortgage was awful, I was not prepared for the tremendous bite a reverse mortgage takes.
In the 12 2/3 years that he had the mortgage the debt rose by 4 times! Plus, in the small print, it was stipulated that he had to pay an additional amount that turned out to be 84% of the original loan.

So, say his original loan was for $10,000, he paid back:
4 times original $40,000
Additional amount $ 8,400
TOTAL owed $48,400
This total debt is close to 5 times the original amount borrowed in just 12 2/3 years

Rather than allowing him to feel secure as he aged, he worried about and was alarmed by the rapidity of his growing debt. The company that held his reverse mortgage was also mindful of his large debt and did monitor the value of his condo closely. There were certain conditions that he had to fulfill each year which he found a nuisance like proving insurance coverage and payment of property taxes. If he voluntarily moved as opposed to being moved for health reasons, he would be liable for any debt that was not covered by the sale of his home for his lifetime.

Coincidentally, on Oct.13, 2005, Chris Olsen, of Olsen on your Side, interviewed a family that was also alarmed by the growing debt of their mother who had taken out a $30,000 CHIP reverse mortgage to make some repairs to her house. Through the wonders of compound interest in just 3 ½ years that debt had grown to $48,000!

If any one is considering the options for obtaining larger incomes, I hope that they consider some of these other options first:
· Take out a conventional mortgage and have the heirs of your estate take over the payments
· Or have the heirs pay monthly support
· Sell and live off the proceeds of investments
· Rent part of it
· Borrow money as needed on a line of credit
If a reverse mortgage does at first glance seem attractive have an independent accountant show approximately how your debt will grow over a 10 year period. Always read the fine print and understand it fully.
The elderly gentleman I had helped was very generous with his donations and I am sure would much rather of had the profits from the sale of his condo go to causes that he believed in than to a mortgage Company. So don’t be fooled by those commercials, if you hated having a mortgage when you were young you will feel the growing burden of a reverse mortgage even harder to bear.

Incontinence, or "My Cup Runneth Over."

I had a meeting today with Marcie Dayan, a physiotherapist in Vancouver who, in and amongst her practice, has a specialized knoweldge and practice in working with incontinence problems.

From what I can see, there are two problems that especially muck up the life of older people. One is pain. The second is incontinence.

Incontinence is one of the "hiddens" in aging. We joke about it, we laugh at jokes at '"adult diapers." But to the people who deal with it, it if often hidden in shame and embarrassment. Itcan restrict their lives and separate them from those they love. This despite it being very common to some extent with many older people. It needs to come out of the closet.

From her brochure, "(Incontinence) is not a disease, but a symptom of a physical or neurological problem It is estimated that up to 25% of adults have urinary incontinence and that women are affected twice as often as men. Although the chance of becoming incontinent increases with age, it happens to people of all ages and is NOT a natural part of aging."

Marcie is working to help bring the problem of incontinence out of the shame. She reviewed the different kinds of incontinence there are: stress, urge, overflow, and frankly just at this moment I forget the fourth. She told me about the assessment, exercises, and programmes she can do to help.

What Marcie does, in some ways is give some people hope. She cannot help everyone-- clients need to have a certain level of cognitive ability, and a certain level of what might be called supportive skills. But even by talking about incontinence, and normalizing it. she helps to take away the shame, and that, in itself is a huge help.

Marcie can be reached at 604-739-3133. Tell her I sent you

The Softer Side of Bankers

Last week I gave a talk to the Estate Planning Council of Vancouver. What people in professions such as banking, acounting, finanicial planning, etc., are finding is that they are running into clients who need more--especially in the area of eldercare.

Planning for older age may entail seniors housing, nursing homes, home care, and rehabilitation. These are not concerns that lawyers tend to learn in law school or accountants in accountant school, or financial planners in financial planning school (From what I gather, anyway.)

When financial issues are focussed on for older people, the resources issues are ones should be addressed. When they are, they are accompanied by emotional issues--grief,and loss, fear of change, family dynamics. They are the softer side. Anyone talking about resources and change can ignore the emotional, but that means sweeping it under the rug--it doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Where are we heading with this. I think it means that we are all going to have to develop new models of professional practice. These will be interprofessional, collaborative models, where a team approach is needed to really meet the needs in the best way possible.