Isolation and loneliness SOLUTIONS!

Hi Lindilu

My scooter does go up hills very well.It has been a good investment.It is very hilly round here too.Make sure your scooter is a road scooter.The smaller shopping ones don't cope with hills as well.I used to like walking.

Marie

lindilu said:

I can't drive,and can hardly speak or walk so have to be very dependant on others- which can be very difficult

.Do scooters cope with hills very well as I would love to be able to go out, one of my previous likes was hiking - but we live in VERY hilly country!!!!

hi Julie,

i would get out there and walk by yourself. i meet people that way.

i used to TNR (trap, neuter, return). there;s stray cats everywhere, they need tlc. the ASPCA charges very little for neutering or spaying. i don't know about calif. NY has an over abundance of cats. i have a stray living in my backyard. we have a 2-story cathouse for her. its been so cold,supposed to snow today. i hope she's ok. she doesn't get along with my indoor cat.

Hi Julie, I forsed myself to sign up for gental yoga (50 +) and a getal Pilates classes to get me out each week. I've made a few freinds that way. I also go out to a Bible study group that's not that great but feel I need to keep pushing myself to get out with people so I don't issolate because I tend to also.I also make friends because I ask others for rides. I find that helping me either with rides, or walking with chairs to put it back after balancing in Yoga or Pilates class, makes them feel good about themselves so I tend to make more friends that was too. But I find it challenging to get out even to a store but I do try toatleast once per week to walk around using a grocery cart for exercize and feel maybe because of my ataxia I hope that I am showing someone else that their problems aren't that bad. You never know who you touch. Attraction not promotion right? :0)

I joined a group called FA (Food Addicts) to help me get off and stay off Gluten, flour and refined sugars. I find I have more in common with them going thru similar challenges. To me it's just a diffrent way of life that I can live. One thing that we have to do is focus not only on our food intake but 3 outreach calls per day. Just by doing that females talk about emotion stuff so we can get it out. Females need that in my opionion that helps me.

Three outreach calls per day! Wow! Now that sounds like something I could do! So...who do I call? All of my friends work and when they get home they have mom/wife work to do. I remember working full-time and just not having time to chat. I would be content with one call per day.

I will follow up on a local support group to connect with others! Great idea.

One friend has suggested we start getting together on Sunday evenings to watch Downton Abbey (Don't tell me what happens, if you're in the UK and have already seen season 3!) with our husbands. That just happened yesterday, so it feels like God is answering prayers already.

Here is a link to this site. http://www.foodaddicts.org/ It's a 12 step program that cover allot more than food but eating the right foods gets you to relate in some way to other's. I'm thankful not to have lot's of addictions with lot's of foods like some others in the program do. But I was addicted to sugars.

For me it's just good guildline that I can follow that help me live life to the fullest! :0)

Hope this helps. It's not an easy program but doable if you want to work it. :0)



Jeannie Ball said:

Hi Julie, I forsed myself to sign up for gental yoga (50 +) and a getal Pilates classes to get me out each week. I've made a few freinds that way. I also go out to a Bible study group that's not that great but feel I need to keep pushing myself to get out with people so I don't issolate because I tend to also.I also make friends because I ask others for rides. I find that helping me either with rides, or walking with chairs to put it back after balancing in Yoga or Pilates class, makes them feel good about themselves so I tend to make more friends that was too. But I find it challenging to get out even to a store but I do try toatleast once per week to walk around using a grocery cart for exercize and feel maybe because of my ataxia I hope that I am showing someone else that their problems aren't that bad. You never know who you touch. Attraction not promotion right? :0)

I joined a group called FA (Food Addicts) to help me get off and stay off Gluten, flour and refined sugars. I find I have more in common with them going thru similar challenges. To me it's just a diffrent way of life that I can live. One thing that we have to do is focus not only on our food intake but 3 outreach calls per day. Just by doing that females talk about emotion stuff so we can get it out. Females need that in my opionion that helps me.

Thanks Jeannie!

A food addict support group sounds interesting, but doesn't really sound like me. I've not really had to deal with that, and the folks at the meeting would probably find me annoying. I find a local group that is closer to what I'm dealing with. In fact, while I'm typing this, I'm remembering my church has some support groups that might work for me.

I promise to follow up with these.

Outreach calls can be to who ever you want and they don't need to be to the same people every day or week. But that in iself help you think of other's that you haven't talked to in a while that you might want to catch up with. People in the program know it doesn't have to be a long call either. Or you can just set it up in the begining of the call and say that I only have a few mins to talk or 15 to talk what ever you have. This way the other person knows what to exspect and you don't feel traped. The same with if you don't have time but need to make your calls for that day. Just mention that you need to make an outreach call but can't talk really so that other person knows that your reaching out and it's ok.

I think it's just good practice to make yourself do everyday! :0)

With FA you get a spouncer and you talk with that person everyday. They help guide you through the program and your life. That is emotionally addicting. :0) Each meeting has so many people in it (25-50 or more) that they have a sign up sheet for people that give their phone #'s and exspect calls from others. If you just go to a meeting and don't have a spouncer you can get a call sheet to call people just to chat if you want to.

I hear that OA does kinda the same thing but I hear that they are not as strick about foods or amounts etc. Hope you start working on outreach calls. You never know where they lead plus it will keep you busy! Great for shut in's! :0)

Julie Hahn said:

Three outreach calls per day! Wow! Now that sounds like something I could do! So...who do I call? All of my friends work and when they get home they have mom/wife work to do. I remember working full-time and just not having time to chat. I would be content with one call per day.

I will follow up on a local support group to connect with others! Great idea.

One friend has suggested we start getting together on Sunday evenings to watch Downton Abbey (Don't tell me what happens, if you're in the UK and have already seen season 3!) with our husbands. That just happened yesterday, so it feels like God is answering prayers already.

He Julie,

I can certainly understand what you are going through. I am not as active socially as I used to be. It was hard realizing that some of my activities didn't fit me anymore. I try to visit with a group of retired friends I use to work with at least once a week. I also call friends and neighbors during the week and correspond through email with friends. I would love to volunteer, but I never know how I am going to feel day to day. I love to read. I also do crafts, sewing, knitting, and crocheting. I also like to put puzzles together. I listen to the radio or play music in the day time. I just like to hear voices.

I like to hear voices too but it is now an effort to speak.I can thinks things but struggle to say anything especially my Book Club .I like your bit about it doesn't fit me anymore.What a goodway of looking at things.I am afraid I just wallow in the past sometimes and compare what I once could do but now cannot and then I get depressed.

My MIL recently passed away at age 92. She had macular degeneration and was very frustrated and depressed that she could not do for others like she had in the past. She did continue to make phone calls up to the last. Several really ill people she called on a regular basis and it was a quick 1 minute call just to check on them. She and a cousin exchanged similar calls almost daily. But, if some one in the church or neighborhood was sick or had a birthday, she always called them or sent a card. This became her ministry.

Hubby and I go each week day to the local senior citizens center for lunch. This is turned out to be a good social outlet for both of us. I am going GF for the new year, but plan to continue the daily trips to the senior center just for the fellowship.

I was thinking of getting a parakeet for company here. So far, speech is not a big problem for me, so I think I could teach it to talk. I fantasize about a pet--a kitten or a puppy but that is not practical here and now. Perhaps a bird would be.

Right now I have home health nurse coming in and two different therapist--OT and PT. Doubt that this will be for long, but I have enjoyed the different ones coming in while they have the assignment. PT says walking around the neighborhood with the rollator is a good plan. Just waiting for better weather to get out now. Of course, going around Wal-Mart with a Wal-Mart walker (shopping cart) would be good exercise among people if I didn't get so dizzy there and of course it means driving there which I see no problem with,

Marie, I.too, tend to realize things I used to do and can no longer do. This is so frustrating and depressing. I am gradually finding things I can do now. Dr. and I agreed to try exercise and thinking or doing for others to fight depression before resorting to meds. Meds are not my druthers. So far it seems to be working. Seems I just have to stay busy at something. I crochet and have a bunch of baby caps to donate to an area hospital for the new borns, and I have signed up as a teacher for an on-line English course and now have 3 young students from different parts of the world. In the past I have been a teacher for short times and recently have done some private tutoring, It still hurts not to be able to help with physical things here and to ask for the family to help me, or to sit back while they do things for me.

Paul’s thing of learning an instrument is also supposedly really good for the brain among many other things.

I have deficits on my left side…guitar isn’t really an option for me, and if this is beyond your capabilities, learning a new language has multiple benefits, too.

thank you.



Marie Turner said:

Hi Lindilu

My scooter does go up hills very well.It has been a good investment.It is very hilly round here too.Make sure your scooter is a road scooter.The smaller shopping ones don't cope with hills as well.I used to like walking.

Marie

lindilu said:

I can't drive,and can hardly speak or walk so have to be very dependant on others- which can be very difficult

.Do scooters cope with hills very well as I would love to be able to go out, one of my previous likes was hiking - but we live in VERY hilly country!!!!