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To City-Dataer: You made some intelligent and perceptive comments about introverts and extroverts in your post #37 a few posts above. (I didn't quote the post because of its length). But I come down on the side of Newenglandgirl that we cannot explain the behavior described in the original post on the basis of introversion versus extroversion. To be sure, the pronounced introversion is probably a contributing factor, but if you re-read the original post, you will see that showering/bathing occurs "once a week, if that". Hygiene is neglected, and the woman refuses to put on clean clothes. Something else is going on! You cannot convince me that introverts typically neglect showering/bathing to that degree. Even if I knew that I was not going to encounter anyone in person for an extended period of time, I would want to shower more than once a week for my own sake!
As the OP indicated, there are many other things (health, employment, and family issues) going on. I just think one piece in the puzzle might be understanding more about the dynamics of a relationship where people are different on the introversion-extroversion dimension. [Excerpt, not full quote.]
Hi ER,
Possibly you missed this part of what I said in my earlier post.
newenglandgirl-
I think she is a lot like your mother was. She talks that way about life and all the losses we have experienced financially and of loved ones, her mother included, which was 9 years ago but seems like yesterday.
You are quite right and I apologize. I should have read your post with greater care. There is nothing significant that we disagree on.
No problem, ER (I haven't mastered the art of the sound bite--my posts are probably a bit much to read in their entirety at times! )
I just posted on the particular aspect that I felt I had something to say on--there are other aspects that others have offered some great insights and suggestions about.
I had a neighbor who had since passed away. He was a blue collar guy. Back when he was still working, he'd putter around and work hard in the yard when he was off work.
Then he retired.
Then he got the satellite dish.
He still did some work around the house, but the amount he did actually decreased (go figure ... when / if I ever retire, I can't wait to have time enough to do everything I really want to do around the house!).
He eventually fell into ill health and at a certain point became physically incapable of doing much of anything.
His demise was swift.
Some people really go around the bend when they retire.
newenglandgirl-
I think she is a lot like your mother was. She talks that way about life and all the losses we have experienced financially and of loved ones, her mother included, which was 9 years ago but seems like yesterday.
If she is at all like my mother, I suggest talking with her from the anger point of view, which includes empathy and sympathy (even when you don't necessarily feel it). I'd say to my mother things like "I would imagine you're angry at sis because she didn't really extend a personal invite to you, it seemed offhanded...why don't we go out to lunch and then shopping for a new whatever." Not always, but it seemed to do the trick at times. I think people need to be acknowledged for being angry (even when they're mistaken). Of course I'd have to listen to her huff and puff about sis on the way out of her house, but getting her into something else seemed to stave off the inevitable depression that is the partner (in my experience) to anger. She would never in a million years have agreed to any kind of professional counseling. If she were not my mother I would have left her, it was all too much all of the time and nearly drove me off the deep end (and sis too).
Is she necessarily depressed? She doesn't have crying spells or talk about how miserable life is. She doesn't talk about suicide or death. She doesn't even seem to feel she has a problem, which all depressed people do.
There are lots of things that can cause a lack of motivation, being able to get up and get one's ass in gear. I vote for continuing with a complete medical check-up ....... though to be honest doctors don't often get all "worked up" about older women with similar complaints, since they see so many of them that don't seem to have anything medical wrong with them (same reason as for undiagnosed heart disease in women). But even if it's purely mental, it might not be depression.
Compeletly untrue. I have depression in my family on both sides. I mean depression serious enough to need treatment by a qualified practioner and in some cases, meds. and hospitalization. Not all symptoms included these that you have mentioned. Depression comes in many forms. You are simply parroting the commonly mistaken beliefs of what the outward manifistations of Depression are. While it's true that it can include these things, they are not always present in every situation.
Ok, so this doesn't "just happen". I bet you anything you have seen this type of behavior for years. As you have stated, she has burned her bridges with family. So, obviously she has displayed this rather anti-social behavior before.
This isn't a retirement issue. It's a long term relationship problem that you, no doubt, have decided to live with and maybe with retirement she ramped it up a bit but I can not believe for a moment that this "all of a sudden just started".
You probably need to go the Relationship Forum for this one.
Agreed about this not a retirement issue. My husband really ramped up the alcoholism once he retired and it killed him seven years later.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Minervah
Compeletly untrue. I have depression in my family on both sides. I mean depression serious enough to need treatment by a qualified practioner and in some cases, meds. and hospitalization. Not all symptoms included these that you have mentioned. Depression comes in many forms. You are simply parroting the commonly mistaken beliefs of what the outward manifistations of Depression are. While it's true that it can include these things, they are not always present in every situation.
No, that's wrong, from my own personal experience and observing others. Almost all depressed people show signs of misery, or talk about death and suicide, or even have it graven on their faces and displayed in their hunched over, slow gait, so that you can see one of them coming from a block away.
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