Welcome to Elder Gal (aka Allison)l! I have a master's degree in Counseling Psychology and worked for several years as a bereavement counselor and a traditional counselor.
I earned a second master's degree in Cultural Anthropology and taught both Psychology and Anthropology at the Community College level for over 13 years.
For any of you that want to and are able to support the channel you could buy me a coffee (or tea)! Thanks:
www.buymeacoffee.com/Eldergal
I upload a new video every Wednesday and a weekly livestream on Saturday. Please Like and Subscribe and many thanks for watching!
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Allison, How about long term care insurance? I have to buy it myself. It isn’t cheap but it is an option.
Live in the present and stop worrying so much about the future since it is out of your control.
I am so sorry to hear this. My heart goes out to you. I am 56 and in a similar position to you ❤
Oh mt goodness this strikes home!!
20k subscriber audience? You have so much more in many contexts compared to a lot of people I know. 😢 Be grateful for today and the present.
Hi Allison. Congrats on hitting 20K subscribers. Another interesting blog. All through my childhood I wanted to work for Jacques Cousteau. I was absolutely glued to his TV programmes and loved his ocean explorations but when I hit my teens that somehow got buried, but if I could go back I would definitely work towards becoming an ocean explorer and help the environment and planet by doing so. I'm sure it would have taken me to some beautiful remote parts of the world. I believe there is a Cousteau Society in operation now. I just heard on the news about your wildfire in northern California and hope it is brought under control soon for you. Apparently, it was deliberately started!!!! Have a good week.
It seems that this is the norm in American unfettered Capitalism. I wonder if this is the norm in all modern first world countries.
I just move into a condo with a friend in July we both are on lease we have two bedroom two bath and two living rooms. So will let you know but we share kitchen and share meals and do things together and separate
Thanks for sharing Linda! It sounds like a good arrangement. Hope it works out well!
Australia watching ❤❤❤I would be scared 😮no music please
Thanks for watching from Australia! Yes, I know about the music - this is an older video and I stopped using music behind my videos over a year ago.
Elder Gal, I am going thru this right now and worse because it involves my apartment manager who has lied about me in order to protect some residents that began harrassing me immediately after I moved in. There is a smear campaign going on against me. To be clear, I am quiet and try to stay to myself, but these people played such mean games with me that I was forced to complain to management and I was not believed. When I tried to gather proof, my apartment manager flipped everything around on me and yelled at me then lied to his superiors about yelling at me. God only knows what other lies he has told. I have heard from several residents he can be abusive and he makes up stories. I am finding this out for myself. I have no money to move, but I cant stand it here. If you were me and did not have a car to live in, would you get to heck out anyway? Please let me know what you think. Thanks
Thanks for sharing this Kimberly! It does not sound like a good situation, but I don't believe being homeless would be better. Is there any friend or family member you could stay with? I hope things calm down for you. Take care!
Congratulations on 20k! I wanted to give you a super thanks, but there's no button. Also no buy me a coffee or anything. ??? Vini in San Diego County, California 🤝🙏👏🕯🙌🤍
Appreciate the kindness Vini! I've added the link to buy me a coffee in the description of today's Livestream and also here. For those wanting and able to support the channel: www.buymeacoffee.com/Eldergal Thanks so much!
Friends can become family, and younger friends will more than likely still be around. If your community isn't supportive, find a new one! I'm also surprised no one mentioned this, but there are so, so, many children in the foster care system in every single state who also need a family and a home. I understand this might be hard to do if you are unwell, or in your 80's, but there are some on this thread here who say they are 50 - 65. You can build family at any age, and start to create the connections that are the "ties that bind." Also, I have noticed that the churches in the south (in the US) tend to be more community oriented. There are also some very nice independent and assisted living communities that are NOT horrible nursing homes but really nice places (and communities) to live in. If you're unhappy with your situation, things can still change, just start looking on the internet, researching. As long as you're alive, there is always still hope.
Watching the replay. I would've started a pet rescue.
15 minute cities are the plan for the future. Everything you need will be within walking or biking distance.
You are so down to earth and real. I really appreciate your perspective. We never know how life will turn out. I’m 39 and almost all of my family are in their golden years… I have some cousins scattered around and a few close friends. This topic has been on my mind more and more over the last few years. It comes in waves, but in general I feel an overall sense of calm most of the time. We will all make it somehow & it all works out in the end. ❤
We don't ever know how life will turn out - how true that is! Thanks for sharing ochinski!
I feel like I needed this video. Thank you for sharing ❤
Hope it helped ochinski! Thanks for watching!
Appropriate video your putting out there. I am one. Remember the 80’s? TV show The Golden Girls? They were probably elder orphans….but they pooled their incomes and rented? a home in south Florida. My great aunt’s husband passed, she was alone about 1.5 hours away from closest family and she rented out one of her spare bedrooms for added income. Best of luck.
Have to remember the wealth gap between working people and rich people was a lot smaller/closer than now…..back in the 50’s & 60’s smaller % of women did not work outside the home, less divorces probably because women back then had virtually zero income or means or skills to obtain employment at middle aged or older.
Thanks for sharing 3101home! I actually did a follow-up video on this about whether the Golden Girls situation would work - you might check it out.
Thinking,elder people, we need a comunity to discuss lifes situations and a place to vent Lol😊😊
Sorry unable to get on live, you work hard and deserve the sucess❤
Thanks so much leerod! Hopefully you can catch a live soon!
congratulations 🎊 🎉🎉
thank you Alison for sharing this. ...so glad to you that your channel becomes bigger now ❤❤
Appreciate that so much Rola! Thanks!
Well i like you if that helps 🎉😷 .
I just found your channel and I’m grateful to you. I’m 65 and alone. I’ve been trying to make friends now for years. I’m outgoing but no one wants to have friends. I don’t have family none at all. I never imagined my life would be like this. I don’t know what to do
It does seem like it's very lucky when older to find people who want to socialize beyond some one common interest. But I don't always make it easy, either.
Thanks for sharing this Judi! You might watch my video of a couple of weeks ago about finding friends after 60; it has some ideas that might help. Take care!
Hi Alison, I laughed because I do the same thing where I go sugar free for a few months and then someone offers me sweets or gives me chocolate for xmas, etc. , and here I go again. Yes sugar is my only addiction and people love pushing sugar onto you and some won't accept no. I wish we would stop gifting chocolates. I have to get on that bandwagon again. Have a lovely day. 🌻
I totally understand msbruna! Thanks for your comment - have a good rest of your weekend!
Sorry, but 'elder orphan' completely abuses the term 'orphan' - who is a child, not an adult, who's lost both parents. 'Elder orphan' simply conveys whining self-pity. Alone? Quite possibly. Lonely? Equally possible. But as someone now 81 (a war baby born 1943), orphaned by that war, later adopted, both adoptive parents long gone, I think I've experienced an unusual combination of losses. Also, a number of very close and loving relationships in my life; those too now lost to death. But I find the term 'adult orphan' self pitying, factually contradictory, and - to be direct - yet another example of psychobabble. The 'therapeutic sensibility' has made adult discussion by adults, of adult difficulties, increasingly impossible.
I am the oldest able-bodied male among my siblings. Two have died and the other is struggling with health issues. I have 2 older sisters who I have tried repeatedly to have meaningful conversations with. But they just don't have the mental capacity and aren't interested in non-female subjects anyway. So I am stuck with my bride who tries to keep up, but the majority of her time is spent with other women at the Senior Center in small talk--stuff that drives me nuts. I've tried to have in depth convos with other men and ALL of them are either in awe or overwhelmed. So, I just keep to myself most days and keep a journal of my insights hoping that someday some descendant will find value in it. It is also isolating to be an autodidact polymath. Seems they're becoming more rare in the world.
Thanks for sharing svartvist! Many people don't seem to want to have deep conversations nowadays, unfortunately. Appreciate you watching!
At 33 my father wrote me my siblings had my back. Right after he passed 2 yrs later what little they did have vaporized. Ten yrs later I was unemployed, homeless, and having to support a wife and her 6 kids. Not one of my siblings helped out. The best I could get was counsel from the oldest to borrow Fed money and finish my degree. But we had no place for shelter, no income, just what long-term food storage I had saved with no place to put it. I don't know how I could have qualified for a gov't secured loan under those conditions anyway. Second time I was homeless, I knew better to seek help from them. My youngest took us in for a few months until I saw the trend clearly, and we moved back to the Midwest ready to live under a bridge. Both times we got help from past friends. At that time I had opened my home to a brother whom the rest of the siblings could not or would not help. Between us we bootstrapped our way back into self-sufficiency. Now he's gone, and it's just my bride of 32 yrs and my youngest sister who also had nowhere to go, reaching retirement with no savings. I plan to just fade away in the next decade (74). In the last decade I've gone from being able to work around the place for 8 hrs down to 3 before I'm pooped for the day. Does not bode well, but I live each day ready to take my leave of this world.
Well it's now the trend to "work on your childhood trauma" blame your useless, cruel, selfish narcissistic parents and then cut them off because you don't owe them anything. That's what the therapy industry has delivered the culture as it's short-sighted social healing agenda. Alongside of that, aging boomers have been hated on at length due to politics and the desire to vilify us so that Social Security and Medicare can be gutted without anyone caring. Housing prices are of course through the roof now that venture capitalists have smelled money, so many of us are going to be huddling under bridges and the lifelong victims of younger, hardier homeless people. Currently I own my own home but that could go with one serious medical condition and though I have a few nieces and a nephew who I almost never see, I'm fundamentally alone. A number of my friends have discussed suicide as an opt out but dying due to exposure is always an option. Not the greatest time to have been born in a family with longevity genes.
I hear and understand your frustration Sandra. Things are going downhill in our society overall. Thanks for sharing this, and appreciate you watching. Take care!
Could you expand on the idea of making fun of yourself? I grew up so damaged that being laughed at crushed my soul and brought back all my demons. My mom used it as a form of derision. Then, one day when I was in my late 20s I realized... I'm funny! Fancy that!
Thanks for your question indigosue! That's a good suggestion for a future video - thanks! Appreciate you watching!
There's a subtle difference between apologizing and use of the word "sorry". I apologize if I've made a mistake. I say "sorry" to sympathize (I'm sorry you were scared, are you ok?). You have to be careful about "I'm sorry you feel that way" is a condescending non-apology.
Yes, that's true indigosue! Saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" to someone is definitely not an apology. Thanks for sharing!
There is no community for my interests here. I will wear clothes that would pique interest, I have a couple of t shirts with mantra, hoping to signal a fellow traveler.
I was trying to scroll through the comments and it wouldn't scroll then I realized you only had three comments😂
That's because I actually answer most of my comments. Thanks!
Hello, l saw your video today July 2024 I'm will be 78 in September. I thought my son would stay here in South Africa but he left 18 years. ago. Of course he has visited and from 2010 l visited my son and daughter almost every year from 2010. They were all living in London. My daughter is in s otland and my son is in Denmark with his wife . Now that Britain is no longer in Euro, l cannot live there unless they proof that they can provide for me. If Britain was Euro l would have no problems living with them. I have a partner who is 78 but l cannot depend on his support. If l developed dementia like my best friend who passed away then what happens. I don't think my daughter and her husband would want me. Alistair's home in Bornholm is in a farm area and they have land. They are gradually renovating their barn into a live in area so they would have privacy. I have a home in south africa but the exchange rate isn't good. I no longer have a best friend here. Ann and Bryn have both passed away . My partner isn't wealthy and his best friend lives in Durban, so we dont have a social life. Also, l pay private medical because the government medical is useless. There were no cell phones so l lost contact with friends l made in zambia and Botswana. I am happy l found your group 🤗
Thanks for sharing this Irene! Sorry that it is challenging for you right now; maybe something will work out that you could stay with your son someday? Glad you found the channel. Take care!
I try to be optimistic, but I feel like my expectations are always too high, so I keep lowering them. I love my garden and was just watching the goldfinch eat catnip seeds and I chuckled at the irony; nature is meditation. Movies don't scare me either, but Soylent Green and The Postman made a huge impression on me, when I was younger, as well as, Planet of the Apes, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. As an adult, I've become aware of how corrupt our government is and was. The history I was taught wasn't true or accurate.
I know what you mean justpyrite! I think it helps to focus on the simpler joys in life and not too much on things we can't control. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Allison. The VW Beetle was my very first car. I think I will make it my very last car too. They are a blast. Might do a North America tour in one. Take care always, Allison. Best wishes for your channel.
New subscriber here. Congratulations on the growth of your channel!
Thanks so much Lenore and welcome to the channel!
Thank You, Allison, for all you do!🎉❤😊
Thanks for your help today as a moderator Diane! Appreciate it so much!
Feel the same.
Can't make someone fall in love either
i love wood carvings.
Being reliable is keeping a promise, the way I see it.
Just found your channel. I am 75 with no family, no friends by choice and am looking forward to watching more of your videos. I gave up sugar in 2016 after three heart attacks and two surgeries. Cut out wheat, rice and most packaged foods. I enjoy my night owl life with my kitties and everything is good.
Thanks for sharing Micajahsmom! It seems like you've made some positive choices for better health!
I'm 52 and have a brother who won't talk to me, because he has bipolar and left-wing politics! I have a minute channel of my own which I enjoy making for videos for purely out of interest, hobby, my point being - other than the shameless plug - you can have all sorts of things like really good hobbies, but they are not really important, compared to having genuine people in your life.
thank you so much for this video. it already has helped me, so much! dont spend all of your days with the dead. sooner or later they will drag you down.
Absolutely right, Rick! Thanks for your comment!
Hello Allison from New Brunswick Canada
Thanks for watching from Canada, Michele!
Congratulations 🎉
Thanks Supernova!
Wishing you all the best 🌹🌹🌹
Thank you so much umalkhair!
The best part of living alone is spontaneously dancing or breaking into song. It doesn't matter that I dance like am having a seizure and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.
Good for you Rickpa! Always encourage dancing & singing! Thanks!
Your friends are the family you choose. 71 yr old here - we are each other's support system. I wish everyone could have this - rather than kids and nephews and nieces waiting for you to die so they can sell your home and divvy up the money! One postscript : look into having an attorney set up a Pet Trust - so your fur babies who love you unconditionally , are cared for. And if you really want to have the last laugh - don't tell anyone in your family you did it😅.
Thanks for sharing that tip about pets!
It's hard not to succumb to the temptation of throwing passive-aggressive zingers. When I do, I feel guilty. 😂 Though my Myers Briggs type is supposed to attract narcissists, I have had relatively few in my circles. I must not be a real INFJ. :p