Q: I do not know what to do about Dad. He and Mom sold the farm two years ago and moved into town so that he could relax and enjoy retirement. But that is not happening.
Dad is grouchy and edgy most of the time. He spends his waking hours watching television. He won’t come over to our house to have dinner with us and he refuses to join the crowd on coffee row. What can we do to help him get back to being the jolly fellow he was before he and Mom moved into town?
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A: I believe you are hoping your father can get more satisfaction out of life. You love him and want to do things to show how much you have appreciated him over the years. That is wonderful, but you may frustrate yourself trying to get him to appreciate your efforts.
Satisfaction comes from inside each of us. Not only that, it comes from participation in an activity that gives us a chance to learn what is new and different.
Each of us has a part of our brain called the striatum. It gets excited when we try to learn. It is so happy when challenged by novel activities, that it floods us with feelings of self-satisfaction once the job is done.
On the other hand, when we get lethargic, such as your father is becoming, it withholds those warm feelings and we are left with frustration and irritation.
This sounds complicated, but it isn’t. My dad figured it out long before research psychologists were able to identify the striatum in our heads and track its purpose.
Like your father, my dad had two rough years after he retired from what was a mundane job. Along the way he picked up a part-time job collecting rent from the residents of a nursing home. That made him the accountant of the home, something that he had never done before.
As luck would have it, the nursing home fell into a multimillion-dollar expansion and my dad became the controller of a huge building fund, something that he had never done before.
In the midst of all of this he started classes to learn how to weave baskets, something he had not done before, and after he learned how to weave, he started to teach others how to do the same.
Later on, he and some of his friends started a senior citizens drop-in centre, and that, too, was new to him. It did not stop there. When his emphysema got the better of his respiratory system, and he was infirm in a long-term care facility, he contacted a community social worker and got him to find families in need so that he could sponsor their children to attend summer camps. Something, you guessed it, that he had never done before.
My father died with a satisfied look on his face.
Your dad, like my father before him, needs to be challenged to do new things. They do not have to be radical or absurd. They just have to be different. Some people do crossword puzzles, of which no two are ever the same. Some people take up golfing. No two holes are ever the same.
I have no idea how depressed your father is. He might need an antidepressant from his doctor to kick-start him into activities. But the medication, on its own, is a waste unless your father takes the opportunity it offers him to re-engage and commit to life’s challenges.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan who has taught social work at two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
