Anxiety Depression - What to do about Mom

From an anxiety and depression point of view being a child of a long-lived adult has its own set of emotional challenges. There comes a time in almost everyone’s life when the subject of what to do with your aging parents needs comes up. This double Whammy or mood attack of anxiety depression hits female more than males. The cause may simply be the nurturing instinct of women or possibly they're as a group closer to their parents.

The typical adult child in this situation is in their mid-40s or 50s with college costs for their own children, loss of health care benefits, ever increasing Social Security costs, and a woefully funded retirement plan. While some are fortunate and cannot relate to the situation, I suspect the majority of us are working through scenarios, where there are no easy solutions are clear pathways.

Due to better health care, people are living longer while the social security programs have not caught up with this reality. So we increasingly have an older generation that are "retiring" at 60-65 years old but living well into their 70’s and 80’s. Even with proper planning, many seniors continue to obsessive worry over the possibility that they will not have enough money to live out their lives. This sets up a situation where parents, who may be considered wealthy by society, actually live in an almost poverty level state in an attempt to maintain savings account levels.

It's not wholly unusual that parents may expect their adult children to help them not only with various medical and realted crises but also help keep them independent. This sets up not only anxiety depression related problems for adult children but also can breed resentment. Adult children see this as a selfish or self-centered demand pick and place even more stress on already stretched relationships.

This is creates vulnerability and the anxiety depression problem begins to develop. Adult children are put in a place where there's no good answer with any decision causing damage to some relationship. This situation can develop into even more serious mental disorders and may show up as a panic attack or in other ways.

A good example of this is that many adult seniors have their homes completely paid for. The problem arises when those same properties need maintained and renovated. Aged seniors who are unwilling to let go of some money to maintain that major piece of their independence will live in the poorly maintained structure.

From an adult child's perspective however, it's another stress trigger that can bring on depression or anxiety. Major anxiety depression can result in being in situations where there is no good solution, only bad options. Even not doing anything can result in a parent needing to move in with an adult child or live in an assissted living retirement community.

This then brings up different dynamics especially if the parent is obsessed about their bank account and unwilling to pay for a place in a retirement community. Health care and almost everything else can take a back seat to maintaining their savings.

The reason for this is that there is no good or easy solution to the problem. Many aged parents are unwilling to move or mortgage their home to get the money needed to make their lives more comfortable. So adult children are faced with allowing people they love to live with leaky roofs and rotting structures, or to take money from their lives to correct the problems.

There are many situations such as this that place adult children in the uncomfortable situation of having no positive solution. Resentment increases due to the added stress and strain placed on adult children's lives that are dealing with aged parents. This then adds to anxiety depression that can become overwhelming for many in this situation.

This article outlines just one scenario where aged parents can provide the catalyst for anxiety attacks and related emotional disorders in their adult children. This isn't to suggest that all aged parents are to blame. It comes down to one of perspective and how someone decides to deal with the given situation. Anxiety and generalized anxiety disorders can easily be developed in dealing with aged parents that the adult child has loved many decades.

Add to this fact the recognition that dealing with aged parents can provide a glimpse of their own mortality, and anxiety or depression can quickly become the natural state of mind. Many times the adult child can be left with even more difficult emotionally charged problems with no satisfactory solutions. Depression support groups may help in dealing with the problems before it becomes to difficult to handle.

You should really Bookmark this site and check back to to see what other methods and strategies I've used to combat depression. Anxiety and depression in all forms is a long term illness with new treatment strategies always being developed. Don't you want to know the latest information?

anxiety depression

• Displacement -- The redirecting of thoughts, feelings and impulses from a source that causes anxiety to a safer, more acceptable one.


• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) -- A commonly prescribed class of drugs for treating depression. SSRIs work by stopping the reuptake of serotonin, an action that allows more serotonin to be available to be taken up by other nerves.


• Bulimia nervosa (also called bulimia) -- A condition characterized by binge eating followed by extreme measures to undo the binge (often vomiting).