What is a brutal truth about life that needs to be said?

That quite often NO ONE CARES and ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE TRANSACTIONAL. How’s that for “brutal truth”?

There are some harsh realities that we try to run away from but sooner or later we get caught and it becomes difficult for us to accept them. Here are some brutal truths about life that you need to accept now so they won’t hurt you in the future.

A very hard to accept but brutal truth is that no one knows when it all might come to an end. Live each day as you might not be able to see tomorrow. Remind yourself every day that each day is a gift and you should make the most of the blessing given to you.

Despite all the feel-good, new-agey platitudes spouted to people who are feeling very down about how “you’re never alone” and advising others to “reach out to others,” blah, blah, blah, there are MANY circumstances (like when you’re older and have been sick for a long time and home-bound and lost your social contacts) where one is alone and there’s no one to “reach out” to for help.

I realized those platitudes are meant more for young people with family, physical health, friends, a potentially brightish future, and bad moods that will either pass, or can be helped to pass with drugs and/or some counseling.

I realized that we have relationships with others because at the very least, we want some emotional pleasure from them. Often parents want caretakers, or for their children to boost the family’s collective ego by doing bragworthy things.

Before my elderly mother drank herself to death because she couldn’t cope with retirement, she staggered around the house like a toddler from hell, 24/7 drunk, napping sporadically, trying to drive, leaving the doors to the outside open all night, doing unsafe potentially fire causing things with the stove and candles, leaving the fridge and freezer open ruining the food, ordering tons of expensive, unneeded things from TV shopping shows, clicking on malware links, and falling constantly hurting herself, often breaking her glasses damaging things in the house, and getting blood everywhere.

There was no one to call for help. She required round-the-clock babysitting from us. She didn’t have dementia. It was her car and house to use as she pleased, so there wasn’t anything we could do. My father and I were hostages there, got little sleep, were in constant terror of what she was going to do next. The advice from Al-Anon groups didn’t help and didn’t really apply to our situation since I’m disabled and had nowhere else to live, and we couldn’t, in good conscience, let her die on the floor. Years of this stressful caregiving ruined our health, and eventually killed him.

I also learned that when you get sick permanently and can’t do anything and have nothing going on in your life anymore and you sleep most if the time, people move on without you. I learned how hard it is to get any help with transportation when you’re too sick to drive and don’t have the money to pay for drivers. I learned how little help there is to navigate all the red tape and search for help when you’re sick and confused and groggy from brain fog.

I realized how hard it is to survive when you’re middle aged and not sick or disabled enough for a nursing home and don’t have the money for assisted living. And how lonely being chronically ill can be if you have no family and how hard it is to find people who like to read to have a deep, intelligent conversations with.