Getting older......scary thoughts and realizations

[MisterTinkles]

What do you think about getting older?
What scares you the most?
Are there senior care centers for gays?
Are there retirement villages/homes for gays?
How is it do you expect to be taken care of in your old age?



A lot of us have not had the good fortune to find someone to settle down with and have a life.
Someone to be there for us, take care of us, and help look after us when we get too old to take care of ourselves.

What happens when you dont have the money or the means to take care of yourself anymore?
Are there even places set up for senior citizen LGBT long term care? Ive never heard of any.

For people like me, it all scares me shitless. The few people in my family that would help me to take care of myself are all gone. Even though my friends are loyal, I would not burden them with having someone like me ruin their lives by asking them to help me out.

In 2001 for the first time in my life, I was making some REAL money and had a nice savings, even had a little invested and even started my own small business. Then 9-11 happened and wiped it all out. I was back to zero all across the board.

I was just getting back on my feet in 2006 when the recession/depression hit. Again, wiped out what little I had accomplished. And now in 2013, I still have not recovered from any of that.

So, here I am...50 years old, no money, no savings, no security of any kind, no one to take care of me when I get too old, nobody to help me out when I need it.

What do we do? Ive never heard of any stories about gays getting older.....what happens, what to expect, where to go to for help, what to think.....

Very little scares me, but thinking about this scares the shit out of me. And thinking I might get put into some sleazy, government nursing home makes every cell in my body scream.

How do you "deal"?

[megumidesu]

Are there senior care centers for gays?
Are there retirement villages/homes for gays?

i hope not.
why would i want to be segregated ?
if i end up in a retirement home , then i would hope that my sexuality wouldn't mean i'd have to go to a different one to other people . i hope that i (and everyone else , gay or straight) would be treated equally regardless of sexuality ~~

[SolemnBoy]

Aging is scary - even a 17 year old knows that.

I'm sorry for all your troubles and I hope everything works out for you. However, I'd like to point out that the thought of LGBT retirement homes disgusts me as much as the thought of different retirement homes for different races. I don't like that thought at all and I hope they never get to exist :o

[dfiant]

Getting older is definately something we have to think about and plan for, but dwelling on it?

Seriously, you are going to give yourself and ulcer worrying about something that you can't stop or can't change. I'm 5 years behind you, I risked everything that I owned for a business overseas and lost it all. I'm still not where I wanted to be and planned to be at this stage in my life, but I am alive, I'm happy, I'm comfortable and tomorrow is another day.

I intend to remain independent for as long as I can, the only thing that will rob me of my independence is senility, anything else I can take care of myself know what I mean.

[Kiid]

What do we do?

REVOLUTION!
Get true democracy. People in government to better the people not to fill their pockets. People who don't want the job are the only people who should be allowed into government!

[zeon]

Hello,
Getting older means you get wiser so think back over what happenned and how things happenned with the businesses... To generate some income why not consider giving it a third go as usually thid time lucky is what happens and when it comes to business make sure each bit of your profit you put away a small % for a rainy day when its needed the most.. l know in life i take each day as it comes and when im old and decreppid i will see how my life unfolds... My investment whilst im young is in my property and I aim to pay my mortgage up and hopefully move up to a bigger plkace and when im older be able if i have to to sell my home and move to a smaller place...

[Chase]

The only thing that scares me is how I am going to make it through college now that my dad died. I hate not so much the thought of getting older as I do the thought of aging. I want to see the future and I'll take pride in the past I lived in. Stephen Hawking is my hero and he's still working at 71. I plan to work and educate myself throughout my entire lifetime. After engineering in a corporation, maybe work for science, then maybe be a professor at a university.
I would hate to segregate myself. Unless a retirement home is, I'm guessing religious, I can't think of a reason as to why a retirement home in the US would ban gays. Pick one in a more liberal area if it bothers you.
I keep on seeing those annoying economy collapse warnings from that annoying billioniare guy, but I don't really see where you went wrong with 401Ksor Roth IRAs. I think just before the recession my dad did something with his and then put it back, like this more safety less interesting something after it went up again. But, at your age I don't see the harm in looking for retirement plans. There are professionals you can consult that would give advice on your portfolio if it bothers you.

[Pix]

My main fear is essentially a "return to childhood" in which my body weakens (and heals slower than ever, unlike childhood, and also without the energy), lost respect of the community (one of the side effects of living in a consumerist society that champions individualism & income), and becoming a preferred target for various predators. My greatest fear would be losing my mind, which I would not stand for.

I'd either be independent to the end or only depend on trusted family (and even then I wouldn't if I thought it might cost them everything to pay my medical expenses). There is no way I'd consent to being put in a hospice or old folks home unless I thought I had like less than a month to live.

And if you want to be among people who share your orientation then you can find alternative communities here:

http://www.ic.org/

It's been a good 10 years since I looked into what they had but they included some that included or were even exclusively gay. Of course they're not hospices or nursing homes, though I expect you'd be allowed to die there (once you got accepted in with time spent as a contributing member anyway).

[bluefox4000]

I don't fear aging. I have CP, My spine is terribly curved. There are days I feel about 90 already. So screw you fear. I have an old body already.

Mick

[Lalo]

There actually are retirement centers for the LGBT community.
http://www.gayretirementguide.com/gay_re...es_in_usa/

Having said that, the fears and questions that you pose are really not very different from the questions that straight people ask themselves. When it comes right down to it, getting older is scary in our society. We live in a society that does not honor and venerate its elders. It is youth oriented, in the extreme. So where does that leave us?

As gay men, we will have a harder time for any number of reasons. Like you, I am 50 years old and lost a substantial portion of my retirement funds in the last economic crash. Now, I have no choice but to "gamble" on a higher risk stock portfolio in order to make up for the losses. I am also putting away more money than ever before in the hope of having something to retire on in about 15 years. Some people are in much worse shape than myself. I at least have a partner who has an income and full benefits as a veteran, which means that the healthcare, at this point, is not a problem. But in the future? Realistically, one serious illness for me could wipe out what little savings I will have.

So, I guess that I am saying that I recognize those fears and think that they are completely valid. But I don't have any answers either. All that I do know is that there are millions of people in the same boat. We aren't alone.