Why Do Grandpa Always Tell The Same Stories

“When I lived in Segovia...”, “When I was in America...”, “When I worked on the train...” This is how many older people begin to narrate pieces of their history, between nostalgia and hope to find someone to listen to them. But sometimes it's not easy, because history repeats itself over and over again and they end up always telling the same thing.

Indeed, the aging process produces different crises: identity, autonomy, belonging... And to face the identity crisis many older people have this resource: the return to the past or what we also know as reminiscence.

Why do they always say the same thing?

Aristotle already said in the Rhetoric that “the elderly live more from memory than from hope, because the time they have left to live is very short compared to their long past... This is the cause of their loquacity. They continually talk about the past, because they like to remember”.

But this return to the past, common in older people, is not always well understood. According to popular belief, the tendency of older people to remember their past life is nothing more than a mania or a sign of cognitive decline.

A healthy consideration of reminiscence must lead us to understand its function and to use it well in the helping relationship with the elderly person. Even admitting that sometimes it can be an index of cognitive deterioration and in others a flight to the past, exaggerating and fabulizing, it often has therapeutic utility.

Reminiscence (this tendency to remember the past life) can be considered as an activity of the ordinary life of the elderly, useful and even necessary for psychological and affective balance. Not because the old man automatically remembers this must be good for him, but on many occasions it is.

The crises typical of this stage of life explain why the present appears to the older person as something strange, empty of many things and people that were once significant.

Sometimes the present is lived as a moment permeated by the pain produced by numerous cumulative losses, with a taste of loneliness even in the midst of other people, colored by the threat of a future in which deterioration will be easily progressive.

Why should it be surprising, then, that older people look to the past for reasons and memories to assert themselves and maintain their identity and self-esteem?

Going back, the elderly person communicates that he is alive, that he has a history, that his identity is not defined solely by the crises of the present moment, by deficits or the need to be cared for, but by having in history what others have in the present.

Lived in a positive key, bringing up memories, without pathological connotation, even constitutes an opportunity for growth. The book of one's own life is being written and the last pages are an opportunity to write down the minutes of one's own life, putting order, emphasizing what was really significant, loving oneself and communicating the message contained in the reading of one's own life. experience. It is a way of living to the end, of fighting against loneliness, of pacifying oneself and of completing the work of art of one's own story with the final touches made on the most delicate parts.

Behind what is remembered, there is often a common thread that allows one to feel alive and in continuity with the past: “I am not a waste or a mere dependent on the care of others, I am the one who was, I live and I am in relationship with other people”. In this way, whoever tells himself, seeks to be recognized and continue to be what he was, worthy of consideration, respect and listening.

Reminiscence is not always free of internal tensions. In the past that is remembered, the elderly sometimes relive painful events, negative or unassimilated experiences. Narrating them then constitutes an opportunity to reconcile with one's own shadow by integrating it into the person who is heading towards the goal of his life.

Reviewing one's own life is a universal activity that can heal memory or embitter an existence.

How to handle reminiscence

For those who accompany the elderly in the art of aging, it is not always easy to manage reminiscence. It is common to hear expressions that invite us to stop repeating the same thing over and over again, exhortations to forget the past or disqualifications for repeating again what has already been told.

If it is true that what is forgotten cannot be healed and that the past and memory constitute the greatest treasure of the elderly, learn to listen to the meaning of these repeated narratives, to make peace in unresolved conflicts and to avoid taking refuge exclusively in the past, they constitute important challenges for those who want to accompany and help the elderly person.

Listening to the narration repeated over and over again from the past does not mean always hearing the same story, but rather being able to capture a new message each time: “Today, now, with you, telling you what you already know, I feel alive and recognized by you, I put order in my life, I affirm myself, I reconcile myself and I consider you important for my emotional balance”. This message seems to me to discover in each older person that is repeated.

Some therapists have well understood the importance of memory and stimulate it directly, inviting in their individual or group sessions to remember old songs, old anecdotes, stories that circulated in young times, particularly relevant places. The message is clear: the past is important. Its evocation constitutes a respectful consideration and meaning can be found in it. Experience can become a source of hope as well as a teacher who teaches for oneself and for others.

The lack of time for health professionals, social agents or informal caregivers will never be a sufficient reason to abandon the elderly to an emotional solitude that will lead them to continue living without feeling it, to die before they die.