À espera do nada

A person’s lifetime, each individual’s personal histo-ry, is also a social creation that integrates with thehistory of human collectivity. For elderly individualsthis process occurs most of the time through ageinggoverned by an understanding of negative meaningsused by the social aspect to describe old age.Within the inexorability of change, elderly in-dividuals perceive themselves in successive loss ofcapacity and confront their psychosocial condi-tion as elderly. They often neglect their autonomyand feel discouraged to make new investments; theylet social stereotypes that abhor older people andtheir self-image overlap. When translated into thesocial context as negativity, old age worsens whatis felt as loss in elderly individuals and weakenstheir internal resources built throughout an entirelifetime.When an incapacitating illness and dependenceaffect an elderly individual, which is not uncom-mon as one becomes older, the feeling of loss cantransform into unfathomable fantasies and inten-sify tension before threatening limitations that presson overwhelmingly. Therefore, this individual tends