The day I understood I couldn't be in two places at once

I've been taking care of my mother for four or five years now. I don't count it exactly—I don't even think about it that way anymore; it just becomes your normal life.

At some point during these years, I saw that fear was really starting to advance. First, it was the falls, more frequent than before. Then, she stopped wanting to go out. Then, she stayed cooped up in the house as if she were trapped for no reason at all. And with that, the rigidity of spending the day sitting or in bed, barely moving.

Fear also blocked her

I started to see that fear blocked her from the most normal things. Getting up from the armchair. Crossing the hallway. Everything passed through the same filter: What if I fall again?

I told her: "Mom, you don't have to become clumsy just because you're getting older. You used to do things without thinking; now you're at an age where you need to be methodical in your steps. Don't get up suddenly. Don't rush out because the phone rings or someone knocks on the door."

And that last part drove me crazy with her friends, literally: as soon as they called or approached the door, she would drop everything and rush to answer. And that's when it happened: a sudden, thoughtless movement, for a visit or a call that could perfectly well wait ten seconds.

But she was always like that: the type to say "you're going to fall," "you're going to whatever"—she'd say it to others; it was her way. And at some point, that same thought jumped from telling others to applying it to herself. And that's where she started to withdraw, caught between fear and not knowing what could really happen and what couldn't. Not so much what was happening to her, but what she thought was going to happen, mixed with not having the real information to gauge it.

And then I would arrive, and I needed to go out

I needed to go out. Do some shopping. Run an errand. Something normal.

But every time I closed the door, I felt the same worry.

What if something happens while I'm gone? What if she falls today of all days?

That fear has a name, and it's another story—that dull thud that makes you run.

And it happened, it really did. I'd go out, and when I came back, I'd find her with injuries. Sometimes, even bleeding. I'm not saying this to dramatize—it happened, more than once.

For a while, I tried to have everything tied down, everything controlled to the millimeter, so she wouldn't have to improvise anything while I was gone. I thought that if I planned everything, nothing would go wrong.

But I realized something: thinking about her at those moments was directly thinking about the worst. Thinking about a fall. And that fall, in my head, always went to her head—literally. I wasn't thinking about a blow to her arm or her hip. I was thinking about her head.

Understanding that I first need to be okay

And a point came when I understood something even more important: if I continued like this, I was going to go crazy. And the first one who needs to be okay is me. If I'm not okay, I can't take care of her. As much as I wanted to control everything, if I broke down along the way, it wouldn't help anyone.

That fear didn't just stay in the minutes I was out. It followed me to bed, at night, going over the same thing again and again.

You can't be in two places at once. Nobody can. And even less so if you've broken yourself trying.

When I got the protector, something really changed

When I finally put the protector on her, what changed wasn't her age—that keeps advancing, nobody can stop it. What changed was the fear. And, above all, the outcome of the falls changed.

There were still some falls, because nothing prevents that one hundred percent. But they weren't the same anymore. The impact was cushioned, and that was noticeable in how I found her when I got home.

If I had to put a number on it, from my own experience—it's not a study, it's what I've lived—I'd say the damage from each fall was reduced by about 90% compared to before. I still don't like her falling, that never changes. But now the aftermath is different: "Help me up, I fell." "Okay, and your head, and all that?" "Nothing, nothing, nothing hurts."

The helmet delivered on its promise. Not because it prevented her from falling—I never promised that, nor did I promise it to myself—but because it changed what happened after the fall.

What I do before closing the door

It doesn't eliminate fear entirely, but it helps going out not feel like Russian roulette—and allows me to breathe too:

In the end, I understood that I couldn't tie everything down. But I could make sure that, if a fall happened, it wouldn't go straight to her head without anything to cushion it. The SafeSeniors protective helmet was born exactly from that. To make closing the door hurt a little less.

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