News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]

Seanus, it says here that the Polish government has postponed paying restitution to Jewish groups who had their land stolen under Communism

I don't know the ins and the outs but I would've thought repaying people for the property or land they lost is the decent thing to do? Why is there a problem with that?

News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]

What do you consider to be the reason they are ahead in the Poles' polls?

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

PeterKRK and Inkrakow, thank you

Love / I was late and this Polish girl flipped out [36]

The reason doesn't matter in this example, what matters is you two don't see eye to eye so any relationship would be unrewarding. Forget her, and seek somebody else. Young years fly by really fast, don't waste it with a dead end. If you just want to learn from this, learn that you are not always going to hit it off in person just because you had a good online message exchange. But most importantly, MOVE ON

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Thanks Llamatic. What I forgot to add was she insisted on walking around some of the wards he was last in, to see if she could spot him. I tried to discourage it for the sake of not disturbing other patients, but she is strong-willed and insisted and I reminded her to use the alcohol hand wash and protective shoes, which she did. I didn't accompany her, and she was fairly quick. "He must have taken himself off somewhere else" was pretty much what she said after leaving each hospital. Another bit of her memory came back also, apparent some poem her father had related to her the last time she saw him. It was very touching and I don't cry easily, but seeing what his remembering the poem meant to her it was hard not to.

Must also add she didn't seem at all down after returning from the hospitals, and was singing to herself as she made me a frankly fantastic smoothie (which I probably deserved after all those journeys in the heat!!)

Well, I hope for that breakthrough...

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Yes, she apparently had a hormone check done a few years ago, for some reason. All normal.

She has spent the weekend reading and looking into various cancer cures in readiness for when she "finds" her father. I have ceased reminding her he has died, I say nothing now.

Well, if there's a breakthrough I will post again. Thanks all.

This is not a breakthrough or progress as such, but I will post what has happened here anyway, in case it leads to a breakthrough.

The person decided she would go to the hospitals that last treated her father, to see if they know where he is (in reality, he is dead, of course).

At the records office, the clerks told him that she would need authorisation from the patient before they can release any information. However, they did do a search on their system and apparently his details came up. The screen was some distance from the person, but she said there were 4 lines and she called those entries "suspicious".

Immediately afterwards, I asked her what she meant by suspicious. She said she meant that it was odd that they called up the information on the system but then wouldn't let her know what it said. About half an hour later, when I asked her if she could read what it said on the 4 lines, she said it was the names of doctors familiar to her, plus some Latin terminology and the word in Polish for "deceased".

I expected to have to comfort her at this point, but she said that the hospital had obviously made a mistake and the search would go on.

Later on, I asked her what she would do if someone she knew had started to say that their father had not died when everyone else including her knew he had. She said "You mean, forgot?" I said "Whatever the reason, they just suddenly start talking as if he never died and was just missing. What would you do?" She replied "Get them proof." I said "Such as go to a hospital and show them a record which indicates their father as 'deceased'?" She replied "Yes." I asked, "What if they said that the hospital was wrong?" She replied, "Well, that would be ridiculous!" I then paused and said, "But that's exactly what you're saying to me when the screen there showed him as deceased..." To which she replied, "Oh my situation's not the same, he didn't die!"

As she did not accept the grave memorial to be the truth, it is perhaps no surprise that she doesn't find the hospital record to be believable, even if it was just glanced at. She did add that she'd believe it if she saw a Death Certificate but added "Don't even talk like that, he's not dead."

The only bit of progress made is that she is starting to accept he's been absent for years and not just months, and she has started to recall that he gave her instructions regarding what to do with his things if anything happened to him. Whether she remembers the rest as we visit various hospitals he was in, will remain to be seen.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

NoreenB, if it is paranoia then it says here that treatment should have started immediately (although how immediate can anyone start a treatment? it takes time to notice what's going on as it can creep into existence)

depression-guide.com/paranoia.htm

If that immediacy is so important, then there's no hope of helping her, as her family just took the view "time will heal" - over 2 years ago, or possibly nearer to 3.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]


Yes, one or two minor things I can think of that I had thought were eccentricities, but perhaps they were symptoms of what you refer to.

It is almost like she's been hypnotised, come to think of it
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-13653944

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]


Well, I heard you were actually sensational!

Joking aside - no, she won't go to a doctor for anything psychiatric, nor a hospital. I will look into the hormones thing if it's something anyone will discuss with me, thanks for that.

Word reaches me that she showed up at one of her father's old offices and went to his desk or old room with some flowers for his name day - she then followed it up later to ask if he'd phoned there or been in to see the flowers.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]


I have met her, I am telling you she shows every sign of someone who is completely convinced he is alive. So much so that I have at times wondered if her mother is indeed crackers (that is an English term for insane) and erected the grave memorial prematurely as suggested by her. She is so convincing that I have even wondered whether the truth was that her father recovered, couldn't stand the mother (not hard to believe if you meet her) and b*ggered off round the world on a cruise with a new partner while for spite or closure the mother got the grave done in his name. THAT'S how convincing the woman is, REALLY. To make me think that even momentarily, to make me chew over what really could be the truth, when the truth is so obviously he died as a result of his illness, that is how convincing this woman is because she really believes he is alive. As I said before - brilliant actress (but why?) or 100% loss of memory/mental health issue. Nothing else, no deep downs, no nonsense, I know of this deep-down they know syndrome that you mention and that's a walk in the park. This ain't it. Period.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]


Well it hasn't so far in nearly 2.5 years or perhaps more. But you don't read threads fully, as case histories and the details are irrelevant when you dispense your advice, aren't they.


No it is not. She is most definitely 100% convinced he is alive, or she's a brilliant actress, one of the two. If the former, that is the result of a malfunction in her brain. If the latter, I don't know what her motive is, it certainly isn't obvious. Assuming it's the former, it is not any sort of privacy or other wild goose chase reason - it is plainly that either part-amnesia or her brain has gone into a self-defence mechanism to shield her from something that is too anxiety-causing for her to consciously acknowledge; they could both be the same thing, of course.

The additional blow in all this is that I am learning day by day that her immediate family are quite lousy and not going to be helping me to help her and just going to continue to fob me off with excuses when I ask what they plan to do. If that continues beyond the many months of fobbing off so far, there will be nothing I can do at all and I will have to give up and go home as I just simply cannot afford to be pointlessly out here spending and not earning a bean for much longer when her family are not playing their part in resolving this. Time is not healing her, nothing is so far and I'm pretty sure no sky fairies will help either. So she'll either snap out of it one day or she'll suddenly self-harm when she realises he's not coming back. I have warned her family of this several times and they either ignore my emails or shrug to my face. And yes as perhaps some of you have guessed they actually just seem to pretty much resent me. So I will probably have to give up and go before too long. Thank you all who posted here, anyway.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

The property-dealers are trying that in the UK too - getting first time buyers to basically sell their granny. Or at least secure a loan against her property. That's never been necessary before, for the majority of home-buyers of previous generations. It may well mean that we are in even more dangerous economic territory than was first feared.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

Hmm, well must've saved quite a lot then if they can afford the property prices, that's all I can say!
(If they have the discipline to save up and spend only what they have, it's a good thing.)

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

I didn't realise all that before, D & D. Lots for me to learn! I don't half wish I'd picked up some property when it was cheap - as you can guess. Prices now seem amazingly high (in the cities) so I'm assuming Poles are finding work and buying them on high income multiple mortgages (something I do not think is a good idea at all), and not just foreigners with money buying these flats.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

Thanks Moonlighting.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

Thanks again D & D, very interesting tips and commentary on the Polish way of life.

I have to add, I take my hat off to the Poles who survive here - the wages are it seems very low compared to the price of food and everyday items like shavers, mattresses, cars, etc. I scratch my head and wonder how anyone affords things - I'm guessing that many have been lured on to credit cards and the never never, pushing prices up still further as demand increased. To me, it seems many Polish prices are not much less than the UK's, and rents and property prices here equally eyebrow raising, especially the latter.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

Thank you D & D

They expect a business to pay all this before even having one customer? Must stifle enterprise hugely. Who's going to take a chance on paying that figure monthly when they don't even know if there will be one reply to their adverts?

These sellers on street corners selling their gas lighters and spring onions paying 800 zl a month?
All those leaflets stuck to bus stops where you tear the phone number off, the owners paying 800 zl a month for the nail polishing or English lessons services?

I'm surprised there's any enterprise here at all if that's the case.

Thanks again, very interesting.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

Thank you for the replies.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Thanks for posting and sharing your experience.

From what I understand, all that was tried a while back. More recently, her mother refused to get the paperwork out as just seeing her deceased husband's medical reports etc again is too upsetting for her and appears to only encourage the person denying her father's death to worry more about where he is rather than accept he passed away. When shown an email from herself to me discussing the funeral that she had attended (ie her father's) back at that time in 2008 she now says "it must have been the funeral of someone else". When I say "no, it was your dad's funeral, or at least that's what you told me at the time", she replies "Don't be stupid, you know you're getting sick, Satan is working on you."

I disagree that she "deep down" knows he has passed away, I had thought that for a short period, but other things now convince me otherwise, one of which is the total preservation of all his possessions that must not be moved from where he left them over 3 years ago now before he was admitted to hospital for the final time.

I also fear the psychiatric drugs, but don't know what else to do. Of course, I live in hope she will just snap out of it, if that happens I suspect she will have no memory of denying the death at all.

It is hard to happily wait more years for her to get well on her own, as there are signs of affecting her everyday life now. Of course, that is far preferable to her getting worse, adversely "changed", or harmed in any way in a medical/psychiatric environment, if that were to happen.

I just hope her family do not suddenly get her taken away, to put it crudely, with that sort of treatment. I don't want to find she's suddenly gone and they won't even tell me where she is. I would much prefer for her to voluntarily go and discuss it with a doctor or therapist, as cognitive therapy is far preferable to strong drugs or whatever severe treatments they can do. But as long as she refuses to even talk to a doctor, the worse she is becoming, the greater the chance a severe "remedy" will be used by her family who seem pretty cold to me. (I can assure you I would never push strong psychiatric drugs on her or that sort of treatment if it were my decision, but probably there are people who will say that is the only chance to help her and for all I know they may be correct.)

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

I think a lot of people reading this thread know what I am thinking now.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]


Perhaps you don't have time to read whole threads, or perhaps I have not been clear - but the information I have gathered from her family is that she has been unwell in this way for approx 2.5 years. It is not seven months! I would not be happy, however, even if it was 7 days, if it was my daughter or sister unwell.

Also for the record, NoreenB, no she does not hear dead persons' voices nor see ghosts nor anything similar, not at all. In fact, before I realised she thought he was still alive, I thought I had seen a shadow/ghost where he lived and she dismissed that as nonsense (I thought she dismissed it because she didn't believe in such things, I later discovered the context was that it couldn't be his ghost because he was still alive according to her. Incidentally, what I saw turned out to be an optical illusion which I later was able to recreate at will, not a ghost!).

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

No, we are not a couple, although what that has to do with it I don't know.

No, I do not agree in this trust in ye gods stuff, and no I do not agree with the what will be will be attitude. We are not living in the middle ages.

Yes, she does not want any help because she does not see that she needs any help from anyone. Indeed, she has stated clearly that anyone who believes her father to be deceased is mentally unwell and should seek help.

Frankly, it beggars belief in 2011 that some people think it is okay to just "live with" any, let alone this degree of, mental illness. The clue, NoreenB, is in the word "illness". If some people reading this thread actually think this person has an invisible sky fairy friend who is helping her cope with her father's death by telling her mind that he isn't really dead then I really have nothing polite to say in response to that so I will say nothing.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

No, Noreenb, simply no. I know what I now increasingly observe but I cannot go into details for reasons of confidentiality and I don't have to be a GP to notice what I notice.

Thank you everyone on this thread for replying, makes me feel less alone that I can share it with some people. Her family seem largely unwilling to tackle it, as if it were a minor matter like belching at dinner or some such trivia, but I see that she is losing greater and greater touch with reality in small but now more noticable steps and it is very frustrating to see that nothing is being done about it.

I will update the thread if there is any positive news. If you don't hear from me, will be safe to assume that matters continue gently but firmly downhill.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Yes, this has started to happen, financial problems now arising as a result. Her appearance is ok, not much sign of deterioration if any, but she has become very thin and tells me she has little appetite. However, she still seems to eat including biscuits/cookies and treats etc as well as the usual meals, so not sure where the appetite loss is but it must be somewhere as her weight is less than last year.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Maaarysia

Yes, I have emailed various services last year and phoned them again recently. All very patient free services in the UK but none could suggest anything other than "she must go voluntarily to her GP [general practitioner or family doctor]". However, no chance of that, so far.

She is a religious Catholic, one avenue that could be explored is if a priest could break it to her, however from what I have heard from her before if a priest did so she would throw back her head and laugh and say something like "Satan, very good disguise, but you don't fool me...". I really think there's a >50% chance she would respond like that instead of accept it as truth from a priest, have a good cry, and come back to normal. She very regularly reminds me that (in her view) Satan exists and corrupts the weak and vulnerable and that I too must be careful not to fall into his trap (for the record, I have no significant or perhaps no religious beliefs really at all and certainly no belief in anything like that or in any devils etc. If I put that to her, she says that Satan wants people to not believe he exists so that he can do his bad works and that I should watch I don't let my guard down, etc etc etc).

Noreenb, I do not feel she is leading a healthy life, for the reasons I have outlined, it has been going on some years now. There is evidence her life is being neglected due to waiting for something that cannot happen (ie a dead person cming back to physical life). That is exactly what she is doing and to a greater extent now than last year she is affecting her life wth that futile wait.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Rybnik, yes she still refuses 100%, no chance. Her typical response is "What for?"
Llamatic, thanks and yes it is still going on and worsening if you observe her carefully. About 2 weeks ago she used a sentence which I misheard and so I thought for a moment she had suddenly snapped out of it. When I asked her to repeat what she had said I then realised what she had meant and that she was indeed still unwell.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

yes seanus, I think you are correct - that is how they seem to treat her.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Hello seanus, but there are not any professionals nor anyone helping her that I know of. This has been going on for some time now. Her brother simply says (when I very rarely get a reply from him, like once every quarter) "No one knows what to do...I am busy with my own family, bye". His own family seems to not include his sister in his head, it seems.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

Merged:Opening a very small business in Poland - procedure/fees?

Old acquaintance of mine who is not internet savvy asked me to post this question:-

If a Brit opens a very small biz in Poland (in his case, repairing watches) and does the work from his Polish home by mail order with no shop or business premises as such, what does he need to do and what does he need to pay regarding The Authorities of Poland?

1 Does he need to pay any fees to any Polish Authorities if he is a sole trader and not a Limited company?
2 Does he need to register the business anywhere?
3 Does he have to open a business bank account?
4 Any other tips or advice perhaps?

Thank you.

Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland. [93]

Here is an update for people who are following this.

I spoke to a UK bereavement advice counsellor, she told me that she has heard of this problem before but not going on for this long. The only thing she could suggest was that the person goes to her doctor. The person has refused and says that it is other people who are confused/ill and not her.

If anyone suggests to this person that her father is dead, she now responds with a smile more often than in anger and will quietly declare later that the person who suggests her father is dead suffers from mental ill health issues and I should ignore them. She says that I too should be careful not to accept the word of the mentally ill people who say her dad is dead.

I have noticed having seen her last week and today that she has less and less grasp of time. I am also noticing she is forgetting a few more things that have happened to her previously. There is no improvement and in many ways it is surreal to return to Poland as I have and see this is still going on.

She currently seems to have decided her father is in a hospital in the USA or far away. When asked how come no one has made contact with her or her family to say where he is or ask for money to keep him hospitalised, she replies that he has money for that or that his insurance must be paying his medical bills. When asked why he hasn't made contact with her over so many birthdays and Xmases etc, she indicates a lack of awareness on how long he has been dead (or missing, as she calls it), and sometimes adds "He must be very ill if he hasn't made contact for so many months" (it is of course many years now).

In the meantime, she continues to plan her life around her father's return, and this has had some unfavourable consequences already with her career decisions, income and activities.

Her family had said they were going to a doctor to discuss it in early May, this did not happen. Ditto last week. There is, it seems, a possibility they will secretly go to a doctor this week, but she herself will not be going and carries on with her everyday activities although they are restricted by her expectations of her father's imminent return.

Stalemate 100% from what I can see.