My wife and I are caregivers. We have been caregivers now since 2004. For my wife, it’s actually been a bit longer. She started gradually with her own parents in, perhaps, 2002. Total are combined years up and we top out presently at 2 x 8 + 2. The math totals 18 years. That is a lot of time “way in deep” placing the needs of others first before your own.
For most folks, being asked to go that kind of distance alone would be too much. Unfortunately, we have found quite a few other individuals like us out there who have been “way in deep” for way to long of a time. Spend any time with them and you can see the toll it has taken on their appearance, their health and their spirit.
To survive and come out whole on the other side means you have to have well-honed coping skills and at least one or two solid hobbies that you can absolutely loose yourself into. One of mine is obviously writing.
For us, we have each other. We share time each week raging at the moon, venting, letting out the caustic feelings, the sometimes anger and resentment towards those that we love that never intended to put us in this place: ever.
We purge ourselves of the judgments that form.
Why did so and so not take care of themselves better and let their health, and their diet go to hell?
Why didn’t they read up and educate themselves more about better lifestyle choices?
When our simmering kettle of anger and frustration has been emptied, it is time to fill it with something else. We reach for and pull from wherever we find it: compassion, empathy and understanding. Warm, fresh and smelling like the air after a drenching rain.
Our generation has been blessed with better information, new discoveries, healthier choices, healthier food. Easier access to all of it and absolutely no excuses for being in the dark about any of it.
The older ones that we have been caring for did not have that same informational privilege that we’ve tapped into. Can’t throw spears of blame when no one knew what kinds of risks and dangers were out there in the first place, can we?
At the end of each day, you gotta let it out and let it go. Permit yourself to bask in the realization that neither do you “own” the circumstances that you are caregiving in, nor do these circumstances “define” who you really are inside.
When you’re way in deep, you have to know what to do to come all of the way back out.
This is our survival secret.
Jeff Dodson
February 25th 2012
If you are currently a caregiver, or previously served as one, drop us a line at our e-mail address of: www.imaginatic@frontier.com. We welcome your thoughts, stories and opinions about caregiving.
No comments:
Post a Comment