The Reality of Caregiving

Such a difficult terrain to navigate…

Many of us have or will be caregivers as the future looms forward. If you haven’t undertaken this task already, I have a few words of wisdom to help you navigate this unusually difficult terrain.

Be prepared for a lot of emotional upheavals. This not only applies to your relationship with the person you care for, but it extends to your other family members as well.

My partner Erika and I have been caring for her mother Dorothy for the past three years, and it is much harder than we expected. Although we generously agreed to move down to Florida from California to help take care of her, we were not really prepared for some of the things that transpired. It hasn’t been pretty.

Erika’s sister, who lives three doors down from us, is a control freak. Once we moved here, she started pointing her finger at us and telling us what to do. She had this characteristic already, but it escalated once we were here. We were not doing this correctly, we should be doing more of that, why don’t we ever do this. There has been a constant intervention from her.

It has been tremendously stressful for Erika, who had just retired from a lucrative career in finance. All of a sudden we were 3,000 miles away from where we were living, caring for her mother who was 90 at the time and living with us.

Erika’s relationship with her mother was always solid until Dorothy had a stroke. Then she went from a buoyant loving mother to someone whose mental acuity was severely impaired.

Facing the reality of her mom becoming a child has been a difficult transition for Erika. Suddenly, she was not the daughter anymore, but the parent, and my partner does not have natural parenting skills.

The dynamics between Erika’s sisters have also been strained. The three sisters rotate caring for Dorothy, but now, there’s a lot of blaming going on. You did this, I did that, why don’t you, I can’t handle it. The list goes on and on. There’s a certain sense of entitlement that siblings have toward one another based on their own needs and what they feel should be done.

Everyone I know who has been a caregiver can attest to this. There are always siblings who don’t do their share, kids who are martyrs, siblings who have been favored by the parents, etc. Be prepared. Discord is going to happen. All sorts of issues will surface.

What do you do when a parent becomes too much to handle? This is a big one. One sister feels the mother should age gracefully in the house. Erika and her other sister believe that Dorothy should be put into an assisted living facility or someplace else where her medical and social needs can be properly addressed.

Issues are discussed, dissected and rehashed. Again, there is more guilt and finger-pointing. The squabbling between Erika and her sisters is incessant. It’s painful to watch.

Be prepared for your own health to decline. It could be an emotional strain, a financial burden, or the physicality of not being able to care for a loved one in the ways that you could when you were younger.

Erika and I are now in our late 60s, and we have come to the decision that we can’t care for her mother anymore. It’s too dangerous. She’s unstable on her feet and other medical issues are escalating.

Erika has gotten consistently more irritable over the past three years, snapping at me as well as her mother. She feels that her retirement has been eclipsed by being thrust into the reality of caregiving. Our relationship has been tested numerous times.

One of Erika’s sisters says we are being selfish. The other sister can’t handle being a caregiver herself because she has too many physical and emotional issues. So we are trying to figure out what to do. It’s not an easy decision.

There are no simple answers. Everyone has to make their own choices when it comes to caring for a loved one. But what I know from caregiving, is that you have to be careful that you don’t deplete your own reserves, otherwise you may contract something that might be irreversible.

I have a friend who cared for her mother and her brother, and now she has heart issues and cancer. I’m sure the stress of being a dutiful family member has taken its toll on her because she is a very giving and generous person.

I would like to hear how some of you are dealing with the caregiving process. I belong to a few support groups, and they are very helpful.

I wish you all the best in dealing with this delicate and painful situation.

Another take on this painful journey.