Your Care

Six steps to staying refreshed

Staying resilient also means staying healthy. And, when you're a caregiver, your mental and physical wellness may sometimes be jeopardized. If you don't feel good about one area of your life (especially an area such as caregiving), how you feel about the remaining areas (your job, your marriage, your children, your friendships) may be at risk. Keeping your caregiving role in check is imperative so that when life's darts get thrown you're in shape to handle the hits.

Some reminders to maintain your wellness as a family caregiver:

1. Welcome help. You're probably the best caregiver in your family--but you're not the only one! Your spouse can read to your care recipient on a Saturday afternoon so you can get out with friends. Your siblings can provide financial support so you can hire home health aides--and give yourself a regular break from laundry, cooking and cleaning. Your adult children can spend an evening with your care recipient so you can enjoy dinner and a show. Your out-of-town relatives can telephone your care recipient regularly so you're not the only one providing social interaction with your care recipient. And, ask for help--don't wait for others to offer. You'll wait forever!

2. Define your caregiving role--don't let it define you. Enjoy activities on a regular basis that remind you of you--your interests, your ideas, your opinions and your values. And, make adjustments in your caregiving duties that allow those activities--daily, weekly, semi-monthly. Whatever you can manage!

3. Make sure caregiving in some way affects your life in a positive way. Reap some benefits, rather than just making sacrifices. Has caregiving taught you about the positive power of giving? Have you gained an understanding about your care recipient that you never had before? Have you learned about patience and virtue? Have you learned how strong and successful you can be--no matter what the obstacles or stresses?

4. Seek a support system--and nourish it. Does a relative, friend or caregiving acquaintance support and validate your efforts? Everyone needs a empathetic ear and sympathetic shoulder--especially caregivers. In turn, be supportive to other caregivers.

5. Make sure your motivation as a caregiver is honest and healthy. For instance, in your caregiving, are you hoping to right the wrongs of past relationships? Is that realistic? And, most important, is that healthy? Or, are you a caregiver because you understand and appreciate its importance--to you and your family? Keep on top of your motivation--and if you find yourself slipping into the motivating ways of a martyr, pull up and re-examine your role. Is it best for you, your care recipient, your family?

6. Educate yourself about your care recipient's illness or disease. Learn how to handle difficult behavior, provide hands-on care and administer treatments. Ask your care recipient's physician, your home care workers and organizations such as the Alzheimer's Association for suggestions and information to make you a well-informed, trained caregiver. Knowledge is the best way to minimize your frustration and uncertainty.

"One of the worst things that happens to a person who has been hurt by life is that he tends to compound the damage by hurting himself a second time. Not only is he the victim of rejection, bereavement, injury, or bad luck; he often feels the need to see himself as a bad person who had this coming to him, and because of that drives away people who try to come close to him and help him. Too often, in our pain and confusion, we instinctively do the wrong thing. We don't feel we deserve to be helped, so we let guilt, anger, jealousy, and self-imposed loneliness make a bad situation even worse. ... Too often we inadvertently find ourselves saying to people who have been hurt that they, in some way, deserved it. And when we do that, we feed into their latent sense of guilt, the suspicion that maybe this happened to them because they did somehow have it coming."

--When Bad Things Happen to Good People By Harold S. Kushner (Another recommended read, as is Kushner's newest book, The Lord Is My Shepherd, Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm)