The Unpopular Caregivers Guide to Peace

Let us face facts; no one prepares you for the inevitable and yet soul-draining task of becoming a loved one's caregiver. And I say this most affectionately because they are all our loved ones. However, facts are facts, and no one forces us to take care of them. We are good people. And when we see someone in need, we make the most immediate conscious decision to make ourselves available for their every need, whether we're ready to do so or not.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to make this doesn't sound very easy, but the reality is that nothing prepares you for the end of life, just like nothing really can prepare you for the start of life. The people you will encounter in this phase may seem overly joyed or numb. The people who have yet to experience anything close to death are blissfully unaware that they need to know anything about anything.

One minute you are just offering a ride and maybe a trip or two to the grocery store. Before you know it, you’re doing bed to chair transfers, bathing and cleaning up messes, figuring out how to handle medical decisions and finances without the legal authority to do so, on-call 24/7, and in some cases becoming a parent for the very first time to a person you did not give birth to.

So, there you are… feeling stuck, alone, miserable, overwhelmed, or even a bit of a failure. You pride yourself on being Mr./Mrs fix it, the one with all the answers, and yet this, my friend, you cannot fix. It’s coming, and that’s it.

Do you feel that yet? That heat feels like it's continually boiling out of control—a sense of need to escape, hard to breathe.

Let it out... seriously cry, laugh, even scream. Not joking, do it... Now... good.

Close your eyes for a second and breathe...

It’s just life, and as simple as it sometimes sounds, life is a bummer. We can't have peace without the pain; otherwise, how would we know we live in peace?

Now, some people who have dealt with the endless title of caregiver had fallen into the trap of having taught themselves to push their feelings aside, have told themselves that they were selfish when other people had real problems. A caregiver is endless being told to look at the silver lining. That no, their loved one is not stubborn; they “insert vague reasoning.” They tell themselves to suck it up. They tell themselves to sacrifice.

I am here to tell you… screw literally all of that.

Not only as a caregiver have you earned your right to talk/yell/act out exactly how you feel and what you are going through, but you also need to do it all unapologetically. This is in no way a free pass to treat anyone like you have no sense but stop apologizing for being sad, mad, depressed, exhausted, tired of the madness. Apologies if it doesn’t fit someone's happy bubble or gratitude club. But this gig is not all roses and butterflies. Being a caregiver requires grit beyond measure, mental strength, physical courage, and emotional release. Let us have it!

Three unpopular truths that no one talks about, not even the hospice folks:

There’s Darkness all around

You must understand that before you embark on this journey, it's going to get dark and, in some cases, really dark. No, not the sunken place kind of darkness but a place where you might be hard to reach, hard to find. Keep this in mind; you are only passing through. You're not meant to live here, but you need to go through it to get where you need to be.

No one is asking you to be perfect, and in all honesty, if allowed, you'll learn a thing or two about yourself here. The key thing to know is that you will cross a valley. Be aware, but keep moving. The light will find you, or you will find it eventually.

Grief is the unwelcome guest that won't leave.

Grief is a mother, and the cost for grief is time. The easy way to think about this is mathematical. If you perceive grief as a negative number and time as a positive one, the ratio is almost always negative 2:1 because time has to be exponentially more positive than your grief to keep the equation positive. Seems difficult, right? It doesn't have to be.

Remember, you're already consciously aware of the dark place this is all in. As you walk through that darkness, allow grief to do the same. Give it space to make its way through your feelings, thoughts, spirit, and then release it. Send it home or wherever it needs to go. Don't let it take up residence in your mind.

You’re not alone; you feel alone.

Now support anchors are important for everyone. But don't be surprised or even hurt when people start to distance themselves from you. Caregiving, as I said in the beginning, requires an emotional release. Every person was not built to be a caregiver, and likewise, every person cannot handle the emotional weight that comes with that. So people will drift in and out.

It isn't anyone's fault, nor should there be any judgment, rather a sense of a revelation with that fact. The ones that will be there have either been through it or are going through it. And others are meant to be present for certain events, occasions, memories. Just know you'll need those people at different times. And you'll know when each person is needed, and at the exact time, they are supposed to be there.

All that said, Whether you made this decision after much deliberation or were pushed by your sense of being, here you stand—Ready or not to embark on what may seem a most treacherous journey. But like I said before, nothing is easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard. If the world revolves around one thing, we always get a chance to do it better.

Hopefully, you cried, yelled, screamed out whatever it was that you were holding in. Heck, we will take silently judges post if that helps. You’ve heard it in movies and monologues, but it is true what they say, and I think that it applies to this case as well; This is only the beginning. Don’t forget to be kind to yourself.

Blessings.