Caring for Yourself While Caring for Others: A Wakefield Therapist Approach
The Struggle of Caring for Others and Yourself
Caring for Yourself While Caring for Others: A Wakefield Therapist’s Approach
Whether caring for an aging parent, a new baby, a spouse or other loved one, the act of caregiving can be incredibly rewarding, yet also incredibly challenging. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the relentless demands on your time, your flexibility, patience and your ability to feel like you are doing it “right.” The time needed to care for someone else can easily crowd out the time you would have spent caring for yourself, and this can leave you further depleted. Yet taking time for yourself can feel much harder when you are in a caregiving role, as it can feel like you are taking that time away from the other person (or people) for whom you care. You can end up feeling selfish or guilty for doing so, which can limit the benefit of your effort. While caregiving may not be easy, the good news is that with thoughtfulness, you can learn how to care for yourself in ways that still honor your caregiving role, yet don’t leave you guilty or resentful at the end of the day. If you find yourself stuck, a therapist in Wakefield can help you find a balanced path forward.
Why Caregiving is Emotionally and Physically Demanding
Caregiving is no joke. It can look really different depending on your circumstances, but nearly all caregiving roles have intense emotional and physical demands. Newborns are well-known to keep new parents up all night and exhausted as a result. Babies who stay in the NICU for extended periods need their parents to add in commuting time to simply spend time with their new baby and need to balance this delicately with other responsibilities at home, possibly including other children. An adolescent with a physical challenge may need to be lifted in and out of bed and other positions throughout the day. An elderly relative may need assistance getting up from sitting and a myriad of other challenges. There may be the discomfort of sleeping over at a hospital in wildly uncomfortable cots or sleeping on a couch to help out on a temporary basis. These physical challenges demand attention and unfortunately, many caregivers will neglect the physical aches and pains they develop, seemingly out of service to their loved one, but to the detriment of their own health.
Emotionally, caregiving can be a roller coaster or a marathon of chronic stress. Many factors will influence the emotional demands, such as whether the role was desired by you or not, your relationship with the person for whom you are caring, that person’s prognosis and certainly, how much other social support you have in place for the journey. Concern for your loved one can be consuming at times, particularly if there is an uncertain outcome or loss expected at the end of a caregiving journey. Resentment can build easily if you did not want to be in this role or if your relationship with the person for whom you are caring was challenging to start. Caregiving for healthy child can bring up intense worries and insecurities about doing a “good enough” job and also elicit urges for perfectionism which can be exhausting.
Simply juggling the reality of the time spent on caregiving needs can be a huge challenge which causes profound stress. Whether that is doing an extra run of groceries, bringing someone to appointments, hooking up feeding tubes or calling insurance, the twenty-four hours of the day often feel like they are not enough.
There are very good reasons why caregivers get physically and emotionally drained. The responsibilities they juggle can be immense and they often do not have many other supports or resources to turn to for respite. This can lead to a very isolating and lonely journey through caregiving. In therapy, however, caregivers can begin to process these complex feelings, learn that they are not alone, identify their biggest needs and get creative about how to make small changes that can be a big and positive benefit on their experience.
The Importance of Self-Care for Caregivers
Self-care is a concept that is becoming somewhat of a buzzword these days, but that does not negate its importance. There are many metaphors and analogies that are highly relevant, such as putting on your own oxygen mask first and not pouring from an empty cup. While these carry a lot of truth to them, they often fall flat for caregivers, whose internal response is, “yeah, but who will do all of this while I go spend a day at the spa?”
The reality for caregivers is that self-care takes attention and conscious choice to implement, yet it is no less important. It is likely to look more subtle though, and be more of a softening of an approach rather than a dramatic gesture. The challenge of many self-care metaphors is that they set up a binary paradigm, where you are either caring for yourself or not. You are putting the other person first or yourself first. That paradigm can be very challenging, but if we soften it to consider how to allow your needs to intertwine with the other person’s, it gets a bit easier to envision.
The truth is that caregivers need sleep, nutrition, social support, intellectual engagement and movement just as much as non-caregivers. There is no escaping that reality. They simply might need to find these things more creatively, and therapy can be very helpful for identifying how to do this strategically.
The Guilt of Self-Care: Addressing Caregiver Guilt
When self-care feels like care taken away from your loved one, it can feel really icky and selfish. Society will often preach that you shouldn’t feel guilty for this, it’s hard to make that a reality. Yet shifting the paradigm from them versus you can help with this. Shifting to a more objective reality of what all the needs are to be met can help evaluate options with more clarity and less emotion. Sometimes, having the patience to withhold judgement of yourself until you have tried taking care of yourself can help. Seeing that things don’t collapse and seeing that you feel better or that caring for yourself actually helps you feel more present with your loved one can really help quiet the voice of guilt as it sees the proof that what you are doing is working.
Therapy can be really helpful for getting another perspective on how to do this and to feeling supported in making these changes. Instead of guilt, imagine feeling more fulfilled, more satisfied? Imagine that instead of feeling like garbage for stepping out to take a walk for twenty minutes, you looked forward to it all day because you knew that you would feel refreshed and your loved one would have also figured out what to do with themself for that time? Imagine if you felt like what you did made a difference for both of you. It’s possible.
Setting Boundaries: A Critical Component of Caregiving
Most caregivers cringe at the word “boundaries,” for a variety of reasons. Maybe it’s something they know they struggle with and they feel called-out and ashamed when others make them feel like they aren’t doing a good enough job establishing boundaries. Maybe they long for boundaries and feeling like a failure because they haven’t been able to implement them. Maybe they feel like they don’t actually want them, but feel embarrassed about this because everyone tells them they should.
So why do I mention them? Our society does, and knowing how to respond to the expectation of “boundaries” can be very helpful. What I find far more important and helpful is strengthening one’s internal compass to what is most important to them, even when there are competing demands. Really connecting with your own values so you feel clear about why you choose what you choose can be incredibly helpful. This will incidentally form boundaries for you, but they won’t be put in place by drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. Boundaries for the sake of boundaries are usually hard to maintain and hard to implement. Yet making decisions and acting from a deeply intentional place can help you carve out routines and rhythms that work incredibly well for you. Knowing the “why” behind your choices can help communicate that more easily and be received better by others as well. You will end up with boundaries that feel more like intentional choices for how to spend your time and emotional energy.
Identifying these values and prioritizing can be incredibly challenging for caregivers though, who are dealing with high demands around them. Taking the time to explore these values in therapy can be incredibly helpful for identifying values and preferences and learning how to communicate those to others.
I recently worked with a woman who often took care of her young granddaughter, and absolutely loved doing this. She loved the time spent with her granddaughter and loved that she could help her daughter by doing this. Yet as she got older, she found that she was more exhausted and depleted at the end of the day, especially when her granddaughter was left in her care without advance notice. By exploring her routines in detail, we were able to easily identify that what she really needed was a break for about thirty minutes between 4 and 5pm, during which she could conceptualize dinner plans, make adjustments if her granddaughter would be eating with her and prepare some of the food that might be harder to prepare with her granddaughter present (she was at the age of wanting to be highly involved in everything but without any of the awareness yet to keep herself safe!). This woman had to spend a few weeks reminding her daughter of this request until it was honored, and there were a few tricky interactions, but once there was a rhythm established of her daughter either taking the granddaughter back for this break or another family member jumping in to help, it went very smoothly. The woman had more energy emotionally because she didn’t go through a frantic phase of the early evening making plans. She was surprised to find that she was eating much better as a result of that little space of planning also, which was further helpful to managing her energy. Of of the best things was that she also started to love the reunion with her granddaughter after this brief break, and it became a very sweet ritual of reconnection for them which felt SO much better than being frustrated with her granddaughter’s presence at that time of day.
While this is only a small example, it begins to highlight how small tweaks can have really big payoffs. This woman identified her need to have ~thirty minutes to plan and prep dinner in solitude was really important to her. This led to a boundary being placed on her time that was communicated to the rest of her family who learned to adapt to it and everyone felt as good or better in the end.
The Wakefield Therapist Approach: Tailored Support for Caregivers
Asking for help can feel very hard, especially for caregivers who are accustomed to being the helper, rather than the person needing help. Yet the rewards can be great. As a therapist in Wakefield, I approach therapy for caregivers in a highly personal way, as therapy needs to be suited to your needs and your needs alone, which will vary wildly from other caregivers. Together, we will explore what brought you into caregiving, what sustains you and what depletes you. We will determine how to bolster the joyful and rewarding parts of caregiving, take time to comfort the feelings of loss and grief that accompany caregiving and develop a plan that you find sustaining for your journey. This may include emotional strategies and practical plans, all with an intent to help you feel more balanced and fulfilled. In-person therapy can be great for getting out of routines and into a new space, while online therapy can also be very convenient and accessible.
You deserve care too. You don’t need to keep navigating this alone.
If you’re a caregiver in need of support, a therapist in Wakefield can help you find the balance between caring for others and caring for yourself. Therapy can provide the tools you need to reduce stress, set healthy boundaries, and prioritize self-care. Reach out today to schedule a consultation and start creating a sustainable plan for your well-being.