Episode 210: It’s Not Just You Part 1: Navigating Fatigue, Loss and Self-Rediscovery

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Show Transcript

This month’s theme on the Love Your Caregiving Life Podcast is all about things you’d like to say but never felt you could.

Expressing your needs as a caregiver is difficult to say the least. You might even feel like you can’t have a moment of vulnerability and complain to family or a friend about how tired you are without them judging or telling you that you’re insensitive.

Let me tell you, your emotions are valid. I’m here to say that you aren’t the only one that feels the way you do. The only reason you think you’re alone is because most of us don’t have the energy to be vulnerable and share our difficulties, thoughts and emotions.

So this month I’m re sharing reminders that it’s not just you!

Let’s talk about Caregiver Fatigue!

I know it isn’t all about us. 

We aren’t the ones that are sick. The ones that need help.

That doesn’t mean that we need to deny that life is difficult for us too.

Caregivers are quick to deny themselves things in order to help and be there for the person they are caring for. We all give up at least a part of our lives to do this job. If we aren’t careful we loose ourselves along the way. 

 It's so easy for it to happen, to get lost. 

 It happens slowly doesn’t it? 

You start off your caregiver journey in shock or fear. You get the diagnosis for your loved one and, without even realizing what it means to be all in, you decide to take care of this person. Maybe it’s someone you already live with or possibly it’s someone that doesn’t live with you … yet. 

For some reason you say yes. Maybe you don’t even physically say yes but at some point you are in agreement that you are taking care of this person and helping them through their illness or injury. You find yourself trying to figure out how to sleep on a chair in the hospital. Then you get them home and try to figure out how to navigate through life after surgery.  You are exhausted and maybe scared, definitely anxious. I know I was. 

Then maybe things would even out for a little bit. Nothing would change much. Things don’t get better but they also don’t get worse. You are still tired and you start to withdraw from the things you used to do for fun because after a day of taking care of your person you just don’t have the energy to do anything for yourself. 

Slowly there are less phone calls from family and friends to check in to see if you need help and that is when you start to feel bitter - right? You realize that people aren’t going to be as attentive as they were in the beginning and that hurts. It stings and it makes you sad and angry at the same time. It also makes you feel extremely lonely to realize that everyone will eventually go on with their lives. 

This is when you become bitter. You lash out at family members. You become short with your friends and you feel no one understands what you are going through because frankly, as caregivers, we are too overwhelmed to understand what we are going through at any given time. 

Here’s where the slope gets real slippery. Your anger and frustration. Your feelings of not being seen or heard by your family and friends then turns towards the person you are caring for. Your unhappiness now becomes focused on the person you love. They ask you for something to drink, or maybe they need help changing out of their clothes. Possibly they have a bad day and lash out at you. 

And you’re done!

You look around and you don’t recognize who you are anymore. You don’t like how you feel, you don’t like the life you are living. You feel trapped in the situation you are in. You don’t feel like anyone understands you and may even feel like people are attacking you. You’re not the person you were at the beginning of this caregiver experience and you don’t like whoever it is you are now. 

As caregivers we all find ourselves in one of these stages at some point. Although it doesn’t matter where we find ourselves - wherever we land feels like crap.

The emotions you feel are real. Your anger, frustration and sadness are valid emotions. You don’t need permission to feel them and you don’t need to explain them. It is difficult to navigate through all the pressure, work, disappointment and overwhelm that comes with being a caregiver. 

Let’s be real if you weren’t good at dealing with emotions before becoming a caregiver it isn’t going to magically become easier. If your relationships with family and friends weren’t on good terms before becoming a caregiver they aren’t going to magically be healed when you become one. Plus with the stress you are under in the beginning of taking care of your family member the less you are going to want to work on those relationships. 

Caregiving doesn’t make things better in your life. It complicates things. 

So in order for you not to lose yourself you need to hold on to the things that are uniquely yours. 

If you feel like you don’t recognize yourself anymore don’t worry you aren’t gone. The pre-caregiver you is still somewhere down deep inside. The one that had things they enjoyed, that laughed and had fun. That version of you is still there and a version of that can still reappear. 

Think back at when you used to enjoy life. Just bits and pieces, phases of your life that you really enjoyed. Maybe you have to go back to when you were a child or a young adult. But remember what you liked to do. 

Something that you really enjoyed. 

Maybe make a mental note of it or write it down. 

Just one or two things. 

I’ll share.

I have always liked dancing. It’s always been a part of my life on a low key level. I’m not talking about going to dance class and I definitely don’t dance well. But, growing up, dancing was a part of my culture. As a teenager and young adult I also enjoyed painting. Again not good at it but it brought me joy.  

When I felt I was losing myself I realized that I wasn’t doing anything that I enjoyed doing. I was working, taking care of my husband and daughter, eating, sleeping and repeating the process. Just trying to hold it all together until the next surgery. I would always tell myself that I’d do things for me when things got better. But in the beginning it just felt like things kept getting worse. Once we got over him having one surgery there was another test or scan or surgery he would have to have.  

I started to feel that even though I was enjoying life with my family I wasn’t enjoying being myself because I didn’t really know who that was anymore.

So I started to dance. I joined a Zumba class where I could look as equally awkward as everyone else and tried really hard not to position myself in front of a mirror. Because what you believe you look like and what you actually look like in one of those classes is always two different things. I also started to doodle and draw here and there. It didn’t cost much money, if anything at all, and I could lose myself in it. During a Zumba class I couldn’t worry about anything because I had to concentrate too much on what my feet were doing and when I would draw it was as if everything stopped for a moment. 

This all happened out of instinct and I didn’t realize that I had taken a step towards finding myself again.

Please try to find something that you enjoy and at least entertain the thought of you doing it. 

I’d love to hear how this works for you.