Caregiving can be overwhelming. To get through the ups and downs, resiliency can be learned.
“People become sudden caregivers in at least two ways. Either they are thrust into the caregiving role due to the unexpected diagnosis of a loved one who
has been, up that point, perfectly healthy; or they are already a caregiver to someone who takes a sudden turn,” said Karen Warner Schueler, author of “The Sudden Caregiver: A Roadmap for Resilient Caregiving.”
One of the hardest parts about caregiving is that there is no uniform job description. It “is largely determined by their relationship to the care-receiver, the nature of that person’s illness and the amount of agency they’re given by the person in their care,” Warner Schueler said. Taking on a caregiving role often adds intense pressure to a person’s life.
“With crisis come emotional and physical demands, renegotiating work schedules, juggling family responsibilities and navigating treatment choices. Even as the crisis abates and the caregiver acclimates to life in their new role, research abounds on the depleting and healt h-threatening aspects of caregiving, which have only been intensified during the pandemic,” Warner Schueler said.
The other side of caregiving is that it often comes with positive emotions, such as creativity and joy, stronger bonds with the person you’re caring for and pride in accomplishing tasks you never knew you could handle, she said. “This is what I call the caregiver’s paradox: that caregiving is difficult and it is also a source of well-being. It is both,” Warner Schueler said.
To make sure you are able to take care of another’s needs, it is necessary to pay attention to your own and set some limits. “The simplest tip for setting boundaries is to ask for help,” Warner Schueler said. First, be comfortable asking for help and secondly, identify people whom you trust to come through
for you when you ask, she said. Sort demands that are overwhelming into two groups: things you have to do and things others can help with.
“Identify the most loving and helpful and reliable and trustworthy people you know and line them up ahead of time so they’re ready to help when the need arises,” Warner Schueler said. Take time to count your blessings. Researchers have found that we can raise our well-being by spending a bit of time each day feeling grateful, she said. Because this is admittedly difficult to do when the pressure is mounting and our days are filled with stressful events, hunt for
the good instead of dwelling on what’s gone wrong, she said.
“Focus on two or three good people or things that you’re grateful for and try to write them down each day,” said Warner Schueler, who shares the words of
former First Lady Rosalyn Carter: “There are only four kinds of people in the world — those who have been caregivers, those who are caregivers, those
who will be caregivers and those who will need caregivers.”
“While caregiving is inevitable, caregiver distress is not,” Warner Schueler said. “Caregiving is likely to lie ahead for most of us. I urge us all to prepare for
it the way we do any other milestone in our adult lives.”
