|
Looking After Yourself
By Karen Houppert
|
4. Delegate responsibilities. Remember, the geographically distant sister can handle pop's finances, the brother who works full time can take calls while he's at the office and serve as a medical liaison, the sister who makes lots of money but lives far away can pay for a home-health aide or someone to clean a frail parent's home.
5. Ask for help whenever possible. Being your parent's caregiver is overwhelming and almost impossible without help. So when family, friends and neighbors toss out that common refrain: "Is there anything I can do to help?" you should accept the offer and give them a task. And don't hesitate to seek help outside your circle of family and friends. O'Boyle suggests hooking up with other caregivers either online or at a neighborhood support group (see Caregiving Resource Guide). "Caregivers wait and wait and wait to use services out there," says David Troxel, who heads the California Central Coast Alzheimer's Association in Santa Barbara. "But once we get them to use an adult day-care center, or to come to our support groups, they always find it liberating and say, 'If only I'd done this sooner.'"
6. Don't neglect your own health—physical, emotional and mental. "Family caregivers typically put their parents' needs first," says Suzanne Mintz, president and co-founder of the National Family Caregivers Association. But, she says, they should take regular "breaks" to do anything that might ease stress, whether it's exercising, seeing a movie or going out to eat with friends. "If a caregiver gets sick or depressed, who's going to be there to take care of the person in need?" she says. "Far from being selfish, self-care may be the best present you give to a loved one." (That also involves eating properly and getting enough rest.)
7. Try to keep your sense of perspective. "People think, 'This is my mother who gave birth to me, raised me, nursed me through chicken pox—how can I possibly resent what I'm doing?'" says O'Boyle. "You feel guilt that you can't give that gift back, but if you try to 'do it all' you've set yourself up for failure." In other words, if you let misplaced guilt drive your efforts you'll inevitably fall short of your goals and then blame yourself—none of which will help you or your parent. "It's important to remind myself from time to time that this situation isn't about me," says 60-year-old Laura Bader, whose mother suffered from depression and health problems after her husband's death. "I try to remind myself to step back and let life unfold."
8. Set boundaries. Bader says that instead of making frequent phone calls, she's taken an easier path—writing letters to her mother, who lives halfway across the country in an assisted-living facility. "My mother likes getting something in the mail, something she can reread, and I like writing about the family, what we're doing, newsy stuff—those neutral topics." And if your parents are comfortable using the computer, there's e-mail, which is swift, uncomplicated and can give a wonderful feeling of closeness.
9. Try to see your time together as a gift, a way of deepening your relationship. Aware that her own mother is slowing down, Mintz has encouraged her to preserve her memories, collecting photos and anecdotes into a scrapbook. "I like the idea of using that time to capture our family memories for the next generation," she says.
For Booth, caring for her mother brought long talks and a new closeness. "I parachuted into someone's life, which I hadn't really been a daily part of for the last thirty years," she says. "It was a process of reacquainting myself with my mother, and that's been a lovely thing."
* Some names and places have been changed.
|
