About Caregivers
Feeling overwhelmed and stressed as a caregiver?
Are you a caregiver to a loved one and find yourself struggling to balance getting your needs met and meeting others’ needs? Maybe you feel cut off from your needs and wants or feel that you have lost touch with the ability to identify them since focusing on caring for aging parents or a severely ill family member.
Do you experience perpetual fatigue and feel stretched too thin on a daily basis? Have you ever thought that self-care is out of reach or that you are too preoccupied with the pressing concerns of constant care for your ailing loved one to have time for self-care?
Anticipatory grief and caregiver burnout
Are you feeling blocked or at an impasse when a thought comes to mind that you wish you could live a better life, but that does not feel possible when someone you love is so sick or dying? Maybe you’re less involved in the routine care of a loved one but are consumed with guilt and don’t know how to engage in life under these circumstances. Sometimes injury or illness can change lives suddenly and impact entire family systems. Family members of a disabled or acutely ill person may struggle with adapting to changes in lifestyles for their loved one, their family, and themselves, often intensified by waves of grief and related emotions for the person and life they used to have.
Support for caregivers of people with chronic illness, Dementia, Alzheimer's, and other terminal illnesses
These are some of the concerns, internal questions, and struggles caregivers and their families experience. The reality of caring for aging or medically dependent loved ones can feel murky or harsh, with compounding layers that can often appear conflicting. How can we think about going on when someone is nearing the end of their journey? How can we as caregivers have a good day when a person so near to us is suffering?
I am a master's-level candidate holding a certificate to practice in Texas as a Licensed Master Social Worker. I practice under a board-approved clinical supervisor, at Mindful Therapy Group
Compassion fatigue
Being a caregiver can be a long and hard journey, but you don’t have to navigate it alone. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to seek support at this time. Feelings of burnout and guilt don’t have to control your mental life. Together we can talk about what you’re going through and what it takes for you to feel supported. We can talk about all the things you feel you cannot say to the person you’re caregiving. We can find a place of healing that has room for your ailing or dying loved one. We can address your goals for your internal world, daily life, relationships, and more.
Help for caregiver exhaustion
I am consistently impressed by the caregivers I encounter. Not only do I witness them pour time and energy into their loved one with a long-term debilitating diagnosis, but they are deeply impacted by the loved one’s daily experiences of the chronic or new symptoms, treatment side effects, medical encounters and schedule, medication concerns, and so much more. It is often groundbreaking when these seemingly super-human caregivers are able to recognize and stay attentive to their needs and health, attentive enough to reach out for support for themselves.
Understanding the sandwich generation: caring for kids and parents
I have always been interested in helping the sick and elderly, and by proximity, appreciated the important work of caregivers. From middle school through high school, I volunteered my time at nursing homes, playing bingo and visiting residents multiple times each year. After graduating with my master’s in social work, it felt right being a hospice social worker. I built relationships with caregivers and families of terminally ill patients and provided many types of support: problem solving daily concerns, holding big emotions, ensuring technical and legal paperwork was in place, and finding valuable resources for unique needs. Prior to pursuing my master’s degree, I worked in an unrelated field assisting families of clients who had passed, often recently. In all these experiences, I deepened my desire to help caregivers and families of medically disabled, ill, and dying loved ones.
It would be an honor if I can help you, too.
All images from pixabay