Difficult Seasons

I’m just a work in progress.

Sometimes I forget that.  I get busy dealing with situations, trying to help others, and don’t work on Jim, or more accurately,  allow God to work on Jim.

That’s been happening lately.  What brings it to consciousness is usually a combination of emotional and physical symptoms: feeling tired, struggling to get things done, feeling overwhelmed, wanting to pull the sheets over my head, looking for things to keep my mind occupied.

When this alarm goes off and I become conscious of what’s going on, I know pretty quickly what the problem is and what I have to do to reverse course.

I have to very intentionally turn control of all of the things that are weighing me down over to God. It’s not that I haven’t prayed often about all of the situations and all of the people, or that I don’t have faith that God will provide exactly what’s needed. It’s just that I have unconsciously retained a portion of the responsibility for the outcome.  I haven’t completely given these things to God, robbing myself of the peace that comes from doing so.  And of the joy of watching how He works and allows me to participate.

So today I began the day intentionally by doing just that — naming names, and listing situations, verbalizing my trust in Him to provide and lead. And I feel more peaceful, more able to respond to His urges for these situations and these people.

I’m adding “Turn Over Control” to my daily calendar.  I need daily explicit recognition that I am not in control, but that the One I serve is.

You don’t become your parent’s parent, or your spouse’s parent, or your sibling’s parent when you become their caregiver.  We talked about why we don’t in the previous post.  And we talked about what to do instead.  But sometimes  an actual story does a better job of making the point.

The wife had become the care giver for her husband.

Her approach to care giving was to attempt to make him do what he was supposed to do.  She would remind him, then cajole him, then give him orders, then lecture him, and so forth.

And guess what?  He would refuse to take his medicine or do his therapy or whatever.

She was quite upset by the situation, became clinically depressed, and started having medical issues of her own.  And he’d just sit at home not wanting to do anything.

Her real breakthrough as a care giver came when she asked his doctor one day what was wrong with her husband, and the doctor said, “I think it’s you!”  Over time, with effective mentoring and coaching and treatment for her depression, she stopped trying to make her husband take care of himself.  And predictably, when she changed, he started taking responsibility for himself.

What happened here is actually simple.  She had assumed the role of parent, so he assumed the role of the rebellious child.  When she quit “parenting,” he quit rebelling.

I don’t know who came up with the phrase, “I’ve become my parent’s parent.”  But my advice is to try to wipe that phrase, and more importantly, that concept of care giving, from your mind.

As a substitute, you might try replacing it with, “I’m honoring my parent.”  Or, “I’m honoring my spouse.”  Or, “I’m honoring my sibling.”  Or, “I’m honoring whoever I’m caring for.”

Grieving

Ever heard words like these coming out of your mouth about someone you need to care for?

Statements of disbelief (denial):  I really don’t believe she’s suffering from dementia.  If they’d just do this procedure, she would be fine.  He doesn’t really need skilled nursing care.  This isn’t going to affect my ability to have a normal life.

Statements of Anger:  I can’t believe the doctor didn’t get it all while he was in there!  Those people just aren’t doing their jobs.  If  God really loved me, He would fix this right now.

Statements of Longing or Bargaining:  I wish I could just sit down and talk to her like before her Alzheimer’s  got so bad.  If we could just find some doctors that really understood, everything would be fine like before.  I miss being able to just take off and leave town on a whim.

Statements describing depression:  I haven’t slept all night in three weeks.  I’m sleeping all the time, and I’m still exhausted.  I’m eating all the time.  I can’t eat — I’m not hungry.  I cry at the drop of a hat.

Statements of acceptance:  We’ve made plans for help with dad’s care to allow us take care of ourselves.  Mom’s condition isn’t going to improve, but we are working with her to find ways to improve the quality of her life.  There have been some definite changes in dad’s condition and we’re getting help for them.

These are statements that can describe the emotions of grief. In fact, they’re common statements I’ve heard from care givers I’ve worked with.  And I’ve made several of them myself in times of loss.

When your parent, spouse, child, or friend loses their health, their independence, and/or their ability to care for themselves, the person and everyone that loves him enters grief.

As a care giver, you’re certainly grieving their loss of ability to care for themselves.  But you’re also grieving the fact that you’ve lost at least part of your independence and freedom and taken on additional responsibilities and duties.

Grief is the normal reaction during such life changes.  In fact, it’s the healthy reaction, one given to us by God.  Grief helps us hold on to what’s been lost until we’re ready to move on.  And it helps us heal.

Tell me about your experiences with grief during care giving in the comments.  It’ll help us all.

Photo Credit:  Brian Leon

Any time we encounter change — and becoming a care giver is definitely a change — we go through a change process.

Here’s a simple diagram I’ve adapted to help explain the process we go through.

The Change Process of a Difficult Season

We’re happily going along in normality when an event comes along — in this case becoming a care giver — and everything changes.

Suddenly things become chaotic. The emotions of grief show up because we’ve lost our old normal.

Sometimes we’re in denial or disbelief, sometimes we find that we are angry, other times we are filled with longing for the way things used to be, and then we’ll find ourselves feeling quite depressed.  And off and on, we’ll be accepting of the changes that have occurred.  Actually, we’ll generally feel all of these emotions at the same time, but one will tend to be stronger on any given day than the others.

And guess what?  Everyone touched by the change is going through the same stuff.  Except on any given day, different people may be in different places emotionally.  It’s true for the caregiver’s family, and it’s also true for the care receiver.

Just understanding that the chaos is normal and that the grief emotions are normal helps. It provides a framework for naming what you’re feeling.

How long will this last? It depends.  How big is the change?  How disruptive is it?  How serious is what’s caused the change?  How long is the caregiving responsibility going to last.  How difficult is it to achieve a stable caregiving arrangement?

What you can be certain of is that the time of chaos will end, and you’ll emerge into a time of new normal. You don’t go back to the old normal because it doesn’t exist any more.  You bring your new experiences with you into the new normal.

Four years ago we were visiting with Dad when a change event happened and I became his care giver.  We’ll talk about that next.