The Domino Effect: Caregiving Piles Up

It all just happened. I didn’t plan that one day I would spend nearly all day, seven days a week, taking care of a handful of elders and my kids. I didn’t plan on my darling young son having Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, asthma, obsessive compulsive disorder, migraines and depression kick in after a viral infection. His brother had the same infection, and, thankfully, was left unscathed. I didn’t plan on any of it. It just happened.

The needs of others took on a proportion that I still find hard to believe. I just picked up one person after another as a “dependent.” Hindsight tells me I should have done what I now preach when I speak to groups – detach with love. Get respite care. Hire some help. Tell others that I, too, need time and some care.

But I know myself. I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t have the wisdom hindsight now gives me. To be fair to myself, the services we now have available (on some scale) were barely getting going. Most of them weren’t available at all. It was just expected that family would care for their elders. But most people didn’t have so many elders, with only one person carrying the primary load. And most people didn’t have a child for whom they had to battle schools, relatives, doctors and others who didn’t understand what was happening.

It creeps up on you – this caregiving thing. One person at a time. One disability at a time. You don’t stop to count. Someone needs help. You go. You help. It’s only in hindsight that you think back and say, “How’d I do it?” I’m still wondering.

The last years of elder care, I was divorced and working about 48 hours a week at a newspaper. My son still needed a lot of my physical and emotional time.

Now my elders are gone, but my son still needs support. He’s dependent on me financially and emotionally. He’s had to handle a lot of pain – physical and emotional – more than any young person should.

Meanwhile, I try to share with others what I’ve learned from my two decades of elder care. I’ve only recently, with my son’s permission, begun sharing his story. He’s very open, as he knows it can help others.

It seems all of my caregiving has been for a purpose other than making everyone else comfortable. It seems that maybe I have something to share.

Oh, did I tell I was a caregiver, at age 14, for my toddler sister and my grandma, who was crippled with Rheumatoid Arthritis? My (now adult) sister reminded me of that, one day. I’d never even considered that part of the equation.

That’s the thing about caregiving. It’s an automatic reaction to need, which is good. It’s not understanding what this is taking out of us that’s the problem. Awareness is the secret.

Take care of the caregiver along with those who need care. Label your caregiving as work. Look for respite care so you can have at least a little “vacation.” Don’t let the domino effect destroy your health. Add the caregiver – you – to your list of people who need help. That is a mus in order to weather the storm.