care·giv·er/ˈkerˌɡivər/nounNORTH AMERICAN
- a family member or paid helper who regularly looks after a child or a sick, elderly, or disabled person.
When someone has cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or other serious illnesses the hospital works with the family and a “Caregiver” is assigned. Often the parent or spouse is considered the caregiver or it is at least someone in the family. When my dad was diagnosed with lymphoma, my mom became his caregiver and there was even some training around how she was going to be his caregiver. However, when your loved one is diagnosed with mental illness, there is no mention of a caregiver. And to add insult to injury, the family is sent home with implied blame and idea of, “Did YOU possibly do something wrong to cause this???” No one asks what food has been prepared for the heart patient and how the cook in the family should feel shame. Or how many sugars the diabetes patient was given and how ashamed the family should feel that they gave the patient sugar because everyone knows and understands that these are illnesses and there is not one reason or one issue that “caused” the illness.
In mental illness, however, these lines get blurred and there is both blame and medical issues to deal with for Caregivers. As families, we have to be strong and clear that mental illness is an illness—and no one is to blame. Healing comes through therapy (and possible medications and medical treatments), not by blaming family members, friends, or even teachers and others.
In mental illness caregiving, we have so many added pressures, but…
…the bottom line is that we are Caregivers for an ill person. And that is that.
There is no shame or guilt attached. Our loved one needs support, therapy, medication and/or medical attention, and time to heal. We will have to arrange appointments, take our loved one, and deal with the constant ups and downs of our loved one’s moods, thoughts, and feelings. Sometimes as a Caregiver we will have to bear the brunt of our loved one’s wrath, even though we know that their mental illness issues have very little, if anything, to do with us.
We are the safe place, so we will get some of the pain that they are going through
spilled
onto
us.
The Caregiver for mental illness must take impeccable care of him/herself because the road is long. It is not a sprint but a marathon! Daily, for years possibly, we will get up and put the meds out, check to make sure they have been taken, make appointments, move appointments, watch their diet, their exercise, sleep and moods. We ask how it’s going and wait to hear when it’s not going well. We also watch for every bit of body language, anything at all that is said or done that is out of the ordinary. We watch and we pray and hope that the treatments are working, that the therapy appointments are helping, that we all will have good days. And so our energy must be at the highest—we must rest ourselves and eat healthy nourishing food and drink our water and take our vitamins
BECAUSE THIS IS HARD WORK.
