If you're a family caregiver, then you just might have some problems related to taking care of your elderly family member that seem overwhelming, right?
Here we are going to share with you three solutions to every single caregiver, situation that you could come up with. One of them is going to work for your situation. So, what am I talking about? Only three solutions to every single caregiver problem that could be out there?
Well, yes, it is possible. By having just three solutions, it's going to help you clarify your situation and really be able to come to an answer about what you should do.
But before I get into what these three magical solutions are, let me just talk a little bit about the most common problems that caregivers have. Do any of these sound familiar to you? A common one is being overstressed and feeling that you don't have enough time or that you have conflicting priorities.
You might be caring for a difficult family member or parent who has really difficult behaviors, like being angry and resentful and accusatory, or who complains all the time about what you're doing, or who suffers from frustrating memory problems or they wander.
Some of you are dealing with a really sick parent who requires an incredible amount of physical assistance, or some of you might be even facing the death of your parent coming up soon.
Some of you are dealing with financial difficulties stemming from caring for your parent, like maybe you've had to leave your job to stay home, or maybe you don't have the money available to pay for services that are needed.
What else? There are so many other problems that you all face out there. With the problems that we face as family caregivers, they bog us down, sometimes so far down, that we get enmeshed in the day-to-day problems, and we don't even have the time or the energy to look around to see if there are solutions that exist out there.
We don't even realize because we're so steeped in the situation that if we just look around, there just might be an alternative situation. I really do get it. Sometimes it's hard to just get through the day, or even the hour. How can we possibly, you know, look at this whole situation when all we can focus on is this.
If you don't take the time to look, then nothing's ever going to change. Nothing is going to be able to get better. You don't want that. I know you want to change, and I want that for you too. So here are the three solutions to all of your caregiving problems. There are only three solutions.
And each of you and your situation is unique. And if there's another caregiver out there with the same situation as you, they may choose a different solution. There's no right or wrong answer, as long as you choose one of them. But, dear caregiver, if you are at the end of your rope, you have to choose one of them.
The first solution is to change it. Take a good, honest look at your situation and make changes that are going to improve that situation. Sounds so easy, right? Well, it's easier said than done. I know. Try to be open to new ideas for change.
A stranger who's looking at your situation could probably come up with 10 things that you could change to make it better. You only need to choose one and say yes to it. Try to catch yourself and stop yourself from playing the blame game. Yeah, but that's not going to work. Yeah, but I don't have any money for that. You have to be open to making a change.
This change could take the form of getting more help in the home, hiring services, or having your parent go out to a daycare center during the day, or asking family members to help out. For some of you, it might mean downsizing your parent so that there's money to pay for the care that they need, or spending down and applying for Medicaid, or prioritizing all the activities and responsibilities and cutting some things out, or setting firm boundaries and sticking to them.
And when it comes to difficult behaviors, you could learn how to change the way that you interact with your family member to help decrease that difficult behavior. And if that doesn't work, then you could change yourself and the way that you internalize and react to those behaviors.
And while there might be a whole list of things that you could change, it's not easy. And if you're not finding one that you're comfortable with, then you could try the second solution, which is leave it. This means get out of the situation, sometimes providing the best care to your parent means letting someone else do it.
Whether that's another family member or a caregiver that you hire into the home, or it might mean that it's time to transition, or your family member to an assisted living facility, or even a nursing home. If you can't change it, and you can't leave it, then you're only left with one other solution. And that is accept it. This means give in, give in to what the world has dealt you in your situation, and your family member's situation.
Stop fighting it. Fighting it just takes way too much energy. Accepting it means just taking a deep breath and softening into the idea of what is laid out in front of you. And just accepting it, embracing it for what it is, it is the situation of the moment. And when you can say to yourself honestly that you accept the situation and that you know that you and your family member are going to be okay, it just takes that stress level way down. And sometimes when you step back from the situation and you just breathe a little.
You might realize that you have been your own worst enemy all along. When you are faced with difficult caregiving situations, or really any difficult problem in life, there are only three solutions. Change it, leave it, or accept it. There's no other solution, there's no other way out. And I'm afraid if you don't choose one of these, then your situation is never going to change.
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