Being a caregiver is hard, stressful work. As a caregiver, you need a place to go where people understand your stress and fatigue as well as your devotion. You need a place where you can say some of the things that are on your mind simply as a way of getting rid of them.
Reading this account of a caregiver support group meeting reminded me of the phone calls my wife and I got from our daughter when she was a first semester college student. On more than one occasion, she was practically in tears. She hated college; she had no friends; she couldn’t sleep at night in the noisy dorm; the food was awful; she would probably fail all her classes. And so on, and so on.
We would listen patiently and offer whatever advice and support we could, trying our best to hide our worry that she wouldn’t make it. Then the light came on for us, and we began to understand that she wasn’t merely describing her difficulties on the phone. She was actually resolving some of them just by talking about them. Once we understood that we were actually functioning as a support group for her, everything got easier.
I think the same sort of thing is going on in the support group meeting linked above. The importance of the group to its members is precisely that group members can safely say the kinds of things reported here. The statements made, when they are made, accurately represent powerful and raw emotions. Support group members need to say what they do in front of people who will understand what they are hearing.
In this way, fear, anger and frustration can lose their crippling power, and the individual caregiver draws on the experience, strength and hope of the entire group. When a support group works well, stress, fatigue and frustration stay with the group. Devotion goes home with the caregiver.
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Tags: care giver, caregiver, support group
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#1 Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Family Caregivers - Caregiving Blog - 14 January, 5:14 PM
[…] Your own situation will suggest dozens of items like this. It pays to have them written down, however, so that you have something to say when someone makes an offer like, “Let me know if there is anything I can do.” 2. I will become (or remain) active in a caregiver support group […]