Dealing with Guilt as a Family Caregiver

By Jamie Shapiro | September 9, 2015 | Comments Off on Dealing with Guilt as a Family Caregiver

Caregiver in Highland Park IL

When you’re a family caregiver, it’s difficult to balance all of the different demands on your time and yourself. You have your own career, your own family, and your elderly loved one to worry about. All too often, guilt pops up into the mix. Instead of wrapping that feeling around you, it’s really important for you to learn when guilt is appropriate and when it needs to be banished.

Acknowledge the Feeling

You can’t deal properly with any feeling if you don’t first acknowledge it. It’s not uncommon to feel uncomfortable, or off, and not realize at first that you’re feeling guilt. That feeling can hit when it’s 3:00 pm and you haven’t called your mom yet today or when you’re out having a cup of coffee at your favorite coffee shop for the afternoon. You were okay, and then suddenly you weren’t. If you examine the feeling instead of trying to shove it aside, you’re able to identify it more easily.

Sort Out the Why

Once you know what it is that you’re feeling, take a few minutes and sort out why you’re having that feeling. If it’s missing that phone call earlier in the day, which can be an easy fix. Take five minutes and pick up the phone. If the source of your guilt is that you’re having coffee and you left your elderly loved one with an elder care provider or another family member, ask yourself how you think you’re failing in that situation. Guilt commonly arises from not living up to expectations, whether those are our own expectations or those of someone else.

Adjust Your Expectations

If you’re feeling guilty because you shouldn’t have left your loved one with someone else, ask yourself if that’s realistic. Your loved one is likely in good hands, or you wouldn’t have opted to take a few minutes for yourself while an in-home care provider stays with your loved one. Guilt serves a purpose when it allows us to examine our motives for our own behavior. When you haven’t done anything wrong, such as in the coffee shop example, then you have to reason to hold yourself to unattainable expectations. Learn to let yourself off the hook.

Accepting guilt when it’s not necessary doesn’t do you any good. Once you learn how to go through the acknowledgement and analysis quickly, you can deal with guilty feelings without bending to them.

If you or an aging loved one are considering caregiver services in Highland Park, IL, contact the caring staff at Companion Services of America today at (847) 943-3786. Our home care service area includes Northbrook, Highland Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Buffalo Grove, Evanston, Des Plaines, Skokie, Lake Forest, Wilmette and the surrounding areas.

 

Jamie Shapiro
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