The self-critic Canadian Caregiver Award goes to.....

Hi guys, I'm back. Been lurking and reading as much as I can. My husband is getting weaker and more frail and it doesn't look like I'll ever be living with him. Like I said before. It would take a Mac truck. But I'm a little better says 'she' of one of the guiltiest caregivers around. After all,
this was my spouse. My rock! I gave him and took from him the best years of my life and loved it. Now he is gone. [mentally] I 'put him in the home'. as the saying goes because I failed him at home. But I have since told myself he is getting good food, good care most of the time, and lots of
attention from the staff. Mike has a great sense of humor and it has been coming out more since his anoxia got worse.
I have also only been going three to four times a week. I help him with supper, watch a movie with him, then it's back here. The apartment is EMPTY. Cold, lonely me has only the tv for company but I dig my heals in and say 'God's Will'. That's all I can put it down to.
I want to tell everyone that it takes so much courage to go the road we are on! You all have to be proud of yourselves! You're wonderful!
I hope...when it comes to be our turn, that we have caregivers like us, just not so stressed!
I feel like you are the family I do not have. Thank you.
Temper.

I'm not really hard on myself over this I've found I have a little trouble with manual dexterity. Normal tasks I wouldn't even think about are just difficult. Fumbling, dropping stuff, not being able to find stuff when it's right in front of me.

It's probably a signal of some kind that I don't even want to think about.

I do this no matter how trivial. Beating myself up is almost the "norm." Not in a physically destructive way. If I do something embarrassing in public. "magnify much?"

This article is just as relevant now as it was six years ago when it was posted. I'm glad it gets brought up to the top every now and then.

This negative thinking was a problem for me as a young woman. I learned some humility and that helped! Being a perfectionist is an extremely hard role to play. Admitting that I wasn't perfect and was never likely to be helped me to be less hard on myself. Allowing other people their imperfections helped me be less angry and/or disappointed.

AnnabelleB, it doesn't sound like your problem is being hard on yourself. It sounds like you are facing very hard situations that are not fully within your control. Please post again in the Questions section, as a new post. You'll get responses from people who have dealt with caring for someone who doesn't sleep at night!

i'm too tired to read the article. i can't get enough sleep because my mom makes so much noise anmd her walker scraps the floor all the time. my left eye is twitching insanely. please for god's sake someone help me!!!!!

Thanks for your support. I'm suprised how good it was to get all that out of my head. Ido take meds but have already decided to ask my psychiatrist about maybe a change. I have been on them for @5yrs,different doses. Time for a change maybe,at least a tweak. I applied for disability june 2014,denied oct 2014. I have a lawyer and we are still waiting for a hearing date. Though I have been procrastinating additional paperwork for the lawyer. This is symptomatic of part of my problems with depression. No focus,concentration,organization. Totally forget @ for weeks and months. I know my leaving just weeks after his dad died has something to do with it. Though he probably hasn't even realized. I have told him we are both too emotionally exhausting to make any major changes after such a tough 3/4 years. He seems to actually accept that idea anyway.
Thanks again soooo much for you kind words.

Laurabb, keep seeing the therapist and psychiatrist. If you don't think the therapist is helping and that isn't a good fit, find another one.

Talk this over with the therapist, but from what you write here I would be tempted, in your spot, to take hubby up on his threat to leave. "You are right. We don't seem to be able to be good for each other right now. Thank you for offering to leave. Let's try a separation for 3 months and see how we feel then." See a family law attorney to see what your options are. (Use the money you would shop with.)

Perhaps you will be better off (if the pain allows it) to get a job to support yourself. Are you on disability?

You took care of his father for over a year and and now hubby is hyper critical that you aren't bringing in income? Or that you spend time with your parents? Or what? Can this marriage be saved? Sounds like it would take a lot of work and two willing people. Discuss this with your therapist.

You need therapy. You need meds. You need caring supportive people in your life. Which one are you missing? Fix that.

I have been impulsively shopping and buying things I dont need as my way of coping. This has caused so much more stress . I have been traveling back and forth to my parents 600miles away for the past 3years and my father-in-law here at home for 1yr 10months until his death in February. The past 3 months again at my parent's home. My husband has been hyper critical and tells me I have been doing nothing really, i have no income. And threatens to go or tells me to go. I see a therapist and psychiatrist take meds, i don't have any motivation or energy my chronic pain conditions have gotten unmanageable. What to do?

As a statistic, yes, girls are more self-critical than boys. Unfortunately, some of them limit it to worrying about the size of their booty, not about right and wrong. But of course everything is a bell curve. You can find women who never question themselves, and men who always do.

i like this article but cant agree entirely with it. i dont imagine females being any more self critical than males and without self evaluation / critcism we would never repair our flaws. like everything, this probably boils down to proportion. yes and / or no are childsplay but " how much " is where things get complicated.

@ Capn, yes I am learning and continue to learn the old fashioned way, the school of hard knocks, Watsa matta U. Problem is when they do take you out in cuffs from the delusions and then it is no fun in a cell waiting for someone to believe you, been there done that and got that T shirt, but it aint in the drawer, I wear it now proudly and remind myself what is what.

@ madeaa,
sounds like your learning from this experience. as the elder regresses they may say more and more hurtful and off the wall stuff. we took my mom to the hospital one night after a day of bad hallucinations. she told everyone in the room that when " they " catch on to me ill do a hundred years in jail. i told her that sounds pretty good and stuck my arms out to be cuffed. we all had a chuckle and went on with the business at hand. dementia and depression patients suffer from persecutory delusions. everybody is a'gin em.

i care for my FIL 16hrs a day.i smile all day long.when i get home i start in on myself about everything.the smile goes away.i use to be a happy person

I am a "realist." My husband has pancreatic cancer and his chances of living 2 more years are slim. Yet his attitude is positive, while I am the pessimist. What happens to me if something happens to him? We live in a home that I cannot afford if he dies. We have been debating this subject for weeks now. Although he is tolerating his latest round of chemo, what is next? What is the prognosis for this type of cancer--not very good I've had heard? He is not willing to give up and I am proud of him. Yet, I am worried about my future and where I will live if something happens to him. Am I being selfish?

Today, I have NO patience, I would have beaten myself up about it and been consumed with guilt, but today, I just let it go, so I don't have a lot of patience, means I need to take care of myself today.

I'm a procrastinator, true. I am 'domestically challenged.' I've almost got the 'I'm so lazy' thought beaten!

Great article.

Well it is a journey for sure. I am getting better but most certainly have my moments. I must remember to detach, most of the time I do, but....there are those times when I get hooked in, or my buttons are pushed. My mother called me a bitch tonight, and I immediately got angry, just like a doctor's hammer on the knee, boom. I did not say or do anything, I just felt the anger seethe and rise within me. I had to take a moment to regroup, and you know what I did not feel guilty this time, oh no. I just said to myself, this happens, it is okay, you are okay, she is okay, it is a reversion to her personality of earlier years. I just said hey go with the flow, let it go and take good care of yourself, smile and move on and forward. We really need to let it go, we don't put our hand on a hot stove and wait and decide to see if it hurts, we let go immediatly, that is what I am doing now. God bless us all and thanks for this place where I can vent to people who really really know what it all feels like.

Kedwards- I heard a speaker who was a speech therapist working with elderly nursing home patients talking about the patients not wanting to eat. She said that people lose their sense of taste as they age. (I know how hard it is to eat when I have a cold and my nose is stopped up and food has no taste or tastes bad even though I know it normally would taste good to me - it feels like eating pulp or sawdust.. Maybe that is what the elderly experience). The speaker said they discovered that the taste buds that sense a sweet taste are the last to loose their function, so the staff started sprinkling EVERYTHING -meat, vegetables, soups, etc.- with a little sugar or sugar substitute. (maybe not the most healthy, but neither is wasting away from not eating ANYTHING. There are a number of alternatives to sugar that might be more healhy now, like Steevia). She said when they did that, the patients loved the food and ate a lot more, which kept their weight and their strength up. Maybe this would help your mom. Of course, check this out with her doctor and nutritionist first, and, if she is a diabetic, find out what kinds of sweeteners she can use.

thank you for a helpful article as it is really hard to be positive right now as both of my folks health is on the decline (especially moms) and we are sick of begging for help and not getting any as nobody seems to care

tired of being rejected by "friends" and never getting a break in over a month or two at a time

also keep having people playing stupid head games with me, so unable to even find work

guess i'll just give up

A very useful article with specific examples.

No inner critic here for me about caring for my father. I did more than all of my selfish siblings and their selfish kids combined.
They are already eyeing up his assets and they are going to be quite disappointed when there are no assets left since I am using them up to pay people to come and sit with him while I resume my life and get out of this house.

I have needed this article for a long time. As a Southern woman, I have the "be nice always" syndrome and feel guilty for everything rule drummed into my heart and head. The idea of saying "cancel,cancel" is so important and I will try it. My father's long illness and death has made me understand that being nice under all circumstances is just totally unrealistic. I have learned that kindness is vital but "being nice" can give you a heart attack and many heartaches. The journal idea is vital. It has helped me understand that certain things were done and said and the guilty feelings are something that should be ignored. I have also learned that men share our feelings in their own ways and we need to make sure we look for ways to help them. Caregiving is going to be filled with opportunities for guilty feelings. I have to keep telling myself that I am there or have been there for the person I love. Whether our actions are perfect or not, that is what counts for all of us. Loving and being there for people should negate any need for guilt. Thanks again for the article.

For years I have tried to put a word or description to how I most concretely feel about myself. At 45, I am FINALLY able to do so. Personalizing SO suits my inner feelings. Being reared in an extremely dysfunctional, abusive home, I believe is the culprit. I am caring for my elderly Mother (Father deceased), who was responsible for some of this and it is most difficult, but healing. It is a journey that I feel I MUST travel in order to understand myself from the past and how to discover the new me of the future. I appreciate this awesome discovery and breakthrough.

I, too, have those thoughts about myself. If I did't weigh 300 pounds, I would be able to help my mother who is in a nursing home. She is somewhat demanding, but not a mean sort of way. It is taking a whole village to care for her and half of the next. We love her, but....she believes she is to be catered to and is driving the nursing staff to distraction. She has been known to call the administrator to ask for special favors. For a while, she was just eating Blue Bell icecream...1/2 gallon every 2 days. We were considering buying stock in that company but couldn't afford to do so because all of our money was being spent on the BB and icecream cones. Sadly, someone had stolen the icecream and she is no longer asking for us to buy more. My heart aches for her and I feel like I am the sorriest excuse for a daughter on the face of the earth!! Everyone try to encourage each other through all of our trials and please convey your appreciation to the staff of the nursing home.

Years ago I learned a technique for changing negative thoughts patterns and words:
After I have thought or said something negative or even horrible, I say "Cancel. Cancel." and I envision a whiteboard being erased completely and a new positive message being written in colorful ink.
As the board is erased, I feel the negative message withdrawing and dispersing into the universal source as raw material, like a sentence being broken down into individual letters, so that the letters have no negative energy left in them. Erasing to the very corners of the board leaves me with a clear space to rephrase my thought and come out with a clearer and more helpful response.

I think a thought log is a GREAT idea!!! I get down on myself for thinking thoughts that make me feel guilty. My PD mom is a wonderful woman but I feel frustrated by her progression and sometimes wish she wanted to go to asst lvg (she does not) so she wouldnt' be BOTH wouldn't be isolated in this house. I especially feel this @ 1 or 3 in the a.m. when she rings the bell for me to help her to the bathroom and I have a hard time falling back to sleep. Also have the negative thoughts over mealtimes now. SHe hasn't reached the swallowing probs yet although from what I read -- it will come. Now, it's like she hates everything --even something she liked a few weeks before. All she wants is sweet stuff. The lists of dislikes is growing fast and not being replaced with likes. I find myself thinking "if you were hungry, you'd eat it" but then I feel bad b/c it's probably her condition or the meds or a combo. I love this website and don't feel so all alone!

The idea of keeping a thought log had never occurred to me. I'm gonna try this for a few days.

This is so true and helpful for just the everyday life even if you are not a caregiver