Create and Embrace Your Village
In 1996, then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton published her book, It Takes a Village.
When I first read this book, I appreciated Clinton's vision and desire that in the best of all worlds, beyond a child's rearing from their family, our society can have a positive or negative influence on their development. I truly enjoyed It Takes a Village, and stowed away the basic message and moved on.
Fast forward six years. In 2002, unexpectedly, I became a family caregiver. Like most caregivers, I was pretty unprepared for the challenges immediately ahead. I initially took charge of all possible caregiving responsibilities. And, over time, even with more and more caregiving tasks, I actually began to feel more comfortable in my family caregiving role. My stress level seemed to even out as I got my family caregiver sea legs under me. Great, right? Not so fast!
Caution 1: Don't confuse familiarity with being physically and emotionally OK.
Our family caregiver community is 50M people strong. Twenty percent of all adult households deal with some type of family caregiver issue. Amazingly, without knowing it, family caregivers are surrounded by many people who share like interests, yet, when speaking with family caregivers it is not unusual to hear about feelings of isolation and loneliness.
I can tell you firsthand, family caregivers can make choices that lead them into isolation without realizing it. For instance, when I took on my caregiving responsibilities for Jill, besides being shaken by the unexpected health issue, I made a conscious choice to learn all I could about Jill's condition to be an effective health advocate for Jill. At the time, another choice I made was family caregiving was now my top priority and a final choice I made was to protect our son, Samson, who was 11 at the time, and Jill's parents from unnecessary worry.
In hindsight, and perhaps in part because of having a science background, I somehow believed I could take on the role of being Jill's healthcare QB and control communications across six highly skilled physicians. (As they say, "do as I say not as I do/DID.")
Caution 2: Know what you can and can't take on nor control.
In two decades of observing and speaking with family caregivers and for many of the reasons just mentioned, it is fair to say in general family caregivers have a propensity to keep a lot to themselves and do a lot by themselves. Without the proper support this is a recipe for emotional and physical isolation and loneliness, which can lead to serious health risks including:
High blood pressure
Obesity
Cognitive decline
Anxiety
Weakened immune system
Caution 3: Avoid isolation and loneliness at all costs.
In my now 21 years of being an active family caregiver, many things have changed, but one change was slow in coming, asking for help and developing support around me... finding my Village!
Caution 4: Don't fall into the false belief you can do it alone.
Creating your Village
Yes, during my years as a family caregiver, Clinton's Village concept stayed with me and reminded me sometimes we can be at our best when we are part of something bigger than ourselves.
As family caregivers, please know there is no magic creating a Village (community) to help support your needs, especially during challenging times. However, what's necessary is to first adopt an inner belief that there is nothing wrong in asking for help from others, whether they be family, friends or even bringing on 3rd party services when necessary.
Once you make the commitment to ask others for help the following steps will help for identifying the type of support you need:
Identify the typical family caregiving tasks you provide in a given day/week and the time it takes to deliver them.
Identify caregiving tasks, categorizing them as: tasks you must personally attend to, tasks that would be good to attend to, tasks that would be nice to attend to and finally tasks anyone can help address.
Identify the outside-of caregiving-activities in your life that are necessary to participate in including immediate family and workplace demands, organizational meeting, time with friends and those activities "joy" activities you do not want to abandon.
Identify your personal circle-of-care. With a better understanding of your demands and needs, begin identifying people who can help out with the tasks you believe are appropriate for others, without diminishing the level of care for your loved one. You will be pleasantly surprised by both the number of folks available and their desire to support you.
We're family caregivers, and know on one side we have a finite amount of time and on the other side we have many important responsibilities. If we try to take them all on with no support our time-bucket will overflow creating a no-win environment for all parties. Please begin creating your Village. You may quickly realize it will make you feel right at home!
Help yourself. Help others.
