Balancing Elder Care With Other Relationships

Becoming a family caregiver is often something that either happens very suddenly or slowly sneaks up on a person. When a loved one has a health setback or begins needing more assistance, we tend to go into “crisis mode” and haphazardly shift our priorities around to ensure their immediate needs are met. Most family caregivers take on these responsibilities thinking they will be short-term commitments and that life will soon return to “normal.” But the reality is that caregiving can drag on for weeks, months and even years.

Without any solid plans or reprioritizing, things that were once at the forefront of your life, like your job, your friends and even your relationship with your significant other, can wind up on the back burner. Whether you are brand new to caregiving, you sense it is quickly approaching on the horizon or you’ve been in the trenches for months now, it’s never too late to reevaluate your priorities, make some changes to achieve a better balance in your life and repair relationships with the people you love.

The Effects of Caregiving on Friendships

When caregiving mode begins, the first things to go are the time, energy and desire to maintain social connections. Even close friendships that go back years can seem like yet another item on a caregiver’s never-ending to-do list.

So, caregivers stop extending and accepting invitations to socialize, cut phone calls short, and begin to drift away from their support systems. Although most try to be understanding of all the different directions a caregiver is being pulled in, friends still get tired of being canceled on or having caregiving dominate the conversation.

As caregivers focus on the tasks at hand, friends also begin to pull back and shift their efforts elsewhere. Before you know it, you haven’t heard from close connections or acquaintances in quite a while. By the time you realize you could use a helping hand or a venting session over a cup of coffee, you may find that your friendships have been damaged, possibly even beyond repair.

The Effects of Caregiving on Children

For sandwich generation caregivers, there are also children in the picture. I had two young sons when I began my stint of caregiving that spanned two decades and included the care of seven elders in total. I believe I gave my sons as much attention and care as any mother…

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Leslie Kernisan, MD, MPH, is offering two free caregiver training webinars to people who notice that their aging parents need some help now or will in the future. Sign up now to receive the free newsletter from Better Health While Aging and, if you choose, view two great caregiving webinars that can help you help your older parents (and yourself). Or you can go directly to the trainings page.

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Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories: “…This book is for all of us; let it help you cope! Thank you to the author and everyone she spoke with!” …Dolores