How Caregiving Can Change Your Personality
There’s no getting around it: being a family caregiver is bound to impact how you think and who you are as a person. Taking on this high-stress role that is both physically and mentally demanding can be transformative, especially when you consider that the average duration of caregiving is 4.5 years.
Some members of the Caregiver Forum worry that their personality changes are largely negative. Certainly, stress, exhaustion and overwhelming responsibilities can take a serious toll on one’s physical and mental health. Caregiver burnout is notorious for sneaking up on even the most organized and level-headed individual. But, if you learn to manage caregiver burden instead of letting it consume you, the risk of developing lasting negative traits like anxiety, depression and agitation is greatly reduced.
In fact, many proactive caregivers notice that they’ve developed some beneficial attributes and coping methods thanks to their experiences in elder care. How your personality might change throughout this journey depends, of course, on your unique attitude, your openness to change, the feelings you have for the person you are caring for, and the state of your own physical and mental health.
The Take-Charge Personality: For people who instinctively seek control in most situations, caregiving can either turn them into frustrated tyrants or help them mellow out.
It can be very easy to adopt a “do as I say” approach to communicating with aging parents or an ailing spouse. Even if your loved one still has their faculties, it’s usually less of a hassle for you to personally manage care tasks big and small compared to giving them the leeway to attempt these things themselves. After all, you know exactly what medications need to be taken and when. You know what the weather is like today, therefore it’s easier …
Continue reading on Agingcare for more about how caregiving can change our personality:
Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories. “I hold onto your book as a life preserver and am reading it slowly on purpose…I don’t want it to end.” …Craig William Dayton, Film Composer
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