Caregiving Across the Decades

 Caregiving Across the Ages

Childhood 

As a young girl of the 1970's, it was clear that my role in life should encompass the typical female stereotypes seen in the world around me.  And that was fine by me.  While I was a tomboy for sure, the idea of caring for a family was a given.  I had my dolls. I played school and house.  I even dressed up my poor dog and drove him around in a doll carriage.  So it makes sense that my first real role in caregiving was that of the neighborhood babysitter.  WHAT A CAKEWALK!  Show up.  Eat their food. Have some friends over while the kids slept. Get paid. Go home! Cha Ching!  As long as nobody got hurt too badly or found out you had the secret guests, you were golden!

BUT...Unbeknownst to me, I was caregiving every day. Just not in the typical way one might expect. Yes, I fed the fish, walked the dog, and learned the deeds of a good little girl that fit the roles of caring for the home and family. But there were the hidden, secret responsibilities that I know realize I owned early on in my life that are so difficult to break free from today.

Somehow, somewhere, I came to believe that my job in the family unit was that of the fixer.  The pleaser. The keeper of the secrets. That somehow I had the power to fix it all and keep it all together. Like what I did or did not do was make or break for our family unit.  I have no idea how this happened.  Maybe it was something to do with being an only child?  Maybe it had to do with the things we do not speak about that happen behind the closed doors of our homes? But I alone was somehow, delusionally, the one who kept the peace and the reason where everything was haywire. And nobody showed me that this toxic mentality was wrong or how to change it.

Teen Years

Jump ahead to the 80's.  The decade of overindulgence.  The era of getting everything and then losing it all. The time when we are finding who we are and pushing the everliving boundaries out of everything. And then there was me....Yes, I sure pushed the boundaries, but still held firm to the belief that I was so powerful that the good and bad within my home somehow revolved around me.  That by doing or not doing the "right" thing would make others like and even love me. Self-centered much?

It was the decade of our family falling apart.  We moved.  I did not know why but somehow believed I should have stopped it. Fixed it. Our entire lifestyle changed and I somehow believed it was my job to step in and help bolster it in the areas where it was lacking. My father fell ill and I stepped in to try and fix it; beginning decades of caregiving for him and my mom, albeit in very different ways depending on the decade. Deep down I believed my job was to take care of as much as I could but at the same time I rebelled against the restraints that this created in my teenage world. And the anger and self-destruction?  Wow!

How can you go party when you need to work to help support?  How can you make friends, do well in school, find yourself when you are so angry about the trauma happening at home? How can you care about the future when you are the one placing your parent in care and watching things completely deteriorate in front of you?  Oh you try, but you tend to self sabotage as you help who you are caring for.  At least I did. I pretended all was ok, but it was a mess.  I was a mess.

The Twenties

Go figure.  I married. And I married someone who needed care.  They had been taken care of their entire life and enabled to not own their own care.  Not like brush your teeth care, but skin in the game care for self and others. This was a joint endeavor here.  We both got what we were looking for at the time and did not realize that we were simply perpetuating toxic dynamics from the previous two decades. 

We had mistaken love and partnership for getting what we needed. And I needed to feel needed. To be Miss Fix-it.  Was there actual love?  Most likely, but not in the ways that I view love today. 

In hindsight, I was looking for an escape from the trappings of caring for the chaos that I felt home had become, simply because I did not understand it and felt that I had failed in fixing it.  If I could control the new "home" I could avoid the problems of the previous one. I could create a new world where the future me, as seen through the eyes of my future children, would not have to experience the pain of failing to make the perfect family.

What a joke! I instead fell prey to the biggest lie because nothing was really ok and I let it all be my fault, even if kicking and screaming outwardly.  Inwardly, I believed I was the problem. I was the failure.  If only I were better, then my marriage and my life would be better to.

Thirties

Oh my! How in the world did I get myself in the role of caring for so much and not myself?  Rhetorical question folks.  I was caring for my father as he could not care for himself.  I was caring for my children, one quite ill and another quite used to me being there for it all. I was caring for my spouse and juggling about fifty too many roles in our lives.  I was caring for my students' as a teacher.  I was caring for the perceptions of family members by hiding the problems in the home. I was caring for the perceptions of friends, of coworkers, and even my kids, by creating false narratives about our home life. And all the while, I was hiding the truth, covering with lies, and caring for myself with wine and cigarettes. Oh! And lots of caffeine! 

I landed in the hospital; heart rate repeatedly crashing; begging the nurse to not let me die because there was no way my spouse could care for my kids....I truly believed that nobody could survive without me.  I held it all together.  There was some modicum of truth to that, but I created that scenario by enabling poor behavior to continue and taking responsibility for everything- even that for which was not mine to own.

How utterly unrealistic.  And finally the beginning of realizing I was killing myself.

This was the beginning of the end and of the new beginning. Even if I did not realize the slow metamorphosis that took some dark turns and a decade.

Forty and forward....

So if I was not the sole responsibility for the wellbeing and happiness of every person in my life, what was my value and my purpose?  Did I have one?

Cue the therapy!  Now I had been in therapy on and off since my twenties, but was I ready to hear anything real?  Was I ready to share anything real? Or was I simply perpetuating the lie that I was creating about what my life was?  I think that over the years, little bits of the truth seeped out, but I was hiding it from myself so how in the world was I going to share this with others?  SURE, I shared every shortfall, every downfall, and everything I was doing wrong.  But I was not yet able to share the full scope of my lived experiences.  So the advice I was getting, or hearing was aligned to my belief about myself and my life rather than to the reality of it. So therapy at this point is what I like to think of as my "survival therapy" days. I went in with a pressing issue and we would workshop how to deal with it. Rinse and repeat. It served its purpose. It kept me afloat. It kept me moving forward. This survival therapy kept me- well emotionally alive. But I was not out of the woods. Old habits die hard and I had to find ways to stop letting them creep up into the relationships I was forging ahead to create and the ones that I was working to repair.

I needed a change...real change...to survive, live. thrive. I needed to find the me that I knew was in there somewhere.

What changed?

Little brakes in the facade.  I can't pinpoint any one event that sparked my rebirth if you will.  There were moments that built and built to create a giant series of billboards in my life that blared, "GET OUT," "You are LYING to yourself," and "You are perpetuating the cycle of toxicity you swore to protect your children from!" And somehow, the fork in the road presented itself. I took the road I had not yet traveled.  The road to my truth. It was a long damn road.

At first it was hard to accept my role in all that had passed in my life. Oh so much easier to point fingers, blame, and cry.  But what the hell good does that do except perpetuate the toxicity and the delusions of "this is normal" so therefor it needs to continue. 

Larger breaks in the facade. Could I break free from what had become ingrained? Why yes, I could. And I could learn from those things. Eventually, I learned to forgive myself.  YUP! Forgive myself!  

As the facade slowly avalanched into the realm of fairy tales and horror movies, I could see, really see so much clearer. And somehow I got lighter. I found that the anger towards others lessened. Not because I had some revelation that things were not their fault or that I was or was not to blame. Simply by forgiving myself for being in that moment, allowing those times, or contributing to the toxicity gave my soul permission to let so much of which I had been holding inside release like I exhaled it out.

Is it gone? Nah.  But there is so much less regret that I can enjoy the things that I had missed out on for far too long.  I can focus on that which I want and need. 

AND I am now taking care of me in real ways. Caregiving for myself so that I can care in real ways for those who want me in their lives for the right reasons. I have the clarity to see the toxicity and the tools to step away rather than dive right in. 

It is not for me to fix everything.  I mean, seriously.  You can't fix stupid, mean, fill in the blank as you will. I will not continue with the negative attributes I have tried to fix because there is no prize in that.  The prize is my peace. My sanity. My truth.