How to Ask For Help as a Caregiver

One of the most important things you can do as a caregiver is to care for yourself.

Realistically, you can only provide good support and caregiving if you meet your own needs. Otherwise, you will quickly get run down and will often be exhausted, both mentally and physically.

When this happens, you’re likely to make sub-par decisions and may even put the person you’re caring for at risk.

Plus, for both you and them, your long-term health truly is important.

We’ve talked about the importance of self-care in the past, along with personal care items that can support caregivers. But, when it comes down to it, self-care is often extremely difficult.

For one thing, caregivers often find that they feel guilty when they take time out for themselves.

That’s easy to do. You end up thinking that you could be spending that time in a more productive way – or that you’re being selfish for taking time off. Plus, if your situation is anything like my own was, finding any time or money for your own needs can be incredibly difficult.

In my case, I was caregiving for a housebound husband, while also providing support for my mother-in-law who lived with us. While my mother-in-law could do most things for herself, there were areas that she struggled in. Finding time was often near impossible, especially as I worked (from home) full-time and was responsible for almost all of the household tasks.

Over time, the situation wore me down and left me physically and mentally exhausted.

I know now that to care for myself, I needed to ask for help. But, psychology suggests that doing so is incredibly hard to achieve.

Furthermore, many caregivers (like myself) find that some friends and family are simply unwilling to help, even if you do ask.

There is no easy answer to people being unwilling. But, there are effective ways to ask for help. In particular, there are two key considerations to make.

Who Do You Ask For Help?

Much of the advice for caregivers suggest that you should always ask for help. But, in reality, some people are much safer than others.

In most cases, you’ll already know who is likely to help and who isn’t. For example, some people have family members who are simply unwilling to be involved in care no matter what. Often, engaging with these family members may be emotionally draining and could simply cause a fight.

As a result, it’s normally best to start with people who are likely to be open to the idea – even if you don’t think they would have the ability to help.

This is particularly important because asking for help is difficult and it can make people feel vulnerable. If you get a negative response, you’re also less likely to ask for help again in the future. So, choosing the right people to ask simply makes sense.

How Do You Ask For Help?

Asking the right people is absolutely critical. But, it isn’t the only consideration. You also need to think about how you ask.

In many cases, people simply ask for help. You might do so through a Facebook post, an appeal to friends and family or through a church. I’ve done all of those – and typically found that the response was minimal, at best.

The problem is that people don’t really know what to do when you ask them to help.

The request can seem overwhelming. It’s also vague. If they don’t know the first thing about caregiving, they certainly won’t know how they could help.

There is also a crowd mentality at play. Simply put, if you ask a number of people all at once, people are less likely to help because the responsibility is shared.

Finally, people vary in the type of help they can provide. For example, some may have money to spare but no time. Others may be in the reverse situations. You may also find that some of your contacts have useful skill sets for your situations, while others may not.

One way around this is to ask specific people for a specific type of help.

So, instead of making a general appeal, you might figure out a set of needs and who you can ask to fill them. By doing this, you have the ability to tailor what you ask to the person that you are asking.

Doing so is more time consuming than a mass appeal and more emotionally draining – but it is much more powerful. A middle ground approach might be to write a list of needs and share it, allowing people to put themselves down to meet various ones.

Both approaches allow you to break down the situation into a set of specific needs. In doing so, you are making it easier for people to actually provide help, in a way that they can manage.