Caregiving is a life-changing experience. For many, it is a process that lasts years, decades or even longer. At the same time, caregiving requires an entirely different approach to the world and many different considerations.
In many cases, caregivers also give up a considerable amount of themselves in their role – putting aside their own ambitions, wants and even needs. These patterns mean that emerging out of the other side can seem incredibly difficult.
To make matters worse, caregiving typically ends because of a death or because the person is being moved into a someone else’s care. In either case, there is a degree of grief involved and grief for caregivers comes with its own complexities.
So, what do you do? How do you find your feet and find your way again?
Well, just like any dramatic life change, the precise answer varies from one person to the next. Nevertheless, there are some general approaches that can help you to find solutions for you.
Ways To Move Forward
Without a doubt, moving on from caregiving takes time – as it should. This is a period of adjustment for your life and you’ll probably be figuring out who you are again.
In most cases, there is no need to rush the process. In fact, you need to give yourself time to grieve and to learn. And, don’t worry if you don’t feel what you expect to. Grief is complicated and individual at the best of times. For caregivers, it can be more confusing still.
Some key approaches that you can try are as follows:
Develop positive relationships. Caregiving is an isolating experience and can involve falling out of contact with many people. But, you do need healthy relationships. In many cases, this may involve re-establishing old friendships and connections.
But, sometimes you may need to look for new connections instead.
For example, some caregivers feel abandoned, especially as friends and family may not have been willing to help. Trying to rebuild relationships is still a good plan – but if there is too much pain or grief, you may be better to seek out new relationships first. If nothing else, you can always revisit old ones when you are stronger in yourself.
Ideally, you should be developing relationships in-person. But, there is also some merit to looking for support online. For example, there are forums for caregivers, along with those for people who are no longer caregivers.
These places aren’t a replacement for in-person contact and friendship. However, they can be a powerful addition. For one thing, they let you talk to people who have been through similar experiences and understand them.
Find some hobbies. Many of us give up hobbies as part of caregiving and picking these up again can be a key component of moving forward. At the same time, it’s worth considering new directions that you may want to pursue.
Personally, I reconnected with my love of crime shows and developed a completely new interest in physical activity, including boxing (of all things).
I was also selective in my hobbies. I focused on the ones that made me feel good and seemed to work for my present situation – rather than ones that simply brought back memories.
Get involved in church. For many people, myself included, going back to church is a powerful way of finding your feet again. Doing so can help you to figure out what matters to you and it is also a good place to develop connections.
Go back to work. If you stopped working during caregiving, going back to it is a powerful move. This can help to give you a sense of purpose and also a direction. Additionally, work gives you structure in your day, which you might not have otherwise.
Find purpose. Hobbies, church, and work are all examples but a more general goal is simply to find a purpose and a direction.
With caregiving, you end up spending most or all of your energy caring for someone else. When you lose that, shifting the focus back to you is a surprisingly difficult process and can sometimes make people feel inadequate. Finding a direction can help with this significantly and one other area to consider is volunteering.
Nevertheless, don’t neglect your own needs either. Regardless of your direction and purpose, you will still need to focus on yourself and simply learn who you are again.
Develop structure. Regardless of whether you go back to work or not, developing some structure in your days can play a huge role in your success. For example, I always worked from home but I now keep regular hours, something I could never do as a caregiver. This includes getting up and going to bed at (roughly) the same time each day.
Even if you don’t need to do this (like if you’re not working), simply having a rough structure can play a large role in your ability to move forward and figure things out.
Take care of yourself. You’re going to be vulnerable at the end of caregiving, so taking care of your own needs is critical. This includes your physical health and also your mental health. For example:
- Take the time to exercise
- Re-establish healthy sleep patterns
- Eat nutritious food
- Decrease reliance on processed food and/or sugar
- Talk to your doctor about healthy changes
- See a counselor about grief
- Keep a journal
Additionally, keep an eye out for the symptoms of depression. Some of these symptoms occur as a natural component of grief and will pass over time. But, it’s still important to be aware of your emotions, especially as time passes.
Take Your Time. Regardless of the circumstances, grief is a process, as is any significant change in your life. As a result, you may recover slower than you expect to and that’s perfectly fine.
Realistically, caregiving involves the development of a deep bond. People on the outside won’t be fully aware of the significance of this, so they may not understand all of what you feel. But, things will feel better and giving yourself time to grieve is important.
My Own Story
One of the reasons that I write on here is that I was a caregiver myself, although in a somewhat unconventional manner. I was a caregiver from around 25 years of age until around 28 or so. In my case, I wasn’t caring for an elderly parent or a grandparent but for my husband.
He was disabled before we met and his ability to do things got progressively worse as time went on. So, when we first met, we could go on dates and go out, although it was a struggle even then and tended to be more stressful than enjoyable.
By the end, he was housebound and needed help with almost everything. He was still able to move himself around the house but only barely and there were frequent times where my help was urgently needed.
So, for a space of around two years or so, at the worst of it, I was mostly homebound. Any time I left the house was nerve wracking, as there was a good chance that something would go wrong before I came back home. There were many ‘normal’ things that were simply impossible for our situation, including getting an unbroken night of sleep or keeping things clean.
At the same time, I worked full-time from home and we had my mother-in-law living with us – who required some support and assistance as well.
In my case, caregiving was incredibly intense but for a very short period of time. I lost my husband suddenly, a little under two years ago now. We didn’t even know he was seriously sick at that time, so it came as a shock.
Some of the methods from earlier played a role in me moving on. In part, I focused on the way he viewed me and that taught me to love myself and care for myself again.
Losing my husband meant, by necessity I had to move back home – which was a move from America back to New Zealand. In doing so, I had to leave almost everything we had built together. That move was both a blessing and a curse but I think, mostly a blessing. It forced me to find my own way, to survive.
Even so, I did have to consciously choose to fight and to try.
Two years on, I’m still finding parts of me that I’d forgotten existed – old passions that got left on the wayside because there simply wasn’t the time. Even now, I’m finding that I have habits that don’t actually make sense anymore.
To me, this is a reminder that there are no simple solutions.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds, not entirely. But, it does make them better and less noticeable. And honestly, that’s enough.
The point to remember is that picking up the pieces is a process. It’s not something that is achieved overnight and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, finding your feet again involves taking care of you and figuring out what it is that you need.
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