Research into caregiving reveals a common sequence of events: caregivers often get depressed, which then makes them more vulnerable to a range of mental health issues. Caregivers are also more likely to not have much support. In some instances, caregivers are more...
She said she had something to tell me but that she was afraid. I reached for her trembling hand, telling her sweetly, naïvely, that it would be okay, whatever it was, that we would be okay. She said she’d had leukemia and had thought it was in remission, but it was...
For close to two hours, my mom had stubbornly resisted our cajoling, pleading and arguing as we tried to get her out of the vehicle and into Villa Caritas, a geriatric psychiatric hospital and the only place in Edmonton that could handle her. She has aggressive...
As soon as we learned a new baby was on the way, Mike’s anxiety became more than an occasional visitor: It officially moved in. We recently had bought a family-size home with a yard in Seattle, and suddenly he saw danger everywhere. When someone you trust starts to...
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written my blog. Part of the reason is that things have been pretty much status quo with Dave’s health. There hasn’t been a significant change that has inspired me to write. I noticed that I didn’t write a single blog post in all...
My partner has extreme (and untreated) anxiety, depression, and an unbelievable amount of insecurity that makes her jealous, petty, confrontational, and not-at-all trusting. She’s come from a rough past, with abuse, and despite it, or maybe in spite of it, has...
The tradition of keeping everything in the family is an amiable labor of love, but it is making our Spanish speaking caregivers In America ill. Familism is affecting our Latinx caregiver’s mental and physical health negatively. “ Familism refers to the value of the...
Living with anxiety can be tough — your thoughts might race, you might dread tasks others find simple (like driving to work) and your worries might feel inescapable. But loving someone with anxiety can be hard too. You might feel powerless to help or overwhelmed by...
Dear PARENTAL CAREGIVER ❤️ My mom had a “moderate to massive” heart attack. I spent 6 years taking care of her day and night, feeding her, bathing her, checking her blood glucose, pouring her meds, arranging her ongoing medical appointments with 10 specialists,...
I know everyone thinks only a caregiver can relate to caregiving problems, but sometimes I hear or read something that isn’t about caregiving that really resonates with me. Here are the lyrics, if you prefer reading....
I have a new goal: not fighting things and not worrying about them. So much of our lives as caregivers is outside of our control. My worrying is not going to change that at all. I spend so much time trying to guess what’s going to go wrong. Sometimes it’s...
Here, they find support their schools can’t provide BOSTON – Evan Jones was excited when he signed up for a contemporary art class at community college. Then the professor announced the course would focus heavily on class participation. “That was the...
His ex-coworker’s husband, now part of his mind map’s constellation of wheelchair users and those who love them, might drift by as a data point, confirming his hypothesis about the pity afforded them—all because I didn’t work hard enough to convince him otherwise. I...
After only a few weeks in her [dream job], Giulia’s anxiety level rose beyond anything I’d ever seen. She’d always been a bit high-strung, holding herself to impeccable standards. Now, at age 27, she was petrified, actually frozen…Her mind lost room for anything...
As a caregiver, have you been stressed lately? In this video, PhysEd focuses on defining stress and techniques on how to deal with it. PhysEd emphasizes that exercising is the key to cope with anxiety, stress, and depression. PhysEd suggests that performing aerobic...
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