Guilt Helps Nobody
If the job of being a caregiver only involved giving help to your aging parent such as doing the dishes and helping fill out the Medicare paperwork, your life would be considerably easier. And if that were the case, even if there was a lot to do, the problem of caregiver burn out would not be such an issue.
But the real drain on you and even on the senior citizen you are taking care of comes in the emotional toll that the care giving relationship brings with it. Because the “assumed understanding” of the care giving relationship is based on the extended giving of a very large favor, guilt becomes a common element in every aspect of the time you spend with your aging parent.
It’s very easy for the senior citizen to feel guilty for asking you for the work you do to take care of him. It’s a strange situation because in most cases, they never asked. You may have stepped in because you saw your parent’s life beginning to unravel and you knew that someone had to help get his retired life organized. And yet, the senior citizen feels a lot of guilt because you are giving him huge amounts of time and that is time away form your family and maybe your work to do things for him unpaid and very often without thanks.
It doesn’t help that the time of transition from independence to assisted care is one of huge loss of self esteem for your aging parent. There are a lot of tremendous changes that happen in rapid order for y our parent and they happen in areas of life that have remained unchanged for decades. If inside of a year your mom or dad go through a loss of their home to go live in an assisted living facility, loss of mobility because they cannot drive and loss of independence because everything is being done for them, that causes a lot of negative emotions. Guilt makes its appearance because they feel irrationally that if they had not grown old, this would never have happened.
But guilt also is an issue for you, the caregiver. There always seems to be something more you could be doing for your parents. It doesn’t help that the senior citizen you work so hard to care for also inflicts guilt on you by whining, “I wish you never had to go home” or by complaining about their lives and getting angry.
So what can be done about all of this guilt? Guilt doesn’t make the relationship better and it doesn’t improve the quality of life for the caregiver or from the senior being cared for. So whatever we can do to shut it down would be a positive step for both parties.
Probably the most proactive thing you can do about guilt is confront it directly. Sit down with your aging mom or dad and get those guilt feelings out in the open. It’s not their fault they got old. Your parent should not feel guilty about being cared for by you. After all they cared for you for decades when you were just a child and young adult.
Bu taking the teeth out of guilt, you have a real chance of getting that out of your relationship. By learning not to put guilt on each other, you become a team in care giving, not combatants. And these are positive steps toward a healthy senior citizen and caregiver relationship.
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Disclaimer
The Publisher has strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of this website, notwithstanding the fact that he does not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet.
This site is a common sense guide to Guilt Helps Nobody. In practical advice websites, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of income made. Readers are cautioned to reply on their own judgment about their individual circumstances to act accordingly.
This site is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal, business, accounting, and finance field.
Any perceived slights of specific people or organizations are unintentional.
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The Caregiver’s Emotions
When the End is near
The Caregiver’s Greatest Enemy
Where Should Grandma Live?
That Thing We Don’t Talk About
That Thing We Don’t Talk About
When is it Time to Step in?
Making a Difference Together
Caring for the Caregiver
Caregivers and the Work Place
Caregivers and the Work Place
When is it Time to Step in?
A Stressful Job
Senior Citizens Bill of Rights
Quality of Life for your Senior Citizen
Easing into Care Giving
Taking Care of Yourself is Part of the Job
Does Grandpa Like Himself?
Managing Your Senior Citizen’s Medications
Giving Thanks for Being a Caregiver
Where Should Grandma Live?
Easing into Care Giving
Making a Difference Together
Quality of Life for your Senior Citizen
Is Mom a Sucker?
Keeping it at Arm’s Length
Listening to Your Parents even Now
The Greatest Loss of Them All
Taking Care of Yourself is Part of the Job
The Greatest Loss of Them All
Is Mom a Sucker?
Listening to Your Parents even Now
Does Grandpa Like Himself?
Giving Thanks for Being a Caregiver
A Place to Go
Going to a Better Place
Caring for the Caregiver
When the End is near
A Place to Go
We Are the Sandwich Generation
We Are the Sandwich Generation
Keeping it at Arm’s Length
Managing Your Senior Citizen’s Medications
Guilt Helps Nobody
The Caregiver’s Greatest Enemy
Guilt Helps Nobody
A Stressful Job
Senior Citizens Bill of Rights
Going to a Better Place
The Caregiver’s Emotions
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