#ur not gonna get through it singing and dancing and u shouldnt punish urself for feeling overwhelmed

[mjalti]

I realize this is super personal so I understand if you don't want to answer. I'm in a caregiver position right now for an elderly family member and I am EXHAUSTED. How do you keep going/take care of yourself and someone else without collapsing?

It’s nothing glamourous. I’m exhausted all the time, my memory suffers alot (iPhone reminders, handheld notebook to take down info quickly + write something as soon as I remember it), i am always stressed, I have one of those giant calendars that I keep up and plan as much as I can ahead + color code. I have my mom to help me out so in days when we can we take over “majority chunks” so I quit my full time job to help take care of him throughout the week and I work doubles on weekends to “make up” for it. On Friday and Monday my mom takes over a majority of the work as of course Saturday and Sunday. Tuesday -Thursday I try to take over a majority of the work + doctors (and emphasis on the plural) appointments. Then it’s just a matter of planning shopping trips for like food or diapers etc (since he’s in diapers).

The chaos level had the potential to be at 100, but just planning things ahead and being able to divy up work takes it down to 40.

I don’t have time to hang out with my friends, go to the gym, or have me-time in any real sense, BUT sometimes I do get half an hour or 45 min and I like to take baths, so I’ll just do skincare and baths for that time.

If ur elderly family member is immobile and u live in the United States, they might be eligible for home health aides. My father wasn’t. So the work falls on the family / caregivers. If ur elderly family member doesn’t need 24/7 care, maybe consider going to a caregiver support group (reach out to their hospital or a couple local hospitals to see if u have any) and see if u can make friends with some of the people that way & maybe you can all create a rotational shift of care or have each other available should soemthing come up. Ask ur other family for help. If they can only do one day a week, take them up on it and use that one day for you. Support is the number 1 thing that’s needed but often lacking. See if they have power of attorney and if not, GET ONE through a lawyer. It’s always better to have it and not need it than it is to need it and not have it. Contact the hospital social worker if they assigned you one or the case manager and ask for the social worker & see what other resources are available to you as they would have the most up to date information.

Otherwise yeah it absolutely sucks, it’s bleak, it’s exhausting, it’s often not something people plan for, and there’s no real repose from it in a significant sense. You keep going by taking everything one day at a time, and planning ahead as much as you can. Plan for savings for things like funerals (an average funeral is around 10k), plan for things like medications + always look into copay assistance cards although most copays don’t work in conjunction with Medicare —some do, keep lists of current meds, be on top of it as much as you can and it makes both 1) the medical professionals take you more seriously about Ur concerns and 2) you feel more in control of the situation rather than the situation steamrolling you. Good luck :)