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The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation From Loved One to Caregiver, Excerpt

November 08, 2021
The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation From Loved One to Caregiver, Excerpt
Donna Thomson and Dr. Zachary White, Ph.D. are co-authors of "The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation of Loved One to Caregiver." They discuss the delicate relationship between caregiver and care receiver, the multiple roles caregivers fulfill, and the value of silence.

Reprinted with permission of the copyright

A new caregiver will have many, many questions, but there are a few that are vital to ask in the early days: “Can I do this alone?” “Who will help me?

At first, identifying one friend or key ally who will promise to make personal support a priority will be a big first step toward positive action and healing in the caregiving family. Building a coordinated team of support will come later, but at first, securing a commitment of abiding friendship from a single support person is enough.

As days, weeks, and years pass, a caregiver is slowly transformed.

If the need for care grows incrementally, it may seem that at first, each helping task is perfectly doable. But taken together and over time, the burden of care may become overwhelming. This is especially true in the case of degenerative disease combined with the caregiver’s own aging and life or work responsibilities.

Survive long-term caring

To survive long-term caring, a rearrangement of priorities is required, a coming to grips, a reconciliation of personal goals, a “settling in” to care. But sometimes there are natural barriers to making peace with caregiving. Caregivers may engage in a battle of priorities, culminating in making enemies of both work and home. They may crave multiple social connections and the consoling “noise” of an independent and bustling working life.

Does being “settled in” to a caring role represent liberation or captivity?

Being in the right place, doing the right thing is natural for young parents caring for their children. But what of an older parent caring for an adult child with disabilities? What about the kind of parental care that feels like a role reversal in the case of Alzheimer’s? At the start of a care journey, a caregiver might strive to finish caring tasks quickly in order to return to “normal” life.

Finding personal meaning in the care experience.

But with the passing of weeks and months spent in an intimate relationship with a loved one who is ill or infirm, time shifts, and caregiver role disorientation is injected with routine that temporarily silences the chaos. Yet, amid the routine, ongoing tensions emerge that mark the caregiver role as infused with contradictory needs and desires.

On the one hand, a caregiver may stop wishing to be somewhere else. Being alone with a loved one can morph into a natural way to be. Then, a caregiver notices that the slowness and quiet of caring is in itself a presence, not an absence. Settling for the reduced ambitions of caring for a loved one opens a door to a life rich with humanity and meaning, but also a life that is difficult to explain to others—a life others say they admire but stop short of walking toward out of fear and misunderstanding.

Of course not everyone falls into a taxing but intimate rhythm of caring. If a loved one is suffering, the call to care can be a call to battle against pain and exhaustion. But in the absence of anguish, caring can become a quiet truce in a land that is foreign to most other people.

You are here

Here, is the possibility of intimacy, of reflecting on hopes, dreams, and mortality. Here, is the chance to be grateful for small joys and tender mercies. And with this enhanced connection, there is an unprecedented proximity to suffering, fear, grief, and doubt that few others know (or want to know).

The true wisdom of caregiving lies in realizing that the meaning of care cannot be delayed until “it” is over because care changes us and our loved ones throughout the process. Caregivers can’t help but realize that their control of what happens is limited, but what they can affect is how they make sense of their experiences and how they use these stories to connect to others along the way. And even if these insights and wisdom are not present because home is too chaotic to experience stillness, caregivers will learn the meaning of forbearance—the essential ingredient in being able to proclaim with certainty, “I’m glad I stayed and did the right thing.

From The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation From Loved One to Caregiver by Donna Thomson and Zachary White, PhD with a foreword by Judy Woodruff. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. The book is a practical guide to finding personal meaning in the 21st century care experience.

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Who does the book, The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation From Loved One to Caregiver help?

From the publisher:

"Caregivers have a crash course in new and unfamiliar skills. They care for a loved one, but also access hidden community resources, collaborate with medical professionals, craft new narratives consistent with the changing nature of their care role, coordinate care with family, seek information and peer support using a variety of digital platforms, and negotiate social support—all while attempting to manage conflicts between work, life, and relationship roles.

This book is informed by original caregiver research and proven advocacy strategies, this book speaks to caregiving as it unfolds, in all of its confusion, chaos, and messiness. Readers won’t find well-intentioned clichés or care stereotypes in this book. There are no promises to help caregivers return to a life they knew before caregiving. No, this book greets caregivers where they are in their journey—new or chronic—not where others expect (or want) them to be."

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About the author: Donna Thomson is a caregiver, author, advocate and family partner in health research. She is the co-author (with Zachary White, PhD) of The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation From Loved One to Caregiver and the author of The Four Walls of My Freedom: Lessons I’ve Learned From a Life of Caregiving. Zachary White, @ZMWhite Is Associate Professor @TheKnightSchool of COM, Queens Univ. of Charlotte, Co-author: The Unexpected Journey of Caring; Founder & Creator, The Unprepared Caregiver

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