When Sickness Separates Spouses: The Caretaker’s Conflict |
||
|
By |
||
|
|
||
|
Increasingly sophisticated medical technology has led people to live much longer lives. As a result, aging people have longer to cope with the problems that medical diseases bring, and their families may need to be relied upon more heavily for support. |
||
| Many of us are faced with the very painful process of learning to recognize the mortality and limitations of our parents. As we become middle-aged, we go through numerous emotional crises; accepting our own aging and loss of childhood and teenage years, facing our life squarely and making personal and career choices, accepting responsibility for our own choices, letting go of the tight hold on our own children as they grow more independent, and learning to parent our parents. These are not easy tasks. The most sobering of them tends to be the last—learning to parent our parents. | ||
| As children, our parents are everything. They are god-like creatures that seem omnipotent and omniscient. We look to them for security, acceptance, validation, advice, and support. When we disagree with them, we know they will still love us. When we rebel against them, we still know where they stand. They are the anchors. No matter what they say, there is some sense of stability in knowing their position, even if we disagree with or ignore them. Knowing their stand helps us identify ourselves more. As our parents begin to have medical problems that affect their bodies and minds, we must rely more upon ourselves. We have to stop looking to our parents for validation, support, and protection because they may not be able to give it any more. In fact, when the tide turns, they may need these very things from us. | ||
| Middle age is so very difficult because it is a time to become more independent, whether you are ready or not. We see that our parents cannot take care of us forever, that life is finite, and that they are mortal. Some of us have already faced the loss of a parent. But, most of us are just now facing the very scary reality that our parents are fragile and that they will not be here forever. We are forced with having to rely upon ourselves and our own judgments. We must take care of the needs of ourselves and our children (which is an enormous task), and we must also be there for our parents. Thus, the cliché, “the sandwich generation”. | ||
| Psychologically, we have to stop expecting so much or we will be forced into long-term depression and bitterness. Whatever our parents were not able to give us by now, they probably never will be able to give us. We have to accept this reality, grieve the losses and be thankful for the resources and love that our connection to them has brought to us. This will make caring for their needs much easier later on. | ||
| Watching our parents grow older, suffer aches and pains, and lose their abilities to function fully is excruciatingly painful. Not only are we helpless, but also it makes us look ahead to life without them some day, and to our own future as “elderly people”. We may be forced to watch them struggle with their own sense of worth, dignity and identity, as they are aware of their limitations and struggles to accept the losses in their own lives. When parents are stricken with strokes or Alzheimer’s Disease or some other type of disease process which makes their intellectual functioning decline, we lose our “real parents” and are left only with their bodies… getting hints of their personalities now and then as their cognitive capacity waxes and wanes. This is incredibly difficult because many of us are reluctant to grieve and mourn someone who is alive. Yet, in these circumstances, the true person is often gone. We need to grieve and talk about the loss of our parents even if their bodies are relatively healthy. It is their soul we miss, their wisdom, their personality, and their minds. It is okay to mourn the loss of each part of them. | ||
| It is typical to grieve losses in stages. Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist, long ago identified five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance (Not necessarily in that order). We may go through these stages many times with each change in our parent’s health or when anticipating the loss of them. While these stages are truly difficult, we can gain strength in ourselves, learn to be more loving and caring people, and give back to our parents. | ||
| Life’s lessons are difficult. There is no doubt about it. One process that will make this whole phase of life easier, however, is called Internalization. As infants, we begin the process of internalizing our parents and caregivers. We learn that we are loved even if our parents are not in our presence. We learn lessons, values, love, and self-worth from them and we keep these within us from that point on. As we lose our parents, we will always hold onto them…for they will be with us always deep inside of us. Thank you parents for all that you have given, sacrificed, and taught us and for all the love that you have had for us. | ||
|
This article was written by Dr. Laurel A. Sills, a Fully Licensed Clinical Psychologist (since 1987) and Life Coach. She provides direct, down-to-earth, short-term therapy with long-term results. She is passionate in her work and will help you stay motivated to change your life with regular commitment to changing habits in thinking and behaving. See her website at: www.DrLSills.com or www.BuildAStrongerYou.com |
||
|
Copyright 2006© Laurel A. Sills, Psy.D. All rights reserved Back to Articles |