We’ve all got baggage–some big and some small. As caregivers, how do we deal with it and move on?
I always say my husband is the most baggage-free person I’ve ever known. Aside from some OCD about organization (to be expected from a former accountant), he’s pretty much hang-up free. He doesn’t drudge up old problems. He doesn’t parent mean or fight dirty. He doesn’t seem to have the festering emotional sores so many of us have buried within.
It’s not that he’s had a perfect life (he hasn’t), but I think it’s because he’s one of the most upfront people I’ve ever known. He deals with problems head on—tough conversations, loss, grief, sickness … Unlike so many of us who bury issues to avoid short-term discomfort, he gets stuff out there and moves on.
In the business of senior care, we see firsthand how unfinished business can affect you both now and later. We see the beginning stages when an adult child can’t bring herself to visit her mom after a stroke, and we see the end result when she’s overcome with grief and guilt after Mom dies.
Often, the biggest cause of our unfinished business is something called “ambiguous loss.” Ambiguous losses are those that don’t always involve a death but might be just as painful because there’s no closure. They’re the losses most of us experience at some point in life and especially as we become caregivers for our sick or aging loved ones—the loss of Dad to Alzheimer’s (he hasn’t died but the person we know is gone), a son who battles drug addiction (our dreams for him are on hold), infertility, divorce, giving up a child for adoption. These losses feel like deaths because something is forever changed or gone, but there’s no funeral to attend, nobody sends flowers, and we don’t receive cards of sympathy.
Losses without closure are the losses that eat away at us—the unresolved baggage that fills therapist offices, ruins relationships, and makes us act like jerks sometimes. The emotions of ambiguous loss help explain behavior that seems inexplicable—that sibling who hasn’t gone to visit your father more than once since he’s been in rehab, the adult child who stops by quickly just to run errands.
Ambiguous loss is complicated because unlike regular grief that has a defined process we’re all familiar with (shock, denial, anger, etc.), this kind of grief isn’t usually identified. The emotions are new and painful. And instead of being encouraged to take time to deal with them, we’re usually told things like, “Everything happens for a reason,” “At least he’s still alive,” or “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”
So many times I’m surprised that in my first conversation with a senior, she’ll tell me about something from long ago that still eats away at her—the child she lost in pregnancy 70 years before, the marriage that wasn’t what she expected, the mother she resented caring for late in life—the losses she didn’t really deal with when she was going through them.
If you’re going through this as a caregiver for someone you love—mourning your dreams for the future or the life you expected to have—take time to feel and deal with the emotions you’re having. Go away for a week and focus on yourself and what you’re dealing with, see a therapist, talk to friends. Do what you need to do so today’s losses don’t come back to haunt you tomorrow. You’ll not only have a happier, healthier life later on, but I promise you’ll be a better caregiver now.
Molly Rowe owns FirstLight Home Care with her husband, Steve Rowe, and lives in Swampscott with their two sons. FirstLight provides non-medical in-home care to adults all over the North Shore. For more information and help caring for your loved ones in the comfort of their own homes, please visit FirstLight’s website at www.salem.firstlighthomecare.com or contact Molly at 781-691-5755/mrowe@firstlighthomecare.com