Caregiving and Stress

"Stress predisposes us to illness.  Caregivers don't always take good care of themselves -- don't recognize or pay attention to early signs that problems (in their own health) are coming on.  Caregivers should remember --- like on an airplane --  to put on their own oxygen masks first, before helping others." Dr. Keith Roach

Being a caregiver is stressful.  It was extremely stressful when I was a caregiver 24/7, and even now - with him in assisted living -- there is still stress.  Most stressful for me now is his haranguing about coming home.  I have talked with other people who have been caregivers for someone with Lewy Bodies Dementia, and this seems to be  a similar pattern:   the inability for the person to see the extent of the assistance he/she needs.   It has taken me over a year to recover from the stress of being the fulltime caregiver.  People who care about me are astonished at the difference in me physically and in appearance with the absence of that 24/7 stress.  I have now returned to myself, after being hypervigilant and on guard for more than six years.  We who are caregivers must take care of our own health first.  Remember, according to the Roslyn Carter Institute, 1/3 of us will die doing the caregiving, 1/3 of us will have our health damaged significantly, and 1/3 of us will survive the caregiving and be better persons for having done it.  Which 1/3 do you want to be?   I know where I choose to be.  The person with dementia is dying; we caregivers have to live our lives in a way that does not allow the dementia to take us too.