New York, New York
United States
janeBottle Up Your Anger or Spill It?
By the time we reach this turning in the labyrinth, we are worn down, fed up, and angry enough to SCREAM. One caregiver I talked to used gallows humor to release the anger: "After three strokes, my husband still refused to go to a nursing home, so I asked to take his bed."
Aster Evangelista was socialized as a Filipino woman not to permit herself to show anger. "I just bottle it up," she told me. "It takes me so much pushing to show my anger, I just become over emotional and clam up."
Aster had considered driving over a cliff, or into never-never land—anything was better than being a caregiver one more day for both her ungrateful husband and her debilitated mother. Her husband, too, unable to work or be the man of the house, was suffering. He told me, "I stopped dreaming already. Live only day to day."
I suggested to Aster that we drive together into the California desert—a "Thelma and Louise" trip. She loved the idea. Only then was Aster able to spill her anger. She found herself laughing and crying at the same time. That is so much of what caregiving is like, laughing and crying. Aster and I compared stories and got to the point of silliness and stopped before the cliff.
Once, the horizon for her retirement years had looked bright. She had worked for 40 years and retired at 62 from a large insurance company in Newport Beach at a salary level of $45,000. With an empty nest, she and her husband moved to Palm Springs in 2002, where Aster plunged into a second career as a realtor in a red-hot California housing market. The couple finally bought their dream home.
"We took out a subprime loan from Countrywide—we got sucked into that," Aster says, choking back tears of remorse. "Then rates went up sky high every month after the first year, and I didn't have any more sales in my real estate business."
The couple was swept along in America's mass psychosis – the belief that money can make money indefinitely, and real estate will always go up. It broke Aster's heart to give up their home. Her husband, who'd had two open-heart surgeries, had another surgery in the year they lost their home, this time for prostate cancer.
Aster soldiered on, nursing her husband at home for the past five years and taking in her mother when she broke a hip. She is desperate to continue working as an independent realtor, but she can’t work at home. Her husband and mother constantly compete for her attention.
"I feel so inadequate. I'm not really prepared to take care of my mother's many chronic illnesses. My husband is always huffing; he wants me to cook. I want to concentrate on my job, and earn a living for my retirement—because there won’t be anyone to take care of me!"
Aster was having chest pains and dizziness, clear symptoms of heart disease, and was hyperventilating when she felt panicky. Her husband would say, "Oh, it’s nothing. It’s going to pass." She would take her son for a cataract operation, but put off an appointment for herself. Why didn't she see a doctor, for herself, anytime in the last five years?
"I wasn't thinking of myself, just taking care of others."
It's a formula for disaster for the caregiver. "Caregivers in Decline," a national study by Evercare and the National Alliance for Caregiving, found the number-one reason that caregivers' health declines prematurely is the constant stress, which commonly evolves into depression. They carry triple weight: the incessant work load, the worry about their loved one's health, and the concern about whether they're doing their caregiving job well—all of which burdened Aster.
"Caregivers like Aster say they feel all alone, no one understands, even when they may have siblings or other family members around," says Sherri Snelling, director of services at Evercare.
"As a minister, I have buried more caregivers than care recipients," says the Rev. Gregory Johnson, co-chair of the New York City Family Caregiver Coalition. "Therefore, we need to take care of the family caregivers. But you can't take care of them until they realize they're family caregivers."
What finally drove Aster to a medical exam was the day her world flipped upside-down. Her head began spinning. She couldn't stand up. It must be a heart attack, she thought, and got herself to an emergency room. It was vertigo. A routine exam uncovered the physical toll on her health: high blood pressure and pre-diabetes.
Once Aster broke the seal on her anger, she was able to begin taking care of herself, and even able to laugh at her tragicomic situation. That alerted others to help her!
The Laughing Cure—No Joke!
The cheapest and most effective anti-stress medicine is a good belly laugh—and that comes straight from the Mayo clinic. A hearty laugh fires up and then cools down your stress response and leaves you feeling more relaxed. Laughter takes the focus away from guilt, fear, and other negative emotions.
The long-term benefits of laughter, as measured by the Mayo clinic, are pretty amazing. It stimulates your organs, releases those natural uppers called endorphins, produces the body's own natural painkillers, and turns on the spigot of neuropeptides, which fight stress and potentially more serious illnesses.
Look for humor in the depressing, which is what Aster does. When a situation is totally frustrating or depressing, pretend you're looking back on it from a few years ahead, and telling the tragicomic story to your friends. Think about how silly it could sound.
Get DVDs of the funniest movies of all times. My three best recommendations are: "My Cousin Vinny," (put my husband in stitches every time, even when he had surgical stitches); "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"; and a DVD of Lucille Ball shows. A lot of people love The Three Stooges or "Seinfeld."
Treat yourself to a night at a comedy club with friends. You'll take home jokes to retell.
Have a bang-up party or game night in your own home—why not?! You're not sick. And laughter is contagious. Even Damasco Evangelista, Aster's husband, told me, "You like to see some action in your household!"
Come back to see how Aster progresses.
I'm glad somesoen can laugh. I cant, no yet. My best friend left, my husband of 25 years left, my day who I took care of at home until her was 93, then with his falling down and his illness, I put him in a rest home for the last year of his life. Then I lost my job after 30 years. With losing my job goes the money, friends, and health insurnce. I thought I did everything right! Go to school, becme a nurse, take care of your parents, husband, buy a house, only to be left alone when you get older (57) with shoulder and back problems from being a nurse. I wish I could laugh, but now I an alon and using up my resources. What to do??
Views: 1194
Comments: 1
Bookmarks: 0
