Dementia Caregiver Expectations
Hi there Careblazer, welcome back.
Today I want to talk about dementia caregiver expectations. You already know there will be hard times, you have already had your fair share of hard times.
I want to take some time today to talk about your expectations on a little bit of a deeper level and give you a new way to think about those difficult moments when they do arise, because you know there are more coming your way in the future.
If you would rather watch the video on this topic, please click here.
Dementia is a really difficult thing for family to care for. It’s one of the few conditions that no matter how much great care you give, how much love you give, how much attention you give, no matter what you sacrifice, how much you do, your loved one is going to get worse. It’s awful. I wish it was different.
Because the dementia is going to get worse, that means that there is a high chance that whatever challenges you are faced with now, you will continue to face later. Sometimes those challenges happen more often, get more severe, or you are faced with entirely new challenges all together. Things don’t just stay the same as a dementia caregiver. As the disease progresses, you are constantly thinking, Okay what now? What’s next? and trying to figure out how to adapt.
So when it comes to realistic expectations you know that there will be challenging times ahead. They generally don’t just stop and go away, many times unless your loved one enters the very last stages of dementia. So when the challenges happen like:
--Your loved one is putting things down the toilet that don’t belong.
--Your loved one isn’t practicing good hygiene and rejecting all attempts to help.
--Your loved one is saying rude or nasty things to you about you.
In your mind, you have to think. Okay, here we go. It’s one of those days. Or it’s one of those moments. It’s happening. BUT, and here’s the new spin on your thinking about these situations, instead of getting extremely upset and frustrated about something you now come to expect, you realize it is part of the disease, you use those opportunities as an opportunity. An opportunity to put to work some of the Careblazer skills and coping methods that we’ve been talking about on this channel and if you need a refresher, or you think you’ve missed some videos be sure to go watch the self-care and support playlist on my YT channel to review some of the things you can do to get through those difficult moments.
Here’s the thing, you know more difficult times are coming. And yes, it will lead to stress and frustration BUT instead of letting it get the better of you and instead of thinking, I’m so sick of this, this is never going to change, I hate my life right now, I’m about to go crazy, and any other sort of unhelpful thoughts you might be having, I want you to catch yourself and say, Okay, let me see what skill I can use right now. Let me use this as a chance to practice some of what I’ve been learning.
These situations will be hard no matter what, there’s no denying that. But don’t make it any harder on yourself. Rise to the challenge, see the opportunity, and try going over some of the self-care strategies talked about in past videos. Most of them are linked in the self-care and support playlist and if you want a Careblazer self-care boost to learn about some of the best ways to respond and handle those difficult moments, you can check out my Carebalzer Booster series of 3 videos with accompanying care sheets to take things to the next level. I’d love to have you there. Here is the link if you are interested.
