Part 2: Looking After Yourself
Part 4: When Caregiving Ends
In the first three parts of this four-part series, you learned about how to move through the active experience of caregiving. In this final part, you’ll learn strategies for recovering and moving on from your caregiving role once it is over.
When Caregiving Ends
BY JEANETTE LEARDI
When your support is no longer needed, there are ways to reclaim—or reframe—your life.
Because the caregiving journey is unique to each person, you may find that your own direct experience may end with the recovery of your loved one, with his/her care assumed full-time by nursing home or memory-care staff, or upon that person’s passing. Just as your life was affected by becoming a caregiver, it is also affected by relinquishing that role.
When that happens, you may find yourself feeling any number of emotions, such as confusion (“What do I do now?” “Where do I go from here?”), guilt or regret (“I didn’t do enough to help”), and anger or resentment (“Why didn’t anyone else help me more?” “I gave up so much of my own life to do this”). Not surprisingly, you may even feel a great sense of relief (“I’m so glad it’s over”), which may trigger a sense of guilt for feeling this way.
Of course, in the case of losing your loved one, the most common and overarching emotion you may feel is grief—conventional grief, which looks back on the past once a person has died, or anticipatory grief, which you can feel while that person is alive but deteriorating due to advanced dementia or a terminal illness.
Whatever you feel, and whatever you do, it’s important to know that you have a right to grieve and recover in your own way, rather than live up to anyone else’s expectations of how to deal with your new circumstance.
Here are some strategies for making the transition from caregiver to whatever new experiences await you:
Give yourself time and space to recover. This includes eating healthier, exercising more regularly, catching up on your sleep, and not making any major commitments or plans until you feel ready to do so. You might consider keeping a journal in which you can process your memories, describe any issues you may have regarding your caregiving experience, work out ideas for how you would like to be, and what you would like to do going forward.
Resume pleasurable activities. If you gave up any hobbies, sports, or other pursuits because of your caregiving responsibilities, now can be a good time to get back to them. Included in this strategy is creating more opportunities to laugh and play—on your own as well as with others. In short, find ways to reconnect with your pre-caregiving self.
Join a grief support group. Hospice and other organizations offer small groups where you can share your feelings as well as gain insights and strategies for coping with your grief. Seek one-on-one counseling if suicidal thoughts or any other negative reactions—including long-lasting (known as “complicated”) grief—interfere with your ability to function on a daily basis.
Rethink your relationships with others. One of the most disorienting impacts of intensive caregiving can be the loss of friends who pull away and forget about you as well as the creation of stronger bonds with those who stay in touch and support you. Now free of your caregiving role, you can decide how to move on and with whom to do so.
Reprioritize and reframe your goals. You may find that caregiving has allowed you to change in some significant ways. You may now have different wishes for your life and strategies for fulfilling them. Would you like to go back to work? Take some lifelong-learning courses? Seek a life partner? Travel more? Retire? Decide on those factors of greater importance to you and begin to focus your attention on incorporating them into your future.
Mark your transition in a formal way. Sometimes the funeral of a loved one is not enough to make it clear to yourself and others that you are now resuming your life’s path or beginning a new one. Consider creating a rite-of-passage ritual for yourself that honors where you have been and where you would like to go. Invite people close to you to take part by sharing a meal, offering a poem or other words of encouragement, and wishing you well on your way.
Returning to Work
One of the greatest challenges many caregivers face is the prospect of returning to work, out of financial need, personal desire, or both. Since workplace ageism can be a barrier to older adult employment, it’s important when applying for a job to have a positive attitude about your ability to work after having assumed the obligations of a caregiver. Here are some tips to help make that transition successfully:
Create a network of support. Let your family, friends, and acquaintances know that you are now looking to reenter the workplace and ask them for suggestions of companies to approach, as well as specific people to contact. You might even ask one of them to role-play an interview with you to sharpen your ability to market yourself.
Update your skills. Research and get training in the latest developments in your field, especially those involving computer or other technical innovations. Employers will want to know that you can hold your own and hit the ground running when you begin your new job.
Be transparent about—and proud of—your time away from the workplace. Don’t try to hide the gap in your work experience, apologize, or express regret regarding your caregiving efforts. Instead, discuss how you have grown from the experience and how it makes you a more valuable asset to an employer. Express your willingness and ability to learn new things, as well as your eagerness to be a productive member of a team.
Emphasize the skills you acquired along the way. Consider how well you performed your many responsibilities and tasks during that time. Cooking, housekeeping, and personal grooming tasks aside, it’s also common for family caregivers to take on the problem solving roles of accountant, nurse, scheduler, legal representative, personnel manager, activities coordinator, and counselor, to name just a few. All of these skills are transferable to a workplace environment, and you should be prepared to explain this in an interview.
Sharing Your Experience. If you choose not to seek formal work, consider how your caregiving knowledge might otherwise help others caring for their loved ones. Being a mentor, continuing your participation in a caregiver support group, advocating for more caregiver community resources, and volunteering at an organization that supports family caregivers can be rewarding ways to pass along the valuable lessons you learned.
Whether your caregiving journey is a relatively brief or very long one, it can be a time of incredible personal growth—practically, psychologically, and spiritually. When caregiving ends, you should take pride in having assumed a noble role in preserving the dignity and quality of life of someone you loved.
Want to Know More?
Check out these resources for more tips, strategies, and support on when caregiving ends:
Caregiver Action Network—Life After Loss: https://www.caregiveraction.org/feelings-you-may-have-life-after-loss; Finding the Right Support Group: https://www.caregiveraction.org/finding-right-support-group
The Center for Prolonged Grief, Columbia University: https://prolongedgrief.columbia.edu/for-the-public/complicated-grief-public/overview/
Family Caregiver Alliance—Grief and Loss: https://www.caregiver.org/caregiver-resources/caring-for-yourself/grief-and-loss/
Jeanette Leardi is a Portland-based social gerontologist, writer, editor, and community educator who has a passion for older adult empowerment. A former caregiver to her late parents for more than a decade, she now gives popular presentations and workshops in journaling, memoir writing, ethical will creation, brain fitness, creativity, ageism, intergenerational communication, and caregiver support to people of all ages. Learn more about her work at jeanetteleardi.com.