As a caregiver, you may actually be dreading the holiday season. Caregiving is quite stressful on the best days even when there are no holidays. Unfortunately things can get even more stressful around the holidays, for several reasons. You know that you always have extra things to do in the holiday season, such as buying gifts, party planning, making things and attending to more than the usual amount of guests. It is a time of increased emotional stress. Generally on holidays your family members get together somewhere. This may mean you have to converse and be with the same family members that have not been willing to help you in your caregiving duties of a person related to all of you. Perhaps you were looking forward to spending more time with family and friends but now you won’t be able to due to your caregiving responsibilities. You may also have to spend extra time buying gifts that your ill loved one needs you to buy for them to give away. On top of all that you may be on an emotional edge because there are a lot of memories of the good old days.
You can choose to have a better holiday season this year. If the above sounds like the way you feel about the season as a caregiver for your loved one than it is time to make some choices that will help things run better and also give you more time to enjoy yourself. It really depends on how assertive you care to be and how you decide to deal with each situation that arises.
The first situation you have to deal with is seeing your family members whom you might have some resentful feelings about. You may feel you want to confront them to insist that they give you more help and show some appreciation for the caregiving work you are doing. The holidays might seem like a handy time to have this stressful conversation since everyone is gathered together, but you have to decide if the confrontation is worth the stress that it will cause you. If you suspect it will cause a huge blow up and you don’t want that hanging in the air, then choose to bite your tongue for now, enjoy your holiday, and confront your family after the season passes. Sometimes relieving stress is a matter of having self control over your emotions. Enjoy the little moments one at a time.
It’s common for a person who is the voluntary caregiver of a loved one to also be the voluntary host of the annual family holiday gathering. I guess there is something in the personality type. But do not get yourself stressed over this if you are running short of time due to caregiving duties. Simply speak up and tell other family members the situation and make a new and improved plan. Perhaps one of them will have the gathering at their house. Ask your party attendees to each bring a food dish to share for so many people, if you insist the gathering has to be at your house. Be very realistic about how much time you actually have. If you get invited to a lot of parties, then you may have to skip some or all of them. If you make a point before the holidays to be more realistic this year, than your stress will be less. It may not be an exciting year like years past, but you can’t constantly try to maintain that every year. Life is fun some years and some it is not.
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Make sure to take some time for you, with maybe just your close siblings, and your patient to enjoy some quiet time together on the holidays. Although you may be together all of the time, that may not be real, quality time. Even patients with dementia tend to hold on to their long term memories, so they may be very able to reminisce with you about holidays past. The holidays can be a special time for you as a caregiver to simply enjoy and remember the relationship you have or had with the person you care for even though it may not be easy to do when you care for them every day. This year the holidays can be what you decide they will be. Choose to have a better holiday.
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