Therapy for Caregivers

People say to you all the time ‘I don’t know how you do it; I couldn’t listen to other people’s problems all day.’ And if you’re being honest with yourself, you’re starting to realize that you’re not entirely sure how you ‘do it.’

It’s becoming harder and harder to feel empathy for the people who come to you, but you’re also realizing you’ve been questioning your competency and ability to help the people who genuinely need it. You’re feeling your own ‘stuff’ bubbling under the surface more and more, and it’s getting harder to stay checked in to sessions when all you want to do is check out.

You got into this field because you know how beneficial and important therapy and other kinds of mental health support are. It’s been a running joke for years among you and your colleagues that you all chose this field because you understand - first hand - what it’s like to benefit from mental health therapy. One of my friends used to say that every family with a social worker also needed its own social worker, and if you think about it… it’s kinda true! You all agreed at some point or another that having your own ‘issues’ made you better at your jobs, but everything feels like a trigger for your own history right now… especially client sessions.

You know you have your own stuff that needs to be unpacked, but you’ve been trying to dismiss how big that pile of stuff has gotten. Your countertransference is at an all time high, and maybe you’ve found a supervisor to talk about it with - but you also know that’s not enough. You know you need something else; you need your own space to talk. You realize you’re:

**Annoyed by your clients

**Struggling to think of things to say to them that are actually helpful

**Frustrated with how slow the change process feels like it’s going with your clients

**Craving time off

**Short tempered with life

**Emotional and tense with family, when they’ve done nothing wrong

**Dreaming about your caseload

**Thinking about your past all the time, or more often than you have before

**Anxious more than normal

I get it, friend. As mental health and behavioral health professionals, it’s important for us all to let ourselves off the figurative hook from time to time. Sure, you and I know more about mental health than the average Joe, but we’re no more or less human than anyone else is. There’s going to be times when you don’t have your shit together, because life is too much, work is too much, and everything else is just too damn much - and not a single part of that is a reflection on your ability to be an incredible mental health professional.

It’s ok to give yourself permission to not be perfect, and it’s ok to not have it all together, all the time. You deserve just as much compassion, empathy, and support as you give your clients, and that’s exactly what this space is for.

After all, when you constantly hold space for others, you also need (and deserve!) someone to hold that very same space for you.

I’d love to hear from you, and to be the support you need.

It feels like you’re constantly drowning, getting swallowed whole by the weight of expectation and responsibility that’s on your shoulders. You fight your way to the surface, take a fast breath while hoping for some reprieve, only to feel immediately dragged under again. You have no time or space to just breathe, because the demand is constant.

For some of you, this is a role you knew was coming and you happily took it on at first - you wanted to help your loved one, but you had no idea what you were signing up for.

For others, this is a role you never wanted, but there was no one else. Becoming a caregiver for your family member wasn’t in the plans you made for yourself, but here you are.

No matter how this role came to be for you - whether you asked for it or not - you know you can’t keep going like this.

Being a caregiver has left you feeling:

>Exhausted

>Angry and resentful

>Overwhelmed

>Anxious

>Sad and scared for your family member

>Frustrated

>Guilty that you can’t do more for your family because you’re exhausted

It got old… really, really fast.

You used to approach the challenges of family caregiving head-on, knowing that you were smart enough, caring enough, and resilient enough to figure out the answers your family member needed. Every time you found a new pothole in the road of ‘the system,’ you’d take a deep breath and figure out a way around it. And, if there wasn’t a way around, you were always the one to guide people through it unscathed… knowing full well that you had to take the brunt of the impact in order to protect your family.

Over time, you lost control.

You stopped being able to drum up the emotion, the wherewithal, the ‘give a crap,’ and instead just sit in the middle of the figurative (and sometimes literal) chaos, completely drained. You know that you’re expected to have it all together 100% of the time, and that you’re expected to be 100% mentally, emotionally, and physically available for your family at a moment's notice. But, you’ve been stretched so thin for so long, you can’t stretch yourself any further without completely breaking. You know that you just don’t have it to give, anymore.

It’s ok to be tired.

It’s ok to be overwhelmed.

It’s ok to want to check out for awhile.

It’s ok to not want to be a caregiver anymore.

It’s ok to look for a reset button.

None of that makes you a failure. It doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t care.

It simply means you’re tired, and that is perfectly normal and acceptable.

You deserve to be supported, validated, and cared for, while you’re caring for your family member.

I spent over 20 years of my social work career working in home care, palliative care, and in hospice, supporting people who are caring for their loved ones and family members. I love this work, because when you finally feel seen, when you feel heard and understood, and when you have someone who will stand shoulder to shoulder with you as you navigate the healthcare system - those moments that light you up, when you can breathe a little easier, when you know you’re supported in all the ways you need as a caregiver, are some of my most fulfilling moments as a therapist.

Whether you’re:

**Caring for an elderly parent

**Caring for a retirement-age spouse who’s fallen ill

**Caring for a disabled child or other disabled family member

**Caring for a working-age spouse who’s suddenly no longer able to work due to injury or illness

**Or more…

You are worthy of being heard, no matter what. Whether you need:

**To have a safe, confidential space to vent your frustrations

**Help figuring out how to navigate the healthcare system

**A place to grieve for the imminent loss of your family member

**Support in figuring out how to find the logic in the chaos that caregiving can often be

**Education about medical terms and help in translating ‘doctor talk’

**Help in creating systems for staying organized and on top of the needs of your family member

You should get all of that - and more! You’ve made it this far on your own as a caregiver, and that’s incredible. Being the caregiver for a family member can be incredibly rewarding, and it is also exhausting and complicated in so many ways. I’m here to help you find the parts that are rewarding, no matter what they show up looking like - even if rewarding simply means getting a night off to do whatever you want, all by yourself. You don’t have to earn your rest as a caregiver - having space and time to rest is a must.

Let’s start working on creating that space and time together, right now.

You dreamt of this career since… forever. Being a medical professional was something you always wanted, just the same as you’ve always wanted a meaningful and fulfilling life outside of work, filled with people you love and who love you right back. But now, you’ve been in your dream career, working what you thought was going to be your dream job, and you’ve got a family and the friend group you wanted, and something is just…. off.

On one side, you’re struggling to figure out if you love your career but hate your job, or if you really just hate your career. It feels like the life is getting sucked out of you, and you’re constantly irritable with the people around you. Home no longer feels like a reprieve from the stress of work, and if you’re not arguing with your family, you’re just checked out instead.

On the other side, work is also the only place you still feel competent. As frustrated as you are with your work life, it feels like the one place you can go to escape from the stressors of home. You know what do at work; you know how to handle issues there; you know how to get shit done. Yes, you realize you’re struggling - but at least at work, you know you don’t have to be on the defense all the time, and you don’t feel completely alone, ignored, or rejected.

You got into this field to help people, feeling optimistic and hopeful about your ability to contribute in both large and small ways. The rose colored glasses you wore throughout school slowly came off as you got further and further into your career, and now they don’t even feel like a distant memory - they’re just gone.

It feels like the constant exposure to the underbelly of society and a broken healthcare system have left you with no other option than to feel jaded, discarded, and angry about the pressure that’s constantly on your shoulders.

You support so many people - whether they’re family and friends, patients, coworkers, or colleagues - who all have incredibly high (and challenging) expectations of you. You always show up for them, and they’re used to being able to get what they need and want from you. What they don’t realize, though, is how limited your resources are, and that you’re running out of what they think is a never-ending supply of tricks up your sleeve.

Being in the medical field was all you ever wanted - but you didn’t realize how much it would also take from you.

You’re overwhelmed, angry, resentful, and sad. You still want to help people, but it’s exhausting to feel like there’s a brick wall that you run into in every direction, stopping you from being able to help effectively. You feel disengaged from the things and people who used to matter to you. And other days, it scares you a bit to realize that you’re starting to care a whole lot less than you used to. You know how dangerous it is for a medical provider to stop caring, and you don’t want to hurt anyone, or yourself.

You recognize you’re dealing with compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma when:

**You realize your judgment calls on treatment plans or choices have been slipping

**You feel foggy more days than not, and struggle to think clearly

**Making decisions quickly is becoming harder and harder

**You stop spending time with coworkers, friends, and/or family, and isolate yourself instead

**You’re dreaming about patients

**You hear sounds from work, like bed alarms, monitors and IV pumps, intercoms or radio transmissions, while you’re at home

**Feelings of jumpiness or being more anxious than normal start becoming noticeable

Being a medical provider is so rewarding, and it’s also exhausting. You deserve to feel better, and therapy can help.

It’s possible to feel hopeful, energized, and engaged in your dream job and life again.

Therapy for medical providers begins with giving you the space to talk about what you wanted your career to be like, versus what it actually became. You deserve to have time to process the different realities of your career that you might not have been prepared for, without feeling like you’re being judged for how you feel about it. We’ll talk about how your job impacts you, how you believe it’s changed you, and what you wanted to experience it as. You deserve to have a space to process those experiences and feelings, but we’re not going to unpack and stay there.

While we work together, we’ll also work on redefining what it means to you to find joy and fulfillment in your career, while also focusing on how to find joy and fulfillment in your life. You’re not *just* a medical provider - you’re also a person, with a whole life to live, full of your own wants and needs that deserve your time and attention.

Imagine what it would feel like to get back to a place of actually being excited to show up to work, instead of dreading it.

Imagine what it would be like to come home to your family, still having energy in your tank, and being able to be present with them in a meaningful way.

Imagine how exciting it would be to get out of the spin cycle of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma, and feel like you’re reclaiming the parts of you that you thought you lost.

Learning how to redefine what once brought you meaning, how to reconnect to a sense of fulfillment, and use practical, simple tools to cope better with the stressors of the medical field, will give you back the control over your own life that you’re so deeply wanting.

Let’s work together to create a plan for the future, and get you back to living and working the way you want.