Getting Rid Of That Guilt
Just a little bit of help here and there for an ageing parent or parents may not need a lot of emotional readjustment. However, if you are going to be the sole caregiver and they do need a lot of assistance, then all of that emotional trauma brings along guilt for both parties as an accompaniment.
What usually happens is that the senior citizen isn’t prepared for the fact that he is going to have to be dependent on someone. This is a great loss of self esteem. And it is much worse when it has to be the child who he has always been protective about while growing up. This adjustment takes a long time for the parent to accept. It’s almost like you were doing them a favor, and one that cannot be repaid. The more time you spend with them, however much they might like having you around, they realize that you are taking time out from family, work, other commitments to come be with them. Who wouldn’t feel guilty? And the fact that it is unpaid for seems even worse. When services are paid for, there’s hardly any feeling of guilt.
What compounds the issue is the fact that there is so much change taking place in the senior’s life and it is all so terrifying. Firstly, the fact of having to be dependent on someone, especially their child. Secondly, if they have to move into an assisted facility. After having lived pretty much of a routine existence, to be plucked out of the security of a known environment and pitch forked into a new, strange place is not easy. Then having to have their child take care of all the details and spend time to come and visit, adds to the guilt.
For a son or daughter, it’s bad enough seeing a beloved parent being moved out of familiar surroundings and having to have most things done for them. On top of this, is the guilt and the resentment that the parent feels. Even though you know this is irrational, you just can’t help the feeling and you so much wish that you could do more than you are right now.
So what is the solution? Guilt makes for broken relationships, frustration, resentment. The only way out of this trap is straight talking. Both the concerned people need to sit down and have a heart to heart chat. You have to lay your feelings down on the table and tell the other person why you feel this way. It’s easy enough for you to explain to a parent that they looked after you with so much care when you were little and needed them, so why not the other way around? It’s all right for you to tell them too that you feel guilty you can’t do more but that more might not be physically possible. This way, you work out a system from a position of transparency and openness. This is the positive way to go forward and be on the same side as you were as a family, not against each other.
