"Even Though You Know What You Need Best, I'm Going to Tell You Why You're Wrong."
It's awful to feel judged for making good decisions that meet our needs.
After I gave a presentation in April, an attendee came up to me and said:
“I get so frustrated working with family caregivers who I know are really burnt out. I encourage them to get out and socialize. They’ll tell me that they just want to be alone. Ugh!”
I took a moment and replied: “It’s really about making sure that time alone is well spent. What if you asked them: How can we make that time alone really special for you?”
With a look of utter amazement on her face, she said, “Wow. That’s a great idea.”
You’ve probably experienced a similar conversation more times than you can count. You know what you need to feel better. Then someone tells you that doing what will make you feel better is just wrong because they think they know better.
They don’t get that our self-care during caregiving is very, very different than our self-care before caregiving. Our data shows that.
For instance, our research indicates that family caregivers receive energy when they have time for themselves — solitude. It makes sense. A caregiving experience is a crowded, noisy, frenetic one. When we have time for ourselves, we can enjoy quiet and a break from another needing us.
Others telling us what we need to do — when we know that unsolicited advice is the worst thing for us to do — leads to what I call Grace Fatigue, one of our Caregiving Fatigues. We endure another “should’ing” on us with a smile on our face. We smile so we can quickly leave the conversation.
Enduring unsolicited advice is another reason we crave time alone. We love to be away from those Know It Alls.
My conversation with that workshop attendee also fuels my belief that anyone who serves family caregivers must complete caregiving-specific training. It’s imperative we study the experience to successfully support family caregivers.
I’m curious: When another believes they know better than you about what you need, how do you respond?
(Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay.)
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YES! And on top of the judgment and blaming you are then offered mental health 'support' because you're clearly not coping. Medical settings can be so infuriating.
I was in the middle of reading this when I got a call from my mom’s doctor. Then I had to go get my son for an appointment. Good times in the sandwich! So YES, time alone would be amazing. I actually fantasize about just lying spread eagle on the floor with no one in the house. I really am tired of people trying to “fix” me. It seems reasonable to me that I am stressed out and exhausted etc, considering my circumstances, and tbh it really makes me angry when people try to solve my feelings. But mostly my response is to thank them and tell them I’ll keep it in mind. Because I simply don’t have it in me to get into it and tell them how I really feel.