Avoiding Guilt

As a child caregiver, guilt became part of my life with mom. Although it was my “normal”, I sacrificed good bit of my own life by staying home to care for her. I vividly share that experience within my excerpt entitled Tears. With that role came anger and resentment that continued even when I was older and no longer living with her and directly caring for her daily. I have learned that those feelings were totally normal. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make her better. No matter how much time I stayed with her and sacrificed my own activities and what I wanted to do, it didn’t matter. She would still need me even more and would remain sick.

It is normal to have these feelings of guilt because it can be really challenging to care for somebody with seemingly endless needs. When I reflect on my childhood, what seemed to help me feel a little bit better and much less isolated was simply talking to my aunt or my grandmother. Within those conversations I would acknowledge my own feelings instead of pretending they did not exist. That had a way of helping me cope. I knew my aunt and grandmother would not judge me for how I was feeling. They provided me with a safe, judgement-free space that I needed when things got tough at home. As I got older, I learned to leverage counseling and therapy where I would discover who I was buried deep beneath the role of a caregiver. Therapy gave me much needed permission to just be me and feel what I was feeling. Tools I gained from therapy included journaling my feelings and connecting with a peer support groups which helped me manage my guilt and emotions. Therapy would also teach me how to control my thoughts and understand the power of mindfulness. Within that tranquil space, I could shift the conversations in my head to a more empowering and positive self-talk dialog that would begin to serve me.

What about you? What are you doing for yourself so you aren’t going it alone?

I want to encourage you to find yourself someone safe to talk to so that you can navigate and manage those feelings of guilt that may naturally surface. Find yourself a safe, judgement-free space where you can go and plug-in and get re-charged so that you can deal with your feelings more powerfully. Sending you so much love for a stronger and more peaceful tomorrow.