How to Prevent Caregiver Burnout

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In this episode of Ask Dr.

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Mia, I shared some mindset questions that I asked myself when I was caring and supporting my mom with her cancer journey that really helped me.

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set some mental boundaries as to what is a good daughter and what is a good caregiver in my personal experience that I hope you all will find useful.

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And I shared uh two uh free resources that could connect you to uh respite.

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as well as connecting folks to what almost seems like a project management tool or application that can help you more easily ask for help.

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for our daily tasks.

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Welcome back to Ask Dr.

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Mia podcast.

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Today I am actually recording in New Orleans.

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I am here for a conference on the American Academy of Home Care Medicine.

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But I am coming to you today to not necessarily talk about home visits and house calls, which yes, there are still doctors who do that, but we are now all in New Orleans and dispersed again by the time you listen to this.

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Today I wanted to talk a little bit about caregiving and how to prevent caregiving burnout.

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I think this is a topic that is dear to my heart, not only because of my professional environment and working with family care partners who are supporting people living with dementia.

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but also in my own personal experience in supporting my mom who has since passed away from ovarian cancer.

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I knew pretty early on when she got sick that I needed more help and that help came in many different ways.

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I was not living with her at the time and my dad and my brother were with her locally.

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in the same city, but I was the primary person facilitating her navigation through the healthcare system.

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And I knew, think it was shortly after she was diagnosed, I just felt myself, you know, very, not only very sad, but also very irritable towards my family.

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and struggling to keep my recurring thoughts about her and her health separated from the work that I needed to do at work.

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Usually as someone who really enjoys working perhaps too much, anytime that I have a life event that really impacts my usual ability to to do my job is a red flag that I have learned for myself um to pause and really think through.

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um My mom and I had a complicated relationship.

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um She came to the US when I was about three and I, three to four, I really don't remember in detail of those first couple of years except for the stories that she and my family shared.

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But I didn't come to the United States until I was 12.

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So I lived almost nine years without being with her.

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And I think Her parenting style is also very different from my paternal grandparents and my aunt, um who I primarily lived with when I was young.

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But coming here as a teenager, almost teenager, uh and getting to know her and my dad as parents in addition to being in a new country was something that I don't think we really got over.

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And I think as stereotypical Asian parents um of that generation, neither one of them, or maybe more so my mom, never expressed her love verbally.

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She would do things for you as a way of showing her love, but I think I have always wanted her to express her love verbally.

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In fact, she actually said something along the lines of, you know, words are cheap, but actions really show someone's love.

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So when she got sick, I knew that I wanted to be there for her as her care partner, as her support, even though I personally was grieving the future that I'm not having.

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with her.

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um I had like many other kids, adult children.

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I don't think I fully realized.

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my mom's mortality until the diagnosis of cancer.

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And that may be different for different families.

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For you listening, that may be a dementia diagnosis.

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It really brings on how little time we have.

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um But of course, there's that additional complicated grief of losing the person they have been.

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or the type of parent that they have been because of their dementia.

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I think for me, I knew that I needed some help both in terms of addressing my grief, but also in terms of addressing our relationship.

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And I sought out a grief counselor who actually used to work in hospice, but I knew that was something that I really needed to have someone besides my family members who are also dealing with their own grief journey with my mom um to really talk through how I was feeling.

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And I found that tremendously helpful during the two years that she was sick because I had worked through my own grief and my own complicated relationship with her during the time that she was sick so that I could be the best daughter and the best advocate for her and support her with patience and love rather than frustration or anger because of things that we didn't.

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resolve and ultimately I think this relates to a question that I asked myself or maybe my therapist asked me which I can't remember but it was so crucial in the shifting how I viewed caregiving that I want to share with you all is the sense that I asked myself What would be the definition of a good daughter in the case of helping with my mom with a serious terminal illness?

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And what did that look like for me?

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And I see this oftentimes when families come in where I think asking that question really helps clarify.

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what is important and how you want to show up for your loved one.

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For me, my answer to how to be the best daughter for my mom was really about accepting her for who she is and being present and being as patient as I possibly could.

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because I am not the most patient person, especially when it comes to my own family.

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It may be surprising to know that I do have a temper and it's just very well under the wraps unless you're very close to me.

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ah But I knew that the things that my mom said in our relationship as I became an adult, and had my own child, it was already complicated enough.

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I tried, or in my mind, I kept hoping and thinking that she would do things differently or do things in a way that I wanted her to do.

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So, and that could be as small of an example as, you know, holding me or hugging me and saying that she loves me, which were not things that was typical for my mom to express her love.

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And that may be such a basic thing to recognize now after the fact, after her passing and after my own grief.

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But then the moment I remember wanting so desperately for her to have the type of relationship that I've always dreamed of having with her.

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And part of the grief was the realization that I didn't have time to develop the type of relationship that I really wanted.

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And of course, in an ideal world, uh she would change and I would change and we would have a big kumbaya, but I knew that it was unlikely.

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uh But therapy really helped me come to terms with it without burdening her in the way of having to change herself to love me the way that I wanted to be loved.

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Because for me, I wanted to be there for her and I wanted to be there to reassure her.

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to be present with her.

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And I think that is something that is incredibly useful of an exercise.

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I Getting my own therapy really helped me in terms of navigating my complicated relationship with my mom, as well as my grief.

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And I think I encourage everyone who is listening to really ask themselves, what is your definition of being a good daughter or son or friend or spouse?

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And is that definition of good?

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caregiving realistic.

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Sometimes I see care partners who only feel like they're doing a good job when their loved one stays the same or stays well.

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And unfortunately, with chronic conditions like dementia and cancer, the disease itself will progress over time, even if you are the most amazing caregiver.

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And I know that, again, sounds very basic.

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But when we're in the mode of being a caregiver, we kind of forget that there are things outside of our control that makes it that our loved one will decline over time, regardless of how well we do or regardless of if we spend all of our time providing the care and not actually do all of the other 500 things that's on your plate.

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So I think I just want to provide a reminder both in my professional as well as in my personal experience and knowing that we have to come to acceptance that our loved ones will die and decline even if we are doing the best job.

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And I put the word best in quotations.

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um So that that mindset and that definition of what is good caregiving is really important.

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And at the same time, we know that being a sandwich generation caregiver is really hard because there aren't enough support in the society that we live in.

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Oftentimes, I hear family members say that even if they have siblings, they're oftentimes the only one who is the primary caregiver and that they have siblings who either don't help or don't understand.

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I have heard during my conference today from an organization and a speaker from Archangel, which is a nonprofit that really recognizes and celebrates the caregiving that people do.

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Um, they had shared that this is among CDC data from 2021, sort of in the peak of caregiving and COVID that 52, more than half of the sandwich generation caregivers have had active suicidal ideation, meaning they have actively entertained a thought of ending their life.

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And I think that statistic.

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is both shocking and affirming of why it's so important and why I feel so compelled to continue to do this podcast and do all that I can in getting information and knowledge out there because I know how lonely it is and how hard it is.

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And even talking with a friend who is in a similar situation of caring both for her mother and her young child, we were lamenting the fact that we have friends who are able to have free childcare from their aging parents, or that they are able to go on multi-generational family vacations.

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And yet, That was not the reality for me nor my friend.

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And that is a loss and a future that we knew we couldn't have.

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um So with all that said, if you are in a similar situation, I see you.

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I see the amazing work that you're trying to do.

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And I honor you and the work that you're doing every day to not only provide for your family, but also take care of all the things around you that needs to be taken care of.

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I do want to offer two potential resources for people to check out.

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One is a quiz that you can actually answer for yourself from Archangel that basically gives you a score as to how stressed you are in the caregiving journey based on who you're caring for.

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as well as the dynamic between you and your care recipient, as well as any siblings and other family members.

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I took the quiz myself as well, and I am in the yellow.

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And it's interesting to see and break down which things are my top needs.

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One of them is not having enough time for myself.

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um I think what is interesting from this free quiz is that then it linked to resources that were available and we could potentially activate and apply for.

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Now, I think some of this, all of the things that we can do to help ourselves in our caregiving sometimes takes an additional amount of work when we're already maxed out.

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And so how can we lower our own stress just a little bit.

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Nothing is going to take away that stress completely uh until our life situation changes in a major way.

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And but how can we lower our own stress just a little bit to take one small step into uh getting more help?

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uh I will link to the Archangel uh quiz in the show link and the other application that I wanted to share is a company called Ionicare and that actually stands for I am not alone.

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They have an app if you search for Ionicare, which I'll also link in a show notes, which is basically a way of breaking down tasks that we need help with and loop in potential helpers, whether that's family or friends or neighbors or you know, siblings, and put out the offer or the request without having to necessarily go to someone and ask for help.

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Because I know how hard it is to even think of something to ask for help when sometimes it feels like it's just easier if you do it yourself.

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um And so ionic care, think, is one potential way of breaking down some of the recurring mundane tasks like picking up medication from the pharmacy or um getting groceries that I think sometimes we don't realize how much time that could save us if we only knew who could help us with that task.

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um And so it's free, both Ionicare and Archangel.

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m are free.

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There's no, there's no funds that have to be paid.

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that um Ionicare also partners with some employers to offer more m person to person type of um support for caregivers.

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um But, but the app itself could be a way of uh almost project management of all the things that's on your to-do list.

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And I think it allows us to actually ask for help in a way that feels a little less vulnerable than calling up someone or texting someone and asking them if they can do something for us when the fear that they cannot or of being a burden to someone is such a prominent.

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you know, thing in the back of our minds at all times.

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So check it out and let me know what you think.

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uh I am always interested in hearing from my listeners as to what questions you have, um what kind of content you have found helpful.

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And uh if you can leave me a review, if you're on Apple podcasts, you'll just scroll down to the podcast uh show page.

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and you can leave a review that just even uh ask me a question on there or name the person that you're caring for or a uh family member that you're caring for just to let me know that you're listening and that I appreciate you and I see you.

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um For those of you who are watching me uh watching this on YouTube will note that I have had a wardrobe change.

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because this is the downside of recording outside of my home where the internet is not working well and there's more technical difficulties.

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So I appreciate you all and hope to talk to you next time.