Don't Lose Heart

My Caregiver Experience:
From Resentment to Unconditional Love

For as long as I can remember my mom and I butted heads.  If you give any credence to astrology, her sign is the one I am least compatible with.  I’m sure that’s why “God” gave me to her, and her to me!  Lots of lessons we’ve been learning!

My Mom’s philosophy of life, one that permeated every single moment of my upbringing, was that “the only thing that matters is what other people think.”  Mom had no room for authenticity, unless it coincided with what she defined as society’s view of what is acceptable.

To illustrate, one moment etched into my memory was when I was about 28 and pouring my heart out to Mom about something that deeply mattered to me.  I turned my head for a moment and mom interrupted me and said “Have you looked in a mirror at the back of your head?!  It looks like a mass of cobwebs back there.  Just imagine what people think when they see that!”

She wasn’t trying to be mean.  She was simply acting out her life-choice of ‘living in the shallows’.  It’s all she knew.

I spent my life struggling to find who I really am underneath the Southern Belle facade I was raised to believe I was.  Thank God I feel I’ve pretty much grown beyond that now!  Although I must say that part of me sincerely serves me well as a societal mask, when needed.  I even enjoy “her” sometimes!  [An appropriate side note for this site is that my entire journey toward authenticity was initiated the moment I heard my first Dan  song in 1978.  He was, and continues to be, my most cherished ‘teacher’, and ‘brother on the path.’]

My relationship with my father, in contrast to my Mother, was a most special bond that is beyond any words I could come up with here.  He was an incredible human being, and I feel very blessed to have had him as my father.  He died in 1997.

A few months before his passing I took him to Denver to a top-rated lung center, hoping against hope to find something to keep him with us longer.  During that visit he asked me if I would agree to ‘oversee’ his (if he stayed around) and mom’s aging years.  I frankly said (as I am known for) that yes, I would be happy to OVERSEE things for them, but he’d need to keep enough money around so I could get the help necessary to do a lot of the actual physical care (bathing, toiletry, changing clothes, etc.) My Dad understood and agreed (it wasn’t a big stretch.  It simply meant not going hog-wild buying ‘man toys’ he sometimes liked to have (related to hunting and RVing, etc.)

After he died I took over everything for Mom.  This was the beginning of my intense burnout as a ‘caregiver’. My mom, a beautiful, kind, yet spoiled Southern Belle, had never worked, or managed any of their business affairs, etc. She quickly turned me ‘into my Dad’, in many respects, and a major, unhealthy neediness and co-dependency grew between us.

In addition to the burden of my mom, I discovered that my Dad, who had been sick for some time before he died, left his affairs a mess.  It took me a full year to put the jig-saw puzzle together – starting with 17 checking accounts, 3 businesses, homes in 2 states, various real estate in yet a third state, IRS tax returns that had been extended just prior to his death, etc.  It was mind-boggling…… totally overwhelming to me.  I had recently begun a new job in Big Sur CA before Dad died, so during that year after his death I literally (no exaggeration) never slept more than 3 to 5 hours a night as I gave my all to both the new job and trying to get on top of the family business stuff.  I also gained almost 100 pounds during that one year!!  Before Dad’s death I had cooked a lot of my own food at home (even though my job provided me with 3 delicious free meals a day, 7 days a week.)  After he died I began eating all my meals in the lodge where I worked and, although the food was fabulous and healthy, I COULD have made choices with fewer calories.  Yet I went for far too many fat choices, homemade breads, etc.  I unconsciously rationalized it was reward for all the work I was doing.

Jumping ahead  to 2000, almost 3 years after Dad’s death, I was so burned-out  I requested a one-year sabbatical from my job, to retreat and write, which I was gratefully given.  Someone went into my position and housing, supposedly temporarily, as I headed off to live for a year in a little boathouse on my Mom’s property in Virginia.  It was a magical place to stay in the beginning.  I would take the boat out every evening to watch the sun set over the Chesapeake Bay, I was able to relax to a degree, and at first felt my burn-out receding.  It didn’t take long, however, to see the ‘error’ of living so close to my mother (although ‘error’ isn’t really true. I ‘trust the process’, trust the way life unfolds (even when I don’t like it) and believe everything happens for a reason.) My Mom sat in her living room up on the hill, looking down at the boathouse, watching my comings and goings and growing needier by the day.  She began counting on me for everything – to be her social life – her helpmate, her decision-maker, etc.  In the beginning I even enjoyed some of that, but it fast became a greater source of burn-out for me and I felt helpless to find a solution.  Mom doesn’t understand boundaries, never did, and after trying to set them kindly, to no avail, I often became harsh in my words, which hurt her – yet was the only thing that would serve to back her off a little, for awhile.  I didn’t write on that Sabbatical, as planned, and my trips out to the sunset became fewer all the time.  My plans to eat healthier and lose weight went out the window as well.  And there I was.  Feeling stuck and pretty hopeless.

In January of 2001 my mom left to go to Florida for a couple of months and I was greatly relieved to have the solitude.  I moved out of the boathouse, due to cold weather, and moved into the finished upstairs attic room at my mom’s.  My burn-out began to lift again (though relief was never deeper than putting a band-aid on it.)  Then, in February 2001, just 3 months before I was to return to my job in Big Sur, I made the decision to have gastric bypass surgery as I just couldn’t see my way to losing the extra 100 pounds I was carrying.  It felt impossible.  So I planned the surgery.  Soon before it was to occur, I left the house one evening to run a quick errand and returned home to find my mom’s house in massive flames – with lots of fire trucks and people all around outside.  I was devastated, and afraid I had been the cause (thankfully it ended up being a rechargeable flashlight my mom had plugged in the wall for 11 years, which had exploded.  The entire house, with the exception of one room, had to be gutted and rebuilt.)

If any of you have ever been through a major fire, then you know the nightmare that followed the next few years.  I ended up quitting my job in California as my mom could not have begun to handle the insurance inventory and negotiations, nor the re-building of the house.  My sisters, all who live in other states, were not in the same position I was in to be able to move there and handle things, so it was me who stayed.  I didn’t think it was possible before the fire to be more burned out than I already was, but the aftermath of the fire took me to places I never knew existed.

A positive note is that I did move forward with the surgery and that, I am pleased to say, has been very gratifying.  I lost the 100 pounds, and it continues to be gone 8 years later.

In terms of my relationship with Mom, I did everything I could for her (way too much, I know, which speaks to my own codependency) while inside I was very much resenting it, and her.  There was never a time when I authentically hugged or kissed Mom.  When I would leave her house, I would give her an obligatory peck on the forehead, and even that was a stretch at that time.

Then Mom was diagnosed with advanced Parkinson’s disease.  She is one of those that doesn’t have the shaking symptom, so we didn’t see it coming. Like I had done with Dad, researched top doctor’s in the field of her diagnosis and I took Mom to him, Dr. Abraham Lieberman.  He concurred with mom’s doctor on the diagnosis.

The Parkinson’s led to a few years of having to hire & train & fire & manage various 7 day a week health care workers to stay at home with mom.  I was over there a lot, daily (I had moved into my own place a few months after the fire, and have continued my work as a therapist through all of this.)  Mom’s neediness continued to grow, as did my burn-out.  Mom  resented any time I wanted to take for myself.

As a Gestalt therapist, and a very spiritual person, I deeply believe in ‘surrendering to the truth of what is, in reality’ as a way to heal.  Rather than ‘stuff’ my resentment toward my mother I would acknowledge it (in private, not with her.)  I would do what is called in Gestalt practice “pillow work’, or ‘empty chair work’.  I would take 3 pillows – - – one representing mom, and two representing different parts of my own self.  One being the part that truly loved my mom and wanted only the best for her, and wanted her to be around for years to come – and also the part of me who resented the hell out of my situation, and her, and truthfully wished she would move on right then and there.  I would have these ‘Gestalt dialogs’ which were very healing, and kept my sanity in check.  I know it may sound awful to some of you that I gave voice to the part of me that hated my Mom, but I believe had I not honored my TRUTH (my truth is the truth is the truth no matter how much I may try to cover it up) then I believe more of my resentment would have spewed itself onto mom herself.  AND, I do not believe the miracle (which I consider it to be) of unconditional love toward my mom would ever have occurred.

Rather than go on and on, let me say that after a lifetime of resentment and lots of hard feelings toward my mom, every single ounce of it evaporated in one single moment.  Gone.  Vanished.  I can’t explain it.  God’s grace, I believe.  And since that moment I have NOTHING but love and devotion and affection and caring toward my mom.  When I’m with her, I can’t keep my hands off her.  Patting and loving and kissing on her, and telling her how glad I am that she is my mom.  NEVER did I think that could happen.  God works in mysterious ways.  I truly thought Mom would die with me continuing to hold the resentment and anger toward her for the rest of my life.

Mom’s still here, and pretty much out of her mind now.  Although she knows me most of the time – sometimes I’m my Dad or someone else.  She recently told her doctor that she was pregnant and needed an abortion.  She even said “isn’t that something!  83 and pregnant!”  He said “Nell, how did THAT happen?”  and Mom said “well, I was out by the pool and this man came and…….well………we only did it once!”

I chuckled.  She is in good spirits most of the time and that is what matters most.  I have grown to enjoy the places she goes inside herself and have learned to join her there, even having hour-long conversations that make no sense at all but leaves her feeling like I understood everything she said.

I am still burned out.  That’s honest.  But not as deeply as I once was.  I’m still managing around the clock companions for mom (which we are blessed to be able to have) and I’m taking better care of myself.  Also, with mom’s mind somewhat departed, it is easier to take some space when I need it.

If there’s anything I wish for my Mom now, it would be that she surrender to ‘that which I call God’ in a way that is beyond her rational mind.  She has always gone to church, sung in the choir, etc. but I can’t say I’ve ever felt she had a true connection with God, or her own spiritual self.

It is my spiritual self that guides and heals me, and gives deep meaning and purpose to my life.  So of course I wish that Mom could feel this as well.  And the truth is, we’re working on it! Little by little.  Prayer by Prayer.

Thanks for listening everyone!

Dorothy T.
Onancock VA