There are a lot of caregivers out there. “Almost 20% of Americans were caregivers of adults in 2020, according to a report by the National Alliance for Caregiving and the AARP. About half cared for a parent or parent-in-law, and 12% cared for a spouse or partner.” There are plenty more people providing care to their child, sibling, former partner, other relatives, friends, and neighbors.
So why do so many caregivers feel like no one in their circle understands what they're going through? Part of it is that caregiving experiences are so varied.
Sometimes caregiving is a discreet part of our life. It’s separate from everything else we do. Often it’s something we don’t discuss with friends and family, perhaps because it doesn’t feel relevant beyond scheduling conflicts, perhaps because we are actively working to keep others from knowing about it. Anyone who isn’t part of the care team assumes we have no care responsibilities.
Sometimes caregiving is integrated into our life. Care work is simply part of our regular chores and responsibilities. Considering access needs, dietary restrictions, and scheduling has become automatic. People, perhaps including ourselves, don’t consider us caregivers as long as things seem to be running smoothly.
Sometimes caregiving has become our life. Our entire life revolves around care work, as life is a slowly unfolding crisis. People identify us as caregivers, if they remember we exist at all.
People who seek out or are referred to caregiver support groups are most often members of the third group. It sets us up to fail, as people who are burnt out and in the middle of a crisis need immediate, dedicated support. Even if they crave feeling understood, they are often too raw from years of betrayal and trauma to jump into a group of strangers.
They are being referred to peer support not because it’d be helpful, but simply because there is no accessible appropriate support and it seems nicer to give someone an answer, even a bad one. We get told to help each other so they don’t have to admit that there’s no help out there. People in a crisis need a team to swoop in and provide solutions and tangible support.
It’s the people in the first two groups, who are quietly going it alone and managing well enough, who stand to benefit from peer support. They’re coming up with clever solutions to each challenge. They’re part of families and communities. They have hobbies, even if they’re being neglected. They’ve still got enough of themselves to bring to a new community. They have the mental energy to forge new connections. They have wisdom to share, along with commiseration. They can learn from each other’s successes and failures. They have resources that are going untapped and the ability to develop resources they’ll need in the future. They can show each other what’s possible.
Peer support is a great way to reduce the number of caregivers who end up in the third group. The safety net of other caregivers can only do so much, though. The cards are stacked against us because no one asks what we can handle, it’s simply assumed we’ll figure it out somehow.
The difference is that when a long-time member of a peer support group ends up in a crisis they know they’re not going through it alone. They’ve seen other people in this place before them and they know there are paths out.
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