FlowersYour Life After The Move


What your life will be after the person in your care has moved to a new home depends on many factors. The main thing is to see that you do have a life of your own and a right to live it. Think about some of these ideas as you pick up your own life again.

Rest

Before you become very involved in making plans, take some time to rest and recover. Then you will have the strength you need to make and act on your plans later.

Allow time to adjust.

Let your feelings come out and work through them. You almost certainly have a lot of feelings stored up. These may be feelings about the person or about the loss of the person. They may be about the disease or about the fairness or unfairness of life. You may have strong feelings about the help you did or did not receive in caring for the person. A lot of grief, sadness, anger and loneliness can build in caring for a person with a dementing illness. Now that you are no longer providing round-the-clock care, these feelings may hit you quite har. You may go through a period of grieving, even though the person is still alive. There are resources available to you. Your family and friends, your health care team, counselors and members of the clergy can help you. As well as support group. They can offer insights on ways to cope with the change as well as practical suggestions.

Take pride in what you have done.

Let yourself see how much you did in your caregiving. You took on a task for which you were unprepared, a task you would not have willingly chosen. You dealt with and learned to do things you never imagined you'd have to do. Perhaps you kept providing care long after your strength seemed gone. Sometimes people experience guilt when they place someone in a nursing home. If you feel guilty remember to look at all that you did.

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