Do We Talk Enough About The Self-Care Of Caregivers?

Caregiving is one of the most valuable yet disrespected work. Originating as a noble task of sacrifice, caregiving is now being defined differently by different people. Some consider it as the caregiver's duty while others take the caregivers for granted. In the process of providing care to every member of the family and suiting their various definition of care, the caregiver loses their humanity. They become a puppet that works on the call of the society. But puppets are objects to play with. Caregivers are humans with equal rights to draw boundaries between caregiving and self-care. Do you understand the difference? 

I am a daughter in her late twenties who is expected to take care of parents who are ageing but are healthy enough to do basic chores. My father labelled me as selfish for not asking him for food before I ate. Even though no such expectations were imposed on my brother, his words pricked and shocked me to a level of disbelief. Do you know why? Because since childhood, my only aim was to make my parents proud and happy. I used to sit beside my father and caressed his hair until he slept because his initial stage of insomnia was scaring me. I used to wake up crying whenever I dreamt of my father's death and sit next to him for minutes. Didn't all this count for caregiving? 

I have witnessed the domestic violence of my parents. Whenever they fought, my mother used to attempt suicide by overdosing. Who cared for her? Who gave her food? Who used to wake up in the middle of the night and observe if my mother was breathing? I even saved my mother from the brutal blows of my father and went down to my father's feet to seek forgiveness. Why doesn't all this count for caregiving? Have my parents forgotten these memories? Or are they deliberately pushing them away to fan their definition of caregiving? 

As my therapist said, "I gave care at the age when I was supposed to be protected and cared for." 

My retreat from caregiving to self-care

After going through all these traumatic incidents, somewhere I have lost the will to care about anything. I am exhausted. I am constantly battling with anxieties, lack of self-love and trauma. Now I am the one who needs care which my parents are providing. But it still hurts to know that they consider me selfish. 

Smita Sahay, a Somatic Therapist, told SheThePeople, "Allow yourself to feel that your life has shattered. Life is changing in every moment and we need to allow ourselves to grieve. We don’t have to be strong all the time." She was in conversation with Archana Pai Kulkarni on how caregivers need self-care too. 

She further talked about other emotions that caregivers push away and said, "Two emotions -shame and guilt- pile up and we are not taught to address them. We deny ourselves the luxury of being human. We need to process emotions like guilt, shame and anger and understand if they tell us the facts of the present or if they are coming from the past." 

Sahay's statement resonated with me as I too consider myself in the phase of processing the emotions that have piled up since childhood. Writing down in diaries and keeping them as secrets did not really take away the emotions suppressed like the door pushing the storm away. I am not a regular caregiver but I am a woman who will be expected to be caring and noble towards others. But how is that possible when my inner self is devoid of all these?

Vasundhara Talware, a life coach, spiritual guide, inner transformation expert and yogini, told SheThePeople, "Give yourselves the love you want to offer out. Connect with your own self to give care to others." She emphasised the need for caregivers to practice self-care which is "sexy". Talware also suggested asanas, pranayam and meditation to practice self-care. 

It is impossible for any human to work without break; caregivers are humans too

The idea of the self-care of caregivers is almost alien to our society. No one understands that regular cooking, cleaning and repeating can lead to burnout, depression and other issues. Society just assumes that basic caregiving is unavoidable and that no excuse whatsoever can be given to get rid of the "duty". 

I recently interviewed a few homemakers across the country. Most of them said that they don't find time to relax. Even though they wanted something else from life, they accepted caregiving as their destiny. In fact, men too feel stressed and burnout due to the huge responsibility of running the entire family. But the way men and women are treated is completely different. The work of the man of the house might end by night when they can relax, contemplate and introspect. But women still work to provide an environment of relaxation to the man.

But is it even humanly possible for a person to constantly work? Is caregiving, not hard work that consumes most of the day? When it is normal for employees to feel burnout, then why not caregivers? Why doesn't society cut some slack and allow caregivers to care for themselves? 

Whether or not a woman chooses to be a caregiver, it is assumed that their gender is born to provide care. But I firmly disagree. Caregiving is not the responsibility of the women alone. Women are not servants who hand you a glass of water even when you are perfectly alright to take it on your own. Caregiving means providing care to someone who needs it. If caregivers are expected to care even for healthy people, it will be hypocritical to say that caregivers do not need care. 

Views expressed are the author's own.