Needs of a Caregiver

I'm a caregiver, and I think alot about what I need as a caregiver. My job is to care. I am legally responsible for the health, safety, nutrition, and well being of two dozen people for 8 hours every day. To say this is stressful and that I could never be paid for what I do, is an understatement. But in reality, as a caregiver, I spend every day at work giving, giving, giving.  Some days I sarcastically say I get paid to give a shit. I put my emotions and needs in check every minute to professionally endure situations I personally find embarrassing, morally wrong, stupid, or just plain annoying. All with a poker face.

But then I come home, and I want someone to take care of the caretaker. After enduring an entire shift being overloaded with human interactions, many negative, all I want is some SPACE. Sometimes, its as simple as being able to say the forbidden phrase "SHUT UP". I just want to say it. Shut up. Shut Up. SHUT up. SHUT UP. SHUUUTT UUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!!!!! Shut up. There. :)

When I think about getting home all I want is someone to meet me at the door with my pjs and a glass of wine, ask me how my day was, have dinner ready, and then massage my sweaty, stinky feet. (lol) Ok that's not alot, right?! In reality, what I need when I get home is a quiet atmosphere, NO drama, no one asking me questions or needing things from me, no questions, getting to choose whats on TV... okay, okay. :)

I need to decompress after my day, and sometimes I really just need a little bit of space to process. I've spent my day listening to and neutralizing people's (real or imagined) problems, stopping 501 fist fights, wiping snotty noses, meeting the time-sensitive demands of nursing and paperwork, and closing the eyes of the ones I care for for the last time.

A caregiver needs someone who can give them their space, respect the 1001 issues they deal with after the shifts end, and give back to them when they feel emotionally, spiritually, and physically drained. Someone who can deal with whatever happened during the 8 hours they were at work and then for an hour or two afterwards. Not saying that I don't want to know what happens.... but my emotional sponge needs some re inflation time!!! (not saying the glass of wine and a foot rub wouldn't be a class act...... :) )

I'm a caregiver. I know more about personal care than you probably do. But I need to not feel like a caregiver when I get home. When I get home, at least for a few hours, I need the tables to turn. 

Now that I no longer consider myself to be a practicing "Christian"*, I wonder about the appropriate way to express myself to religious friends or in religious situations. I'd like to say, "my thoughts and prayers are with you", but frankly, I don't pray and don't pretend to, but I'd still like to acknowledge my friends' religious sentiments if that's what will bring them comfort. "My thoughts and good wishes are with you" seems awkward and just accentuates the fact we have philosophical differences, when I really just want them to find peace however the hell they find that. So yes, go find peace in your masochistic, sadist, selfish, nonsensical god, if that what serves you best. I could say, "find peace and comfort in your memories" but I know from personal experience that's a little old and just, yeah, don't say that.
I guess since I do believe in a Supreme Being, its not completely hypocritical. 

In Search of Peace

I've been on a search for peace my entire life, for as long as I can remember. I didn't realize it until about a year ago. I'm not sure if peace is the absence of worry, absolute trust in a supreme Being, or accepting yourself completely. I think its closer to the later. I've tried to hold on so tightly to circumstances in my life, to control circumstances and create external peace or calm, that I fear its turned me into a angry, hard ass, always lashing out at people and things in my life. I'm not sure how to keep that medium of internal calm and external stress.

I think that  a definition of peace, if there is such a thing, would be pretty close to the serenity prayer that Christians like to hang on their walls. I'm not going to quote it here, since I refuse to make any serious religious reference. But peace, to me, would be along the lines of accepting yourself and the journey you're on, and making changes for the better whenever you can.   Peace isn't giving up and accepting yourself the way you are, because to me, to be at peace, I have to have an action plan. Ok, I know this sounds like the opposite of peace, but I'm talking about being at peace with my life, not sitting peacefully on a cushion drinking tea. lol.

I recently realized that I've been so focused on success, that I forgot about the search for peace. I've realized that I'm a long way from peace in/with my life. I have a yearning to do things in my life that will bring me peace (ie going to church, sewing, painting), and screw whatever I've said about going to church in the past or what people think of church (for instance). My search for peace is my own private journey and I guess no one needs to know how I got there.... they will see the result of peace in my life. This all sounds super-spiritual, but that can't be farther from how I mean it. Peace with a supreme being might be part of the whole picture, but right now I have to stop hating myself.

Unfortunately, I haven't done any of those things I've been wanting to do, things that can help me find peace, because well, I think I'm still looking in on my life from the outside, a sort of third-party spectator to my life.
I haven't really "owned" my own life, the changes I want to make, the things I've wanted to do.

People on the outside, looking in, have said, "Oh, she's so successful, she's got a job (or three), she's in school, she got a scholarship, a boyfriend, made the dean's list" et al ad nauseaum, but none of that brought me peace. Yes its nice to have a job and good grades, but all that does is provide some security.
I guess that the things that bring peace in life aren't seen so much from the outside.

I guess to find peace I have to start loving myself. Trying too hard to change circumstances in my life, while thats a good thing in some respects, isn't going to breed peace within myself. I may have to choose between pushing myself hard enough to loose those few pounds, or loving myself the way I am. I'm not giving up on my goals.... They have to align themselves with ME! :) Goals are great....they keep me going, they keep me focused, they bring stability, but they haven't brought me peace.......yet. Still waiting for a refund, haha.

 I recently received the advice to be gentle with myself. Thats something new to me.

Be gentle with yourself. That sounds like a great place to be.

What does that mean?

I'm not sure if I have any or all of this right yet. I know I have to start thinking differently.......

Compare yourself to yesterday....

Stop comparing yourself

to others.
Compare yourself to the

person you were yesterday.

Hello!

Hello there. I’ve thought about starting a blog for several years now. I’ve been following blogs like Incongruous Circumspection, Homeschoolers Anonymous, NLQ, and more for some time now. Maybe it’s time for me to start telling my story, cuz god knows if I don’t write, I won’t say it! I’m not trying to out anyone or share horrid stories, I’ve moved on in a lot of ways but maybe now it’s time to start actually start talking about my healing journey. One thing I’ve learned is that everyone has a different path to healing and there is no “right”.  I have focused on finding a new “normal” and achieving a stable, secure place in my life financially/emotionally before I start to revisit those dark places and sort through what they mean- or don’t- for myself. Everyone keeps telling me there is no NORMAL. OMG. Well I would like to be normal! My story is a mash of ATI, quiver full/patriarchal/Botkinshit homeschooling, and the Anabaptist pressure cooker. That’s about three degrees of crazy, last time I counted. Back to what I was saying. Lol. So I’m just trying to figure out what normal, what’s right for me, and what I want. I still haven’t figured out how I feel about God, or homeschooling, or what happened to me as a child, or religion, and I’m not trying to figure that out anyway. In a way I’ve moved on way too fast and none of those things even mean anything to me anymore. And then sometimes I realize that unless I unearth and sort through my memories and what they mean or how they’ve affected me…….. I’ll always have a big black hole in my mind. Or something like that.  

I kind of wish I had started blogging a long time ago, so that I could watch the growth I’ve experienced and the changes I’ve embraced. Oh well. Some of the last three years plus I’d rather not remember anyway.

So in this blog I’m not really aiming to unearth all my family and my former community’s dirty laundry, although it might happen from time to time. I think it’s more important to me to document the healthy choices I’ve made to replace those dark places. It’s true that you can’t replace “dark” with nothing, so I’ve chosen to learn new things and experiment with new choices and experiences, and maybe at some point, there just won’t be room for the demons anymore.  I can hope.

I will probably rant a lot and write a lot of crazy views that may be totally waaaay out there, but hey. Not all of us can be pro-cheaper by the dozen/whole wheat/anti-Uncle Sam etc etc whatever your “thing” is.

I came to accept a long time ago that I was raised in a really fucked up way, and that being Mennonite makes me weird in a lot of ways. I want to say right away that I really wouldn’t trade that upbringing for anything, but more and more I realize things I missed out on, and that still causes pain. Still, I am a unique person and I have to think of the things that have happened to me that way, otherwise I will start to become bitter and feel that I’ve missed out. Yes, I missed out, but that’s not the memory I want to have.

Okay! So about me (because every blog seems to have this!) I’m 22 years old, which is one year too old, I work full time, go to school full time, tutor, drink a lot, watch a lot of CSI and NCIS and Criminal Minds (which saved my life one time………ANOTHER story), listen to a lot of new music, like exploring and road trips and learning new things…… and yeah a lot more too!

So I’ve called this blog Recovering ALIVE for a couple reasons. For one thing this blog is to document my journey to recovery, wherever that takes me. As I unthaw from a winter of life-long depression, I feel like my senses, my feelings, and my life is starting to come ALIVE again. Every day when I wake up with a sense of accomplishment, a sense of KNOWING why I belong here in this life, I am starting to live again, without that haze that’s clouded my life for many years.

Welcome to my crazy busy silly life. Read. Or don’t. You won’t hurt my feelings. J