Why It's Important to Discuss How You Feel
You help your parents every week. You're the one taking your mom grocery shopping as your dad hates how long she takes. You help prepare meals and keep the pool maintained. As time goes on, you're also helping them scheduled medical appointments, ordering and picking up prescription refills, and helping them manage finances.
You want to be there for your parents, but it's becoming too stressful. Here are some of the reasons why discussing your feelings is extremely important.
Senior Care in Newark DE: Open Discussion
Hiding Your Unhappiness Affects Relationships
When you're helping your parents, does your unhappiness with that role impact the quality of care? If you enter your parents' home feeling resentful that you're the only family member helping out, it impacts your relationships with your siblings and with your parents.
If you're finding yourself resenting your parents for needing help, you need to address having caregivers come to their home to help out. If your brothers and sisters aren't helping out as much as you are, you need to talk to them about coming up with an arrangement that gives everyone equal responsibility.
Your siblings cannot use distance as an excuse. Sure, there are things they can't do from afar. They could be helping schedule appointments or paying bills online from their home, which lightens your load.
Unhappiness Can Also Impact the Quality of Care You Provide
If you're unhappy when you're helping your parents, you're more likely to rush through the chores so that you can get through them and move onto things you prefer doing in your free time. That can affect the quality of care you provide.
You've just finished doing the cleaning at your home. You're now on your way to your mom and dad's house to help them with the laundry, vacuuming, dishes, etc. You're starting to feel like housekeeping chores will never come to an end. For that reason, you rush the job at your parents' house. It can lead you to forget to sanitize something correctly.
If you haven't washed dishes thoroughly and bacteria causes your parents to become ill, you'd feel horrible. It's better, to be honest, and let them know you can't care for two homes.
Stress Affects Both Your Mental and Physical Health
Too much stress harms you. Un-managed stress can lead to anxiety and panic attacks. Stress increases inflammation, which can raise the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. If you're keeping everything bottled up, you're putting your mental and physical health at risk.
You cannot let the help your parents need to take over your life. If you're struggling to have time for your own needs, it's time to bring in the help of a senior care aide. Make arrangements by calling a senior care agency and discussing prices and services.