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The battle I find myself in is with myself really, sifting my way through fullfilling the needs of my family, my spouse and feeling guilty to even put myself on that list. I think many carer's do this every so often and it is nothing new, I know. It feels like we don't deserve to have needs taken care of too when compared with who we care for. From that standpoint we are not the ones who have had something taken away from us only to be replaced with difficulties and ever-changing health issues, and it is true...we could walk away if we wanted to while the person with the sci cannot escape it.
Just because we have that choice hanging up there somewhere in the clouds, does not mean that we really feel like we have it or even would take it. Instead, we are actually wounded in such a way that we are crippled with powerlessness. We can do everything but actually fix what is wrong. It is sobering to know that there is only so much I can do to provide for needs and some comfort, none of which really changes the hard facts of something that is lost not just for one but for all. One person is zapped and the rest of us live in the realm of ripple-effects, we are effected by the waves from the devastation.
When we cannot fix it, nor achieve what we would like, we feel we have fallen short, our efforts are not good enough. Our spouse or boyfriend or significant other or loved one may say to us that we are wonderful, that they realize how much we have done or how hard we have worked to make something better for them, but sometimes those words are actually hollow, because in our minds there is always something else we think we could have done better....but we were tired or worried about something we didn't want to share or there just weren't enough hours in the day, and in the end it still comes down to the fact that we cannot fix it.
While one of us deals with what they cannot do, the other deals with more than they think they can do and the balance is constantly tipped one way or the other. Weighing equally in the middle does happen, however, sometimes you have to look for it, sometimes it is quick, sometimes it feels rare, but when it does it's like a vacation.
Really though, it is a battle of perceptions. Perceptions are there for the choosing, they are something we can actually control, but making the choice is the tricky part...
I can choose to believe that I have done all I can and that it is enough. After all, I could believe that everything I have done is all that is humanly possible. I don't believe it, I am inadequate, I cannot fix it. While the needs of one outweighs all others, it only adds to the belief that unless I have experienced something equally as life-changing, I am not as important. This is what floats in the back of my mind at all times, nomatter what huge praise I receive for my efforts, because I am not the one who has lost physical function. I have lost something else and I cannot fix it any more than you can walk.
One might bring up the argument that I could walk away and go back to a 'normal' life, but that is not possible, it isn't even a question of that, because who I am now will always have this experience and what it does to me is make me feel both good and guilty at the same time. Good that I did more than I thought I could and bad that the same result remains no matter what I do. And you could just tell me that I am feeling sorry for myself and I need a swift kick in the arse, "Get over yourself and move on!" Yes, of course, that is the easy answer, yet not so simple as saying it. One with the sci might say to me that I am the one with the choices they do not have, I am the one who can so easily step around the obstacles, and what do I really have to moan about? Not true. I have obstacles for two.
And there is the rub...
When the world revolves around the person with the sci, is the carer any less important? I am a planet that orbits around and he is my gravity....but there are meteors out there, you see. The same ones don't always hit both of us, some just hit one or the other.
Often I feel like I am running back and forth underneath the balance,...when one side tips I push it back up and then I have to run to the other side and do the same so that neither side can hit bottom. I keep doing this to make my husband's life easier, more comfortable, to make sure he has nothing to worry about that will frustrate him more adding to his own burdens of feeling unable to do some things. Then I find myself weakening, I don't run as fast, I can't lift as high, I cannot remove his burdens...the fears I have locked away in my brain escape and flood me.
I do my best to keep my mate in the place he should be, at the head of our household, the leader of our clan, where he would be if the sci had never settled upon our lives. I keep the structure in place, make sure he is the one we go to, make sure the opportunity is made for him to teach us from his experiences, make sure he is the center, to give him purpose, enjoyment, to give us him and he, us. He is the one who wants to fix it all, too. We both want to fix what cannot be fixed.
And what do our children see?
Our children do not see anything that needs to be fixed. They see what is. They see how we help each other. They see where one falls short the other takes up the slack and how it goes both ways. They see that frustrations are not obstacles, that they are only challenges and there are solutions for everything. They see that love is bigger than problems. They see when we can't. They are wise when we are not. They seem to understand the hierarchy better than I do sometimes. And best of all they know that laughter is the first step when things are darkest.
I don't know about you, but I can get wound up in my own thoughts which can so easily isolate me, my viewpoint and make me question everything. I can try to step in another's shoes to try to understand a second viewpoint, to try to make sense of another person's world in effort to try to find a balance. But even better is to get outside of it all together to see the bigger picture, to look in at everything at once and see how all things work together, how one choice effects another, and how it doesn't stop right there, because our choices have ripple-effects just like the catastrophes we didn't see coming do.
Sometimes I have to step back and see what is being put into those dishes dangling on each side of the balance, because just running back and forth underneath is futile and endless. When I can see what is being put in, tells me what I need to do, to directly affect the balance and somehow it makes for less futile running on my part. Sometimes my husband puts in more and I put in less. Other times I put in more and he puts in less.
There isn't one more important than the other, we just have different hardships. The important thing to remember is that we balance each other out by what we do have to give.
Your own supply of giving of yourself is greater than you think and so is what you get back:)
Edited by mcwriter, 20 December 2010 - 09:49 PM.
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