I recently read a blog (yes I read them too! see Wrinkly Ranch Sept 14, 2022 Improve and adapt. Don’t Feel Guilty) about caregivers carrying around guilt for having to provide care for their loved ones and how they need to admit that it is a burden to care for their loved ones. To not be afraid to ask for help and to set aside time for themselves for their own self-care. If they don’t they won’t be any help to the person they are caring for let alone themselves. This hit home on so many levels that you wouldn’t believe. I have been watching my husband kill himself trying to take care of a house and pick up my slack at the same time over the course of many years now. I can see it all wearing him down. He’s exhausted, he walks around the house rubbing his wrists shaking them. Sleeping in wrist braces at night. One time for about a week he couldn’t move his neck and I thought he was genuinely making fun of me. Nope! He was in pain. There were times when it looked like someone kicked him in the ass. He was so sore, (it looked funny and we both laughed, but we knew it really wasn’t funny). Times he genuinely couldn’t get up off the couch. I would love to help him but I myself can only help in a few ways. Bring him pain meds, when needed. If he’s ambulatory then it’s all good if necessary I can get him into a car if God forbid something happens. First of all you need to get him to admit that there is something wrong. Now when I ask him if he would like me to call and make an appointment to visit one of my “tors or ists” (dr, chiro, physio, et al..). He’s the kind of a guy that getting him to go to a Dr is like a scene in a Mission Impossible Movie. Chiro & Physio etc. is bullshit so can someone please tell me what I am to do with this man that I love that will die on a sword for me but not take care of himself? It ‘s not like he doesn’t have benefits and needs to pay out of pocket for it. He wakes up in the morning and goes to work everyday sick or not and musters thru because that is his nature. But what worries me is that one day I am going to find him lying on the bed or floor unable to get up because something gave out, and then what am I going to do with him? All because he couldn’t take an hour tops to go and get himself looked at. This is my Superman. I have no idea what I would do without him. He has guilt and I have mine.
Guilt is brutal! There is not one moment in a day that I don’t think about all the shoulda, coulda, woulda or if only’s. Just thinking about them can drive a non drinking person (which I am) to drink !. My first one goes back to if only I pressed back harder on the dr that apologized when I got my first emg done…..maybe i would be fine and still working. I picture our lives to be so very different , more active, more social, more busy, more fun. Easier not always on the uphill climb of Mt Everest. I think of my friends out there going on ski trips and enjoying a sport I used to love to do as well. However cold + Me = Pain so inside I stay, and I feel Guilty because everything we used to do has crumbled away and my very active lifestyle has reformed and created a new life around my limitations and around my pain. That would be ok with me if it was just my lifestyle that this new path took with it but it took my husband’s lifestyle as well. Somewhere along the way he decided that if I wasn’t doing it he wasn’t either. How fair is that? I can see it from both sides. But I encourage him to go out and leave me at home. I don’t need a babysitter, there will come a time when I do and then he can chain himself down to me at that point but right now I don’t. So why don’t you go and have a wee bit of fun? Because Mr and Mrs Guilt here….he is feeling guilty that he is having fun doing something I can’t when there’s stuff to be done at home and I am sitting at home watching tv, after being alone at home all day. Trust me I am so used to this by now it doesn’t even phase me! But it bothers him, and in turn he has chosen to live his life around me. As I was going through the early stages of trying to recover and got the diagnosis of sucks to be you! You are going on disability oh man the chains of guilt weighed oh so heavily. The fact that I could not fold laundry had me in tears. Everyone is saying you are crazy, you don’t have to do laundry. But when its the only contribution you had to give in a functional family with 2 kids it sucked. What also weighed and still does weigh on me is the fact that my husband will NEVER ask for HELP!!!! What the fuck is wrong with asking for help? Trust me, I know its a hard thing to do. But if you need it, and are overwhelmed with things I don’t see a problem with asking for it. Because my husband is not the type to ask for help. I carry a lot of guilt because his plate just keeps on getting fuller and fuller and things just keep piling on, higher and higher. Until I finally either ask someone on his behalf or on very rare occasions hire someone to do it. Then we have all out war and we have guilt and stress along with having the angry eyes come out and it’s a giant cluster fuck. I can do it myself. Why are you bothering people when I can do it myself? The other reason he doesn’t want to ask for people’s help is, that if he does he would need to lower his standards of perfection and they are too high to match! All I try to do on my end most days is tidy up a few things here and there, maybe make dinner and I think I have accomplished a lot but compared to the mountain of what needs doing it’s nothing. So I wallow in my guilt and he wallows in his. The happy couple MR & MRS Guilt. Hopefully moving into a condo changes our perspectives. Living with Guilt isn’t all it’s cracked up to be! My husband and people tell me all the time that I shouldn’t feel guilty about the things I cannot not do. It’s not my fault… this is correct. But when you live with a perfectionist it is really hard not to feel that way. I have offered an out to him many times and for some reason his shoes are still at the door. I don’t know why I was chosen to go down this path and I never will but with all its twists and turns it looks like we are still going to be on this roller coaster for a while. God knows I love roller coasters and He picked the right guy to sit in the seat beside me…..screaming all the way until the end, guilt and all!
Photo Credits: myEverest
My Everest... 
Leave a comment