Hope for the Caregiver

Good morning. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver live on American Family Radio.

We are glad that you're with us. Show number is 888-589-8840. This is a show for the 65 million Americans who are putting themselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster.

And if that's you, this is your show. How are you doing with that, by the way? How are you holding up? You see, caregiving takes a toll on your heart, your body, your job, your wallet, every relationship, your home, everything about you feels the pinch of this. And now there's a show for you live on American Family Radio that's just for you as a caregiver. And I'm, I've been doing this for now 32 years as a family caregiver. I understand the journey. I speak fluent caregiver. This is your show.

And we're glad that you're with us. I've written a couple of books on this. I've got a new one coming out in November. It's called Seven Caregiver Landmines and How You Can Avoid Them. And my first book was called Hope for the Caregiver. And that's why we named the show Hope for the Caregiver. What is hope for the caregiver?

Hope for the caregiver is the unswerving conviction that we as caregivers can live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, an even more joyful life, even while dealing with very, very harsh realities. And we can do this. It's not easy. It's a lot of work. But you know, we're caregivers. What about our life is not work? And that's the whole point of this thing is that let's work smarter.

Let's, let's incorporate some tools in there that will help us do these things better and make us healthier for the journey. Then why is that important? Well, I'll tell you why that's important. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Just that simple. If your own health is squirrely, how are you going to help somebody whose health is impaired, either by mental health, alcoholism, substance abuse, physical disability, aging, special needs child, whatever, whatever the scenario is, how are you going to be of help to them if you're not in good shape?

Emotionally, physically, fiscally, spiritually, go down the list. And that's why we do the show. That's why American Family is putting this show out there for you live on Saturday mornings, 888-589-8840. Now the way you know it's live is we just had a bunch of Supreme Court hearing stuff going on this week, and it got a little gnarly.

See, that's current events. I'm just letting you know the show is live. So you're waking up and you're driving around and you're saying, really, a show that's live on Saturday mornings for caregivers? It can't be live. It must be prerecorded.

No, it must not be. We are live. And I am Peter Roseberg, and I'm glad you're with us. We always start off with a scripture, and I have one specifically today that I want to talk about on a subject we're going to get into. And you all know this scripture. This is Exodus 20, verse 12. It's one of the Ten Commandments. Sorry, by then I'm getting over a cold.

And if I start talking like Bill Clinton, y'all don't be scared, but sometimes I do that. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God has given you. All right? We've all heard this scripture. Honor your mother and father. And what happens, I have found with a lot of caregivers, is they are taught by guilt when it comes to taking care of a mother or father who has Alzheimer's, some type of debilitating disease where they become unmanageable, where they become unreasonable, where it's a combative situation, sometimes abusive situation, sometimes a very dangerous situation. And yet I see person after person after person who just is tormented with guilt over how they're handling and how they're honoring their mother and their father.

And so I'm going to, I'm just going to lay this out here. Are you in that kind of position right now? Are you struggling? And it may not be your parents. It may be another family member or so forth.

But I think the principle still applies about honoring one another and caring for one another. But what happens is that the disease or the impairment takes over. And I had a friend over at the house yesterday, and we have a mutual friend, and this woman is taking care of her husband with Alzheimer's, and he's becoming incredibly difficult to deal with. He's very abusive to her. He is angry. He's short-tempered. He gets unhappy about everything else. And now her mother has come into the picture, and she's elderly, and she's not happy about things. And I wrote a note to this friend of ours, sent her a copy of my book, and I said, you're not required to make them happy. Honoring your husband, honoring your mother, does not necessarily mean honoring Alzheimer's.

Okay? It's just not, that's not the way it works. It's a disease. It's an impairment. You do not have to honor the disease. I think it's really important for you to listen to that, because I think that we get, we get trapped in this thing. We somehow think that our loved one, because they're suffering with something, it's our job to honor their impairment, to make them happy in their impairment. But it's not. I've seen all through Scripture.

I've never seen that. I think we honor who they are by caring for what this impairment has done to them. And we don't treat them unkindly, but that does not mean that we are responsible for them to be happy. When they are impaired, particularly with a disease like Alzheimer's or other issues that debilitate the entire ability to think, I'm not responsible to make someone happy in that situation, and neither are you. Are you struggling with that? Are you, are you living with this kind of torment in you as you're trying to struggle with that, with a family member?

888-589, write this down, 888-589-8840, and this is your show to talk about that, because we can. And I think we easily forget those things. And so we need somebody to help us remember what the goal is. If you have somebody who is an alcoholic in your life, alcoholism, a disease, and you become addicted to this, you become an alcoholic, a person becomes an alcoholic, it's a disease. And in that disease, there are people around that person who loves them. But if they are actively participating in that disease, they're not in any kind of recovery program, and they're actively drinking, are you required to make them happy in their dysfunction, in their disease, in their addiction? If you've got somebody who's mentally ill in your life, are you required to make them happy?

I don't think so. You're required to treat them with honor, with care, with concern, but you're not required to make them happy. And I think this is what happens with us as caregivers. We get so disoriented in this, what I call the fog of caregivers, fear, obligation, and guilt.

And that fear that, what are we going to do about this? That obligation, well, this is my mother, or this is my brother, or this is my father. I've got it to my husband or my wife, and I've got to take care of them. I got to do this, I got to do this, I got to do this. That's how you know you're an obligation. When you use words like a God, I have to, I need to, I should, I must, I ought to. That's that obligation. And then the guilt that we get into this thing that just tears us apart. And I'm not talking about guilt over sin.

I'm talking about guilt over, I feel guilty if I just want them to be quiet for a minute so I can sit down and have a nice meal. You follow me that? You're tracking with me on that one? That's what we're going to talk about today. That's what we're going to spend a lot of time with because this is where a lot of caregivers are really struggling. If you're one of those, then here's the number, 888-589-8840. One more time, 888-589-8840.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. On American Family Radio, we are so glad you're with us.

We'll be right back. I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And 26 years ago, I walked for the first time on two prosthetic legs. I saw firsthand how important quality prosthetic limbs are to an amputee. This understanding compelled me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana in West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I'm standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger, bringing you three decades of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not.

And we are glad you're with us. The phone lines are open. And evidently I hit a nerve with this topic because the phone line started getting very full. And if you want to be on the show, here's the way you do it. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. And we're talking about relationships and people who are trapped in this very difficult place of thinking, I've got to make somebody happy who has an impairment. Whether it's Alzheimer's, whether it's substance abuse, whether it's drugs, whether it's prescription drugs under a doctor's care, or whether they're taken illicitly, whether they have autism, that doesn't matter. If you are in that bondage of thinking you've got to make somebody else happy. You know that song, make someone happy.

No, that's not good theology. I'm not here to help make someone else happy. What I am do is to live a calmer, healthier, and even more joyful life while I deal with sometimes very difficult realities. And that's our place as caregivers. That's a safe place for us as caregivers where we realize I'm not responsible for that. I am responsible to treat them with respect. I am responsible to honor my mother and father, as scripture tells me.

That's our scripture for today. But I'm not responsible to honor Alzheimer's. I'm not responsible to honor Lou Gehrig's disease. I'm not responsible to honor autism. Okay?

It's really important that we understand the difference. When a disease calls, you don't have to answer the phone. All right?

You're not responsible for that. Let's go to the phones. Let's go to Kim in Michigan. Kim, good morning. Welcome to the show. How are you feeling? Oh, wonderful, Mr. Rosenberg. I really appreciate your program. It's wonderful.

I wish there was more like this. I mean, you speak with ministers and pastors and nobody has an answer. Nobody. But we don't have an answer on this show, but we do have a path. Okay?

That's the difference. I can't give you answers anymore than you give answers to me with my situation, but I can. What I can do is help get a well-lit path to safety where we can all as caregivers catch our breath, take a knee if we need to, and then start developing better ways to deal with this. But tell us what's going on in your life.

Okay. So my mother is 92, and as far back as I can remember, she's from England, Scotland, and not a big medication taker. Doesn't like it. And I've always suspected there's a little bit of an imbalance with her since day one, as long as I can remember, five, six years old. However, as she has progressed, she also has a brand new heart. She had quadruple bypass, so she's got a lot of energy. However, what was happening is I have to go over to her house every morning before work, give her her pills, almost drop them in her mouth or else she won't take them, which is the hypothyroid.

And it's very difficult. Well, we went and got her checked, her B12 levels are very, very low, which is dangerous for the elderly. And she said, I don't care if you ever talk to me again, I'm not taking that B12 shot. And she has become increasingly aggressive, nasty toward me.

So I'm concerned, got an adult protective services involved because I'm worried, I'm worried about her. And she's fine with them. She's normal.

She's clear. She's kind and sweet. But she saves it all up. She saves it all up for me. And I was talking to, I'm Catholic, even though everything I listened to was on this American Family radio station, but he just didn't know what to say. I mean, you try to honor your parents.

You try to do the right thing. And it's just continued nastiness, won't take the pills. And when she doesn't take the pills, what you reap with not taking a hypo or hyperthyroid is, you won't even believe it.

They're completely unbalanced. The digestive system doesn't work. And it's just, it's cyclical. It goes on and on and on. And this nastiness, I don't really, I think maybe it's progressed a little bit with old age, but it's been there since I was very young.

I finally can't do it anymore. Well, it probably won't get better, Kim. I mean, at 90 something years old, she's probably not going to change from that too much.

It'd probably get a little bit worse, in fact. However, you got somebody that's helping you with the services. She's nice to them. Will she take the B-12 with them?

No. She'll pretend. And she's like, oh, I'm fine.

I'm fine. She'll talk them into leaving. She's very shrewd. She's intelligent.

There's pockets of clarity. I think the word you're looking for is, the word you're looking for is probably manipulative. Yeah.

And narcissistic. It's, I don't know, you know, I don't know what to do. I pray about it.

The last episode, very nasty, but intelligent enough to, boy, she can really pull it over. And then you try to discuss this with a care worker outside of the family. And they look at you like you're crazy, because here's this nice little lady. And I'll tell you, it's exhausting. And it makes you just, I quit drinking nine years ago.

I had an alcohol problem just because of the family. And that's okay. I mean, it's okay. It is what it is.

You can either carry it around or you can fix it. So I went to AA, quit drinking, but she makes you just want to guzzle a gallon. I'll tell you, I mean, it's, you try everything, everything. Well, first off, congratulations on your recovery. Okay.

God bless AA. Here's the deal with your mother. You can't be responsible for what somebody else puts in their own body or doesn't put in their own body. I mean, at some point she's a grown woman, 90 something years old. Now she may be impaired. She may not be. She may just be mean. She may be manipulative, all those things. But at some point, she's going to be responsible unless she is mentally incompetent for her own wellbeing.

You're not. You are not dishonoring her if you take your hands off of this for a little bit. Now, you can do what I call a cutout and you have somebody else that gets involved with it, but you can't do it.

You can't do it. You have somebody else that gets involved with this. And that may be her primary care doctor. Now, does her primary care doctor know about all these things?

He does. It's funny you said that. It's just ironic you said that. Actually, they called the other day and said, your mother's meds are ready to be picked up. And I said, well, I really can't take care of her anymore. And she's got a lot of energy. She walks, she talks, she gets around. She takes care of her primary care doctor, her primary care. And I have a feeling they'll find somebody else in the family. Now, my other sister, we don't, we've never been close, but she lives on the other side of the United States.

And she was over there for a couple of years and just, she was just dropped back. So the other sister can't care for her. I mean, she drives everybody nuts. It's very difficult.

I mean, she drives everybody nuts. Well, if you go down, what's the plan? There's no plan. Nobody in the family communicates. You know, I've tried, I've got the legal thing involved, got the attorneys involved, got everybody on a conference call.

What are we going to do? Did all her legal work, did all her beneficiary work. And then the other sister came in, took everything over, put everything in her name. They dropped her back off in Michigan.

No one called or told me. Boy, I'll tell you, Mr. Rosenstein, it's very, it's, it's in the, the fine line with me is, you know, you want to do the God thing. You want, you don't want to disappoint our dear Lord.

And it's, it's. Let's, let's, let's change our view of, of God a little bit, that you're not somehow able to struggle with this kind of thing. And all of a sudden God's up there with a big grading pad trying to say, okay, Kim, you really, you really messed this one up.

You know, we're going to have to slap you around a little bit. That's not the way God works. Okay. He understands the pain of this.

He took care of his own mother from the cross. Okay. Let's, let's, let's put all this in perspective. And first off it's Peter. You don't have to call me Mr.

Anything. And it's just, it's just Peter. We don't stand on for more formalities here.

It's seven o'clock on Saturday morning here in Nashville. So we don't, we don't stand on formalities, but we I think that the, the, the first thing you do is, is continue working your recovery program. Okay. Because the stress of this is going to affect your own journey. And if you struggle with alcoholism, this is not exactly what you call a helper for that. And so you keep working your program.

You stay in touch with your sponsor. You do that for you first. That's, that is, that is paramount for you to be in a good place on your recovery program. The second thing is you can talk with her primary care doctor and let them know, look, I've got to take a step back. My mother is, is unwilling and abusive and very difficult for me to deal with. There's too many family dynamics. So you guys work it all out. And if you, and if you think that if, if, if you tell this to the doctor, he said, look, if you think that she's a danger to herself or others, you're her doctor.

Okay. I will do what I can, but I'm at a, I'm at a stand standoff with her where I'm having to fight her to take care of her. And I don't think that's a good place. And there's something, and tell the doctor, he said, look, if something happens to me, there's no good plan. So, and the doctor may be able to refer you to some type of social worker who can help arbitrate this and move you guys down a different path.

And I would, I would probably recommend that, but I think you're going to need those cutouts of, of buffers between you and your mom so that you can on the, you can help her, but you may have to help her from a little bit further distance than you've been doing. There is no need to walk in to that, stick your hand in that blender. And every time you do, then by your own definition this morning, it makes you want to start drinking.

And that's a bad place for you. So if you turn, if you turn back to drinking, this thing's going to turn into a Greek tragedy. And so what we want to do is help you get to a place of safety where you realize, okay, I'm going to work my program.

I'm going to be going to AA, I'm going to be working on this. Keep listening to this station, keep listening to this show and keep yourself in that very narrow path of safety. And then have that honest conversation with her physician and with her care providers and say, look, this is what's going on. If you don't like it, help me because she's, she's going to hurt herself this way. And I can't force her to take these things. And you're going to end up having to admit her into a hospital because her body's going to shut down. I can guarantee you if that doctor is dealing with a 92 year old patient, it's not the first 92 year old patient that doctors dealt with.

And that's, that's where we start. Now that's not an answer, Kim. We're not giving answers on this show. What we're doing is trying to develop strategies to deal with something that is way beyond our skillset.

You do not have specialties in geriatric medicine, I'm assuming. No, no. And you're not going to do that. And so, so it's way beyond our skillset. Yeah.

But if you, if it takes you down into a path where your addiction starts cranking back up, that's a bad place for you. And I can, I can tell you that I'm speaking for pretty much everybody listening across the country right now saying, we want you to be safe. That's important to us, Kim. Okay. Great, great direction, Peter. Thank you.

All right. Listen, God bless you. Thank you for calling, Kim. We are so grateful for you. And if you want to be on the show, others are listening right now, 888.

This is a very easy number to call by the way, 888-589-8840. On American Family Radio, this is Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger. We'll be right back.

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization, Standing with Hope, when my wife, Gracie, gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager. And she tried to save them for years and it just wouldn't work out. And finally she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore.

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel, to put legs on her fellow amputees. And that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope. We work in the West African country of Ghana, and you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there.

You could designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you could be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give.

They go walking and leaping and praising God. You can be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberger bringing you three decades of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not.

And we're so grateful that you're with us. 888-589-8840 is the number of the show. Hey, listen, by the way, if you can't get through, and we do have the phone lines lit, I'm going to try to get through all the calls as best as I can. But also I have the caregiverpodcast.com.

How hard is that? When it's a free podcast, we put the show out there. And then my book, Hope for the Caregiver, it's available wherever books are sold, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, everywhere books are sold, Hope for the Caregiver. And that's a book for you. And it's so easy to read. I made it easy. It's so easy to read. You can read it in the bathroom. I know, because that's where I wrote it. I'm just kidding. No, actually. Well, okay.

Let's just move on from that. So I want to, let's see, let's go to, Jim, I'm just going to go with the top of the list here, because I don't know the order everybody came in, but I'm going to go with Florence and Louisiana. Florence, are you with us? And good morning.

Good morning, Florence. How are you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good. I feel good. All right.

Well, tell me what you got on your heart and mind. Well, my husband has congestive heart failure. He's had it for a long time. He's been very ill with it. And I'm his mostly sole caregiver. He's been to the point where he couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom. But thanks be to God, he has progressed somewhat better. But it's like, he don't want me to have anything to do with anybody else.

My sole attention and everything is on doing what he wants me to do, whether he needs it or not. Well, Florence, guess what? Guess what, Florence?

Today is your day, because that's going to stop today. He doesn't, he doesn't get a vote on controlling your life. Yeah, now, right now, this morning, he is angry because I didn't come home right after work yesterday and instead came my granddaughter somewhere, dropped him off.

And guess what, Florence? He can get, he can get happy in the same shoes he got angry in. And you tell him, you just step back away from that because what's the plan for him if you go down? No one else would take care of him. Well, then he, is he mentally impaired?

Sir. Is he mentally impaired? Well, he has been diagnosed with... Can he understand, if you said, if you said a sentence to him, can he understand it?

Yes. Okay, then say this sentence to him. I'm going to go take care of me for a bit. If you get upset with that, you can deal with it with God, but I've got to be healthy because if I'm not healthy, you are certainly not going to be taken care of. And if you need me to, I'll be glad to wait while you write that down because he's going to get mad because he likes having somebody do everything for him.

Yeah. You're not responsible for all that. You're responsible to take care of him and be a good, good steward of what you're doing and do it as unto the Lord. But you are not his slave and he doesn't get to tell you what to do as far as being with your granddaughter and all that kind of stuff. You take care of him to the best you can.

And if he's mad, he's mad. But are you taking, are you keeping him clean? Yes. Are you keeping him, are you feeding him? Wait, hang on.

Let me just go through the list. Are you feeding him? Yes. Are you making sure that his bed is clean? Yes. Are you paying the bills?

Yes. Then tell him to chill out. And if he doesn't like it, walk away. Just take a break.

Just go outside and go for a walk, go see your granddaughter, whatever you've got to do to settle your heart down. He does not, if you're doing what you can, you can read scripture to him, you can do all those things. But if he still wants to be angry, that's his decision, not yours.

You don't have to put up with that. And if he gets abusive with it, you take a step back and you bring somebody else in to help you with that. A pastor. You got a trust, you got, you got a pastor that you go to? Yes, we have a pastor. You call your pastor and say, look, I, and tell them what you told me this morning, tell them what, tell the pastor what I told you.

And if the pastor won't help you, get a different church. Because, and then, and then also see, here's the deal, Florence, you are very fragile at this point. And you are one flu, sprained ankle, you know, your own heart is going to, is going to break on this thing too. And that all, you are one step away from this thing, turning into a very, very bad place.

Because if you go down, he doesn't have a chance. Are you tracking with me? And I have issues too, you know. Well, of course you do. Of course you do. And so when's the last time you saw your doctor?

Way overdue. In fact, I have. All right. All right. Here's where we're going to start today. This is where we're going to start, Florence. We're not going, you didn't get here overnight.

You're not going to get out of this overnight, but here's where we're going to start today. I want you to promise me and everybody listening on this show that Monday morning, you're going to make an appointment with your physician to get a physical. Okay.

And get a checkup. When's the last time you had a physical? It's been about a year, but I was. All right.

Well, it's about that time then. I get one every year. Then I go every, every six months minimum. My doctor's laying eyeballs on me. Yeah. Now you're going to promise me that you're going to call your own doctor and see to your own health starting Monday morning. Can you say that with me?

Yes, sir. I promise I'm going to call to see about my own health. I was supposed to have some surgery. My husband was sick in a hospital. I had to have it canceled and I have not rescheduled it, but I'm going to check on that.

I am on the morning. And then we're going to call. You're going to talk to your pastor and if your pastor can't help you, we'll deal with that. You call back next week. We'll have a different plan for that. However, when you're seeing your doctor, tell your doctor the stress that you're under and that you need some professional help, maybe an aging specialist that's a social worker or a counselor, a licensed mental health counselor, support group, something that can help you because you are really struggling.

And if your doctor is just looks at you like he or she is clueless, then we need to get another doctor for you because doctors that don't understand the stress on caregivers are not the kind of doctors that caregivers need to be seeing. Okay. Now that look, this is not going, not going to fix the problem. That's not what we're here. What we're trying to do is kind of detach you from it so that you can be a little bit healthier and calmer in this thing. Okay.

Okay. You know, you're, you're not required to be miserable as a caregiver. I promise you you're not.

And I'm going to promise you something else, Florence. God sees what you're doing. He does, huh? He does, honey.

He really does. And he's not, he's not up there. He's not up there just looking at you with a critical eye. You are, you are a delight to your savior and you're doing the best that you can with an impossible situation. So what we're going to do is we're going to pull together as a group of caregivers, listening across this American Family Radio, across this whole network. And we're going to, we're going to just join with you and we're going to try to help you get to a place of safety. We're going to pray with you. We're going to encourage you. We're going to point you towards safety.

Okay. Now, now there's more information. I have all kinds of stuff that you can listen to and watch and read on my website. It's standingwithhope.com. My books out there, the care, the podcast is out there.

It's free. I got blog posts out there. I got music out there.

All the things that you need to help you along that journey. Standingwithhope.com. But you're going to call your doctor on Monday and we're going to rejoice with you. And I want you to call back and let us know how it went. Okay.

All right, Florence. I appreciate you calling. I'm going to jump.

I'm going to jump to another call. Is that all right? That's fine. And I appreciate you much.

All right. You have a fabulous day. Let's go to Donna in Virginia. Donna in Virginia. Donna, good morning. How are you feeling? Donna? Good morning. Good morning. How are you feeling, Donna? How are you? Good. Oh, for a man of my age and limited abilities, I'm all right. I think you said that the last time I talked to you.

Nothing much has changed for me. Well, bless you anyway. We're blessed by the best. Well, we do the best we can with what we got there, neighbors. All right. Tell me what's on your heart and mind. We got a whole bunch of calls. I'm going to try to get through here. What you got going? Um, the lady that called before the last, um, she was concerned about her grandmother, I believe not wanting to take drugs, her mother, her mother. Okay. Um, that general, that generation typically like mine, um, are accustomed to, um, not so many drugs.

They're out there in multiples. You see them advertised on the TV and they give you all the side effects, which are many. There are alternatives to drugs for almost every disease out there, unless it's congenital or you're born with it. Well, I don't think her problem was not wanting to take drugs. Her problem was just wanting to be belligerent, but, um, I do appreciate you, you making us aware that there are alternatives out there, but, but her part, what, what I'm focused on now is letting this lady get a cutout because the relationship dynamic is so bad that it's causing some different problems. The drugs were really not the issue with her. The drug, the, the, the, the issue was the relationship dynamics and that means she's got to step back away from that. But Donna, those are, those are important things to remember that there are alternatives.

And I thank you so much for bringing that to our attention. I've got a bunch of calls I got to get through and I'm going to keep going. I'm gonna go to Rosalynn in Florida. Rosalynn, good morning. How are you feeling? I'm feeling well. How are you? You know, I did an inventory and I think most of me is okay. All right then. What you got on your mind and heart?

What's going on? Well, um, I am almost 60. I was living with, um, my aunt who's 90 years old. She recently accused me of doing something, taking a cap gun that was 40 years old and another little gun that she has. And she put me out of her house.

But anyway, she's found it. And I was not only a care, you know, was not a real caretaker because she can still go move, drive and all of that, but she does have moments where she forget things and she lives by herself. Anyway, I've been doing this on and off for years and she is very abusive to me. I moved out a month ago and now she's so nice. Like she's been in the past. She does mean she talks crazy. She used my language. She all kind of things.

And now she lives in a house. Listen, Rosalyn, we got to, we got to go to a quick break here. Can you hang on just a second?

Because I want to get back to that. Okay. Can you hang on through the break? Okay.

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I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver. This is Hope for the caregiver on American Family Radio. We are so glad that you are with us. If you want to find out more about what we're doing, go to standingwithhope.com. You can find out how to get my book, Hope for the Caregiver, Seven Caregiver Landmines, and how you can avoid them.

Our CD, Songs for the Caregiver, you can download that on iTunes, Amazon right now, and listen to it. I guarantee you it will reduce. Well, I tested it on myself on 285 in rush hour in Atlanta traffic one day. I was coming back through there and I put it on my CD and it is guaranteed to reduce road rage.

I promise you, I tested it on myself. So it will help calm you down. Hope for the Caregiver, the audio book, you can download it and take a 30-year caregiver with you when you're going back and forth to the doctor's office, at hospitals, whatever you got to do. I put it all out there when you take advantage of it. Okay? Standingwithhope.com. Standingwithhope.com. Let me go back to Rosalyn in Florida. Rosalyn. Hi.

Yes. Sorry to make you wait so long. You're still with us. That's okay.

All right. So your aunt is doing better because you guys have got a little bit of space between you, or at least your relationship is doing better with your aunt. Is that what I understand? Well, I'm doing better. Yes, definitely. That's the key is that you're doing better. Yes. And my relationship with her has been volatile since I remember.

Well, that's probably not going to change with age. So George Burns, you remember George Burns, the comedian? Yes. He used to say happiness is a warm and loving family separated by two states. And so sometimes you just got to have a little space. Sometimes you got to have a little space. And if you realize that she's going to be toxic the closer you get to her in certain areas, then just do that space. Give her some space on that.

And that way you're not getting sucked into her dysfunction. Right. The point of my book, Seven Caregiver Landmines, is that there are these landmines out there that we run into and we don't have to keep hitting them.

And what's going to happen is that if we don't start getting smart on the way we walk through this path, then we're going to keep getting ourselves hurt. And let's just don't do that. Yeah, you're right.

You're right. My concern is she lives in a house that she and my sister and she purchased together 10 years ago. My sister was supposed to come a year after she was a year later when she retired. She lives in New York. She hasn't got there yet. So all during the years, I've been helping her out.

Other family members been helping her out financially, but her mortgage by itself is $1,700 a month. And your sister, your sister is where? In New York. And your sister has a good job there? Well, she's retired now. She's like 68. She's retired, but she's taking care of her grown kids up north.

Yes. But she owns this house with your aunt? Yes, she does. Do you own this house with your aunt? No, I do not, but I had to have a place to live, you know, anyway. So I... Are you living with your aunt? Are you living with your aunt? No, not no more. No, not no more. Okay, so why don't you, why don't you continue, what's keeping you from continuing that path of staying away from your aunt and your sister's business?

Nothing. Well then, why don't we, why don't we just go ahead and let them work it all out since they're all grown adults? Yeah, you're right about that. You're right about that. I mean, there's no need for you to stick your nose into all that kind of stuff.

You know what, there's an old joke that Will Rogers says, I went to a doctor and I said, no, Henny Youngman said this, he said, Doc, I broke my leg in two places. He said, well, stop going to those places. And you know, I think this is the thing, we keep sticking our hands in the blender and then we get upset when something happens.

Take, just walk away and let your sister work it out and your sister, and if your sister calls you up and says, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? Well, I wasn't thinking about it at all. Right. That's how you respond.

It's not my circus, not my monkeys. Right. Okay. And the best, the best thing for you to do for you is for you to keep away from all this toxic stuff that just takes you into a bad place where you're getting fussed at and cussed at and everything else. Just don't go down that street. If you, if you know when you, if you know you're going to get hurt, if you go down that street, stay away from that street. You want to go down that street? Okay. All right. Listen, Rosalyn, thank you so much for calling.

Let's go to Charlene in Louisiana. Charlene, good morning. Welcome to the show. How are you feeling? I'm doing good. Pat, how are you? I'm Peter.

Hello? I'm Peter, not Pat. I'm sorry, Peter. That's all right. How are you? I've been called worse, but I'm doing okay, Charlene. One of the, one of the seven caregiver landmines in my new book is the loss of identity.

And so at least I want to make sure that everybody knows my name. All right. Tell me what's going on with you, Charlene.

We got, we got just a few minutes. Tell me what's going on with you. Well, I just wanted to give a little short part of my story. Back about seven years ago, I was the main caregiver for my father and my husband and I took care of him within the year of his death. And he had developed a disease and he was on medication and the disease that he had caused him mental incapacity because of certain things that would happen. And I was in a position, even though he, when he was in a part of the same mind, I was in a position that he knew that I was there for him. He was, he loved me. I was taking care of him, but when he was in the part where his mind wasn't there, he was like that. He was belligerent to me.

He would, you know, cuss me out. And my husband and I both ministers and we knew it was our obligation to take care of my father. And, but to, to make a long story short. Let's take a moment in, in the interest of time, let's deal with it. Obligation is one thing. Stewardship is a different thing.

This is what I'm trying to help caregivers understand. Let's replace that word obligation with stewardship. You have a responsibility to be a good steward, but you're not obligated. Obligated will lead to, lead to resentment. And you are a steward.

God owns this, not you. Well, there were certain times that when he was in the frame of mind that I could talk to him, I would say to him, you need to do this. And if you don't, then I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back.

Cause I lived across the street from him. And I said, I'll go back home until you want to behave yourself and do what, you know, the doctors are telling you, you need to do well, all in all, I'm saying all this because when you're a caregiver, uh, it takes a lot of prayer. Uh, you need to pray about everything. And there would be times I would just come home and I would cry and I would pray to God about it.

And then it would refresh me to go back in order to minister to my father. And, uh, we did not get hospice for him until two weeks, uh, before he passed away and he went into a coma. And I have a, I had a sister and a brother, but they did not help either.

And, but that was okay. But when my father did pass away, it's not really, I knew that I had done everything in my power to help him and discomforted me in the time of his passing away. Well, I'm glad to hear that Charlene and, uh, it's not okay that siblings don't help and we need to deal with that. However, we need to deal with it and let, we'll have to walk through some forgiveness on some of that. My goal is for fellow caregivers to not to live their life fulfilled with resentment towards themselves, their loved ones, their family members for not helping the way that they probably ought to have, or even at God.

And, and it sounds like you're on a, on a good path towards that. I'd like to see more people replace that word obligation with stewardship. Stewardship is a much better word for us as caregivers. And it helps us understand who really owns this problem, which is God.

God owns us. I don't have the power to make my wife's legs grow back. I don't have the power to fix what that car wreck did to her 35 years ago, but I do have the power to treat her with respect and kindness and to take care of the one person standing between her and even worse disaster, which is me, and to take care of myself and emotionally, physically, fiscally, professionally, all of the above. So Charlene, thank you for sharing your story with us. I do appreciate that very much. I'm going to try to squeeze in one call and I've only got about a minute or two for Lynn. Lynn, I'm not sure what state you're in, but welcome to the show.

Good morning. How are you feeling? Lynn, you with us?

Well, we lost Lynn. Oh, there you are. Are you there? I'm here. I'm calling you from Texas. All right.

We only got about a minute or so, so jump to it real quick. What you got, how are you feeling and what's going on with you? Oh, I'm doing great. And I get to hear you're feeling fine from everybody.

I'm glad for that. But you know, mostly I would like to just say I'm so thankful for you. I've been a caregiver for years and I just so appreciate everything that you say.

We just appreciate you so much. And quickly, I would say then that I've taken care of an older man for a long time. He's my neighbor and he can be such a little rascal at times, but he was, I just wanted to say this out for the other caregivers that he was needing so much help, but nobody, no family will help him at all. And what I've learned is that I tried to hold him back. He wanted to go ahead and walk without a walker, walk without a cane, be stubborn. And I thought he's going to fall. And I don't want him to fall while I'm taking care of him. And I had to learn to kind of just let go and let him go. And it did so much better. And I was terrified he'd fall, but the doctor said, just let him go and he will be okay. And sure enough, he got better.

And just that made him all the stronger and he got better on his own without beholding him. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. Letting go is a big deal with it. You know, there's a chapter in my book that's called They're Going to Fall. And they're going to fall. Hope for the Caregiver is the book.

You can get it today, but they're going to fall. You can't live your life in prison around somebody who doesn't want to follow good instructions. You do the best you can with it. But that's the whole point of us as caregivers. We're doing the best we can.

The results are up to God. This is Hope for the Caregiver on American Family Radio. Thank you for joining us. Go to standingwithhope.com for more information. We'll see you next week.