Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver I am Peter Rosenberger bringing you three decades of experience that's not one that's not two but that's three decades of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who's not.
I love that song because it is a perfect description of our guest today. Her name is Suzanne White. She is a Jersey girl who lives in Brooklyn.
Her website is www.caregiverwarrior.com. She is a warrior and we are thrilled to have her with us. Suzanne, you with us?
I am indeed. Well, welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Peter. It's an honor to be here. I sought you out because I've been following you on Twitter for so long now and I love your post. I love your passion to get out there and really take it to this issue from a fighter standpoint. We're not just passive.
We're not just trying to get through it but we're going to actually gain some ground. Here's a quote that you have on your website. I love this. It says, caregiving is like going to war. Every day we fight to keep our loved ones safe and supported with dignity like a warrior. Caregivers are fearless, courageous, and passionate about protecting those that they care for and I love that. Tell us a little bit about your story, your background, how this came to be for you.
I had the wonderful opportunity and thank you so much for that quote. I do believe we're warriors and I think that caregivers are just amazing people and I think often we come to caregiving not expecting to. My dad was a World War II bombardier, six foot tall guy and my mom was a little spitfire Irish Catholic and they were navigating their early 80s really well. We had no idea that my mom was showing signs of early dementia.
They were doing a great job of hiding it. My dad was a caregiver warrior himself and one holiday season when he was coming to meet us all for the holidays, he had to be taken off a plane in a wheelchair. I got a call from my sister and they said, they took daddy off a plane in a wheelchair and I said, what?
That's when it started. I began to realize that my dad was burnt out and exhausted and my mom was showing pretty serious signs of early dementia. So I stepped in and I said, dad, do you want me to help you?
Do you want some help? And he said, yes, so fast. I said, okay.
And that was it. Not knowing what it would mean, I just showed up. When you showed up, you had an unexpected reaction from your mother, didn't you?
I did indeed. Well, unexpected in that it was expected in that she was a very proud, feisty woman who ruled the roost. And I knew that me taking over wasn't going to be something she would be easy with, but her violent reaction really did her anger and the violence around the fact that she did not want my help.
It kind of took me, took me back a little bit. Well, now was your, was your dad covering for your mother and her dementia? Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think, I think as some of us know, I think that they do that.
I think people hide symptoms because of fear and pride. Yeah, the two of them worked really well together. They were extremely close and the two of them worked really well together to hide the fact that they were both needing a lot of help and assistance.
So instead of, you know, shrinking away, you just rolled up your sleeves and jumped into this with, with great courage and conviction and talk about that a little bit. Well, you know, I think both of us are caregivers and you know this, I think caregivers are hardwired to be caregivers. I think we come here this way. And I think that I've spoken to so many caregivers and they say, well, of course I took care of my loved one. Of course I took care of her. Cause that's what we do. I mean, we don't think about it and we show up. I mean, that's, that's what caregivers do.
I think that we're people that want to be there for those that need us. And I didn't have a problem showing up or rolling my sleeves up. What I did have a bit of an issue with and you'll probably help me and agree with me on this, is I didn't realize what I was in for. And I got to a point where I thought, well, I can be really miserable doing this or I can make this a journey. And that was a turning point for me. Well, and we say a lot on this show, you're as miserable as happy, miserable or as happy as you choose to be.
And I love that. And that's a, I see a lot of caregivers who feel like they're condemned to be miserable at this. And I say, no, you don't have to be, you really don't. But it does take work to not be miserable. It's a lot easier to just go ahead and be miserable. And, and, and misery loves company.
So, you know, I mean, it's it's something that sadly people around us will listen to us complain. And I didn't want to do that with my life. I had a funny feeling in my gut that this was going to be the greatest thing I would ever do in my life. And it turned out that way. So I didn't, I didn't want to miss it. I didn't want to miss a minute of it.
As dirty and as greedy as it was, I was going to be there. Well, your dad was a, he was a soldier and your mom was feisty. But how much, how much of that warrior thing that you've adopted came from him, came from them? Were you like this prior to this as a caregiver? Were you pretty, pretty tough or did it bring it out in you or how did, how did that work?
No, I think I'm tough. I think that my, my dad has, you know, has a quiet command. I think he had a quiet command in his life. He was that kind of a, a soldier.
I think he was, you know, serious and, and had a real serious, quiet command. My mom was a fighter and she taught me a lot cause we would fight a lot, she and I growing up. So I was tough to begin with. What I, Well, I think you are from Jersey. You are from Jersey. I am a Jersey girl. I am. John wants to know what exit you're from in Jersey. Tell him number four. Right on.
Pass all that short traffic, baby. Well, did you, did you have any experience whatsoever before jumping into this? Absolutely not. So you, No, of course not.
It was 100% on the job training. Absolutely. All right. So if you would tell somebody right now who's just now tuning into the show, this is, they, they, they're driving and we, by the way, we get a lot of people call, Hey, I found your show by accident. We're pretty used to that phrase by now. But if somebody just said they, they just turned on, they couldn't believe this is a show for caregivers and they're dealing with this right now where they're getting blow back or anger or whatever from parents and they're having to just jump in with both feet. You've been there.
You know what that's like. Tell me what you would want to tell that what that person would be, would be so helpful for them right now. I mean, today that they could incorporate in their life. The first thing I would tell them is to slow down. You don't have to be perfect. We're not perfect. We're human.
There's no such thing as a perfect caregiver. Take it easy. Keep it simple. Just slow down.
There's a huge learning curve for everybody and you don't have to do it all at once. I jumped it. Yeah. You know, I jumped in so fast and try to take everything over and try to do it all. And you know, my parents were overwhelmed that my dad said, she'll be slow down. You know, you can't just come in here and take over everything. I mean, they have feelings too. We all have feelings and you just have to sort of read the room.
A friend of mine once said, you know, we move at this in a family, we move at the speed of our slowest member and we caregivers tend to be what I call high functioning multitaskers. I mean, you know, we can just, we can rock and roll. And you and I were talking earlier before the show and you were listening. I had an Amazon delivery at the house. The dog was barking. I was making tea for gracious, packing up my stuff. And I was doing all this on Bluetooth and you're hearing all this clatter going on. I said, what is this guy doing?
Beating on pots and pans. But that's the way our life is as a caregiver. And it is slowing down is a big part of our challenges because we want to hurry up and keep it all from flying apart. And I guess you've learned the hard way. I'm not guessing. I know you've learned the hard way.
It's going to fly apart no matter what we do. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and I had somebody said recently to me, you know, I don't know how to make this decision whether to go left or to go right because I feel guilty. I said, hold the phone. I said, you're going to feel guilty no matter what happens. So slow it down.
Look at the pros and cons and make a good decision. If it's the wrong one, you'll change it. You know, we're, we're so hard on ourselves. You know, we try to be perfect caregivers and there ain't no thing like a perfect caregiver. Right.
And, and I, I have shared that with more people. And on this show, we, we judge ourselves by our performance, which if we're going to be fair, let's judge ourselves also by our attendance because our attendance is perfect. Whether it's our performance is not, that's not an issue because we're never going to, you're right. We're never going to get it right, but we keep showing up and that that's worth something that's valuable.
All right. Now let me ask you, I'm the crash test dummy of caregivers. I've had ample time to make pretty much every kind of mistake you can make. What are some, what are some big, I've got a book coming out this fall called seven caregiver landmines and how you can avoid them. What's a big landmine for you that you found there's like, Oh man, I got to stay away from that. What, what's a big landmine, a big mistake here, a big heartache area or whatever that you just look back and say, Oh dude, that is, that's a hard thing for me to learn or whatever.
Well, two things came to mind immediately. One was that I didn't slow down and enjoy every minute that back this whole thing we're talking about, you know, flowing down. I, you know, I, I got in there and I fixed everything right away and try to hold everything, you know, and I missed time. I missed time with my mom and missed time with my dad. You know, sometimes I was so busy trying to get the doctor on the phone or get that mixed appointment or make sure the pills were right when I could have just sat and helped somebody's hand a little more. You know what I mean? So I was a landmine for me to really, really tell myself, Suzanne, please slow down and, and, and hang in there with them. Cause when they're gone, you know, you're going to look back and say, darn, I wish I had really spent more time.
And the other landmine for me was, was not respecting like not easing into it enough and not respecting my loved ones need to feel that they had control over parts of their lives. I, I, you know what I mean? I, I, we, you gotta read the room. I keep saying you gotta read the room. You know, I've taken care of other family members also and sometimes we don't let people be and we don't let them be who they need to be and we try to change them or change the circumstance. No, those are, those are, yeah, I, and I concur with those a lot. I love that we don't read the room.
We're so busy trying to fix it. And I think a lot of it's for me, it was driven by fear. If I don't do this, this thing is really going to spin, spin out of control. And that fear would cause a manicness in me.
Did it have the same approach with you? Oh, absolutely. So much of what I did is what based on fear. I mean, I would wake up in a panic at two in the morning or every night.
I mean, there's so much fear. And, and one of the gifts of caregiving for me was to face a lot of that fear. Caregiving gave me a self awareness that I needed desperately. I dug down into myself to find out why I was acting the way I was acting. Forget my parents, forget my other loved ones. Why was I acting that way?
And it was because I was frightened or scared. Stop it. You know, I think that, well, I get that. I get that.
Well, listen, we're almost out of time. So I want to make sure I give folks information on how to get in touch with you. Your website is caregiver warrior.com caregiver warrior.com. Your blog is, you know, it's considered one of the top 50 blogs of this subject out there. I just admire you. I admire the work you're doing. I appreciate you.
You've logged in enough time at this with, uh, so that you're seasoned. You really know what you're talking about and, and then you're an advocate and you're passionate about this in a way that few I think are, I just, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and to talk about this. Uh, Peter, it's an honor.
You know, I feel the same way about you. I think that getting these concepts out and talking about our feelings and talking about what we go through as caregivers is so extraordinary important because caregivers tend to isolate and I think no one can talk to a caregiver like another caregiver. So thank you so much for your work.
Well, you're quite welcome. You and I speak fluent caregiver and that's why I do the show. That's why the show exists is to reach those folks in that isolation.
They can't get out. We're going to bring it to you. We're going to bring you stories from other folks like Suzanne who have really done that. She's, she's, she's, she's done the work. She knows the journey and this is good stuff that she offered you today. I hope you'll take advantage of this as Suzanne White caregiver warrior.com. Suzanne, thank you so much for being on the show with us today. And hey, part of being a caregiver by the way is getting a good night's rest and I got to tell y'all something.
This is kind of cool. If you go to my pillow.com, try it, my pillow.com. You've seen the guy do it. You know, Mike Lindell, by the way, I can do a Mike Lindell, John, my pillow.com. Are you sure you want to, I can't, I can talk like Mike Lindell, my pillow.com. But if you go to my pillow.com and type in the word caregiver for the promo code caregiver, I'm not kidding.
50% off of the four pack and they get the two and the two travel ones. I've got these pillows. You know what? They're good stuff. They are good pillows, John. And they make great pillow fight pillows too. I'm just kidding.
They're good. Gracie has one. I have one and you can too. My pillow.com. Type in the word caregiver for a promo code. Hey, don't go away. We got more to go. The number is 877-655-6755. We will be right back.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-01-21 19:08:15 / 2024-01-21 19:14:59 / 7