Counselling Support for Caregivers

Caregivers are those who are caring for or supporting someone through an illness or challenging period of life. This could mean you are supporting them one hour a week, one day a week, or providing full 24/7 care. They can be friends, neighbors, spouses or partners, children, adult children, siblings, and other extended family members. The person you're caring for can live with you, in a different city, or even in a different province. 

Dementia. Cancer. Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Brain Injuries. Spinal Injuries. Aging. The list goes on...

Caregiving can take over more of your life than you ever expected. Simply put, caregiving can be intense. There are appointments to keep track of, decisions to make, bills to pay, and sometimes personal care that needs to be conducted (helping your loved one with their day-to-day tasks). From the outside people may tell you "you're managing so well", or "I can't imagine doing what you do,". Or, they may look at you and assume everything is fine, because from the outside, maybe you do look fine. This can feel incredibly isolating and lonely.

As a caregiver, your own plans, relationships, routines, and sense of what life looks like can shift. Sometimes you might even feel like you're losing yourself, having to set so much aside to support the person you are. There can be love and meaningful moments as a caregiver, while also feeling exhausted, frustrated, worried, angry, or wishing things were different.

You may find yourself grieving for the person you care about while they're still physically present, though changed, by their illness or disease. When your person is terminal, you may find yourself already grieving for the loss you have not yet experienced. These are all real emotions, real experiences, and they make you human.

Caregivers who are overwhelmed are at risk of caregiver burnout, which is why it is so important to make sure you are also a priority. Easier said than done. I know. But as I often tell people, we do not want you to become ill as well.

Counselling can give you somewhere to talk about what you're carrying without having to protect anyone else from how you're really doing. It's time specifically for you. Together, we can also work with practical, evidence-based approaches such as CBT and mindfulness to help with difficult thoughts and emotions, boundaries, coping, and finding ways to make things feel a little more manageable in an otherwise unimaginable situation. 

As a registered nurse and nurse psychotherapist (qualifying), this also means you don't have to spend half the session explaining the health-care system or medical terminology to me; that's part of what I do, and what I know, already. 

Virtual counselling for adults in Alberta whether you're in a small town, city, or rural community. Coffee or tea, comfy clothes and pets welcome (and encouraged).