It’s a new year. If you’re like me, you’ve been thinking about some things you want to do differently over the coming year.  Some people call these resolutions – I call them aspirations.  This year, I aspire to exercise more regularly and to learn Italian (again!). 

As a caregiver, what do you aspire to?  After all, your loved one’s journey through Alzheimer’s is all about you, isn’t it?

WHAT?  ABOUT ME?  ARE YOU CRAZY?  

After my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the reality began to set in, I started to tell my friends and colleagues what was happening. As you might expect, nearly every one expressed sympathy. They offered friendship, concern, condolences—the very same gestures of friendship I would have offered had our roles been reversed.  So why did their generous offers of comfort make me feel so uneasy?  In the great “Is the glass half empty or half full?” debate, my friends and I were on opposite sides. They saw my mother’s disease as a terrible tragedy. I saw it as an opportunity for learning and personal growth.  My learning and my personal growth. You see, I saw her journey as being all about ME!  

Shocking, isn’t it?  Not really.  It’s just a perspective I chose to adopt as my mother’s disease progressed. It helped me to be in a more positive and proactive place to walk beside her. How did I find and nurture this perspective in the chaos of this disease? 

(1)       I figured out pretty quickly that there was nothing I could do to change my mother’s fate, budge my father’s reluctance to get help, or convince my siblings I knew the right way to move forward. I only could change myself and how I viewed this disease, and once I figured this out, I was free to make the experience what I wanted it to be for myself. 

(2)       I practiced the lessons I had learned about the connection between my thoughts and outcomes. I worked each day to keep my focus on me and to strive for thinking positive and supportive thoughts, regardless of the reality swirling around me.  I kept a journal of my “stinking thinking” and repeatedly revised my “dictionary of life.” 

(3)       I kept an eye out for the gifts of this journey – the many ways my relationships with my mother, with my family, with myself and with my world were changing for the better. I made a list of these gifts, so I wouldn’t forget the beauty of this journey as things got worse for my mother, and for me. 

Is it any wonder that, when I told my friends I viewed my mother’s dementia as one of the greatest gifts she had given me, they looked at me with a mixture of shock and disbelief?   

Ah, just the response I was looking for. The response that would move others to take positive personal action when faced with adversity! Just the catalyst I wanted to be in my life and the lives of others.  Now, let me ask you again: What are your aspirations as a caregiver?