Life After Being a Caregiver

Have you ever stopped to wonder what happens to a caregiver when their charge departs this world? For professionals, it's easy; they just move on to the next. After all. there's no shortage of sick, elderly, or dying people in the world. It's a job and nothing more. They don't generally become emotionally attached enough that it disturbs their life. But not every caregiver is a professional—most aren’t. Most are family, daughters, sons, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what happens to them when there's no one left to take care of?

The answer isn't pretty. Most have given years or even all of their lives to take care of that person. They give up their jobs and their homes. Some have moved hundreds or thousands of miles. They had to let go of friendships and relationships to do what's right.

When the unthinkable finally does happen, it's a devastating blow. Something you can never get over. You've invested your whole being into that person and now their absence leaves a hole that can never be filled. You're lost and sometimes completely alone, your life forever destroyed.

You're told to suck it up and to move on and a whole host of other things. Most people have no clue what it means to lose their world; some never will. To lose your heart and soul. They think you can just find something new, a new hobby, a new boyfriend or girlfriend, a new husband or wife, have a child if you're young enough. They don't understand the concept of being all alone. You're suppose to go out and party, socialize; they fail to realize most no longer have any friends and making new ones is almost impossible these days.

The next problem is a lot of caregivers are financially dependent on their family members as well. They had to give up their work and income to care for them. It works well, till something happens. Then you can find yourself out on the streets with nowhere to go and nothing left except a broken heart. Some can find new jobs and maybe even new places to live. But not all can. Some, like me, are disabled and chronically ill themselves, slowly dying with no hope for the future.

It isn't enough that you lose your family; you stand to lose everything else as well, your purpose in life being the first thing to go. You can't be a caregiver without someone to care for, you can't be a daughter without a mother. You lose your identity, you lose your meaning, you lose your purpose. You no longer have a reason to exist. You find out quickly how little the world needs you. You were someone to the person you loved, but to the rest of the world you're expendable and useless, a waste of time and space.

The sad fact is that not every caregiver can go on. Some have nothing left to go on to. They may linger in this world, but by no means are they living. They wander and drift, they simply wait for their turn. They bottle up their emotions, they smile a fake smile—after all, they know no one really cares. They learn to pretend to show people what they want to see, not the dead and decaying person they are on the inside.

We smile and pretend and wait, wait to be set free from our hell, to be with the person we love again. Some find comfort in praying, some pray for their loved ones to come back, some to be with them, some for forgiveness, some for help. Sometimes even just to be a little less alone.

So the next time you hear someone say they're no longer a caregiver, choose your words carefully or you might just cause more harm than good.