About Author Ellen Besso
Ellen Besso professional roles of life coach, counselor, social worker and author; as well as being a mother, partner and caregiver for her own mother leaves her more than qualified to guide and support women both through her coaching and writing.
She is a Certified Martha Beck Coach and during her own midlife journey was mentored by Judith Duerk, MA, author of A Circle of Stones: Woman's Journey to Herself. Ellen has made numerous trips to India, during her last one she and her partner spent six weeks in Dharamsala tutoring Tibetan students and working on the first phase of editing a book of Tibetan refugee stories.
Ellen has started her next book, a memoir that will talk about her spiritual connection with India and its people, as well as her work there.
Read Ellen Besso's Expert Advice
About "Surviving Eldercare"
Whether you are a daughter, granddaughter or daughter-in-law you will probably be a caregiver to a relative at some point in your life. For more than ten years author Ellen Besso has been the caregiver for her own mother who has Alzheimer's; she understands the complexities of the situation. Her book Surviving Eldercare helps you to understand why you need to put yourself first and then it guides you through the process of how you can do just that. This isn't about 'how-to's', although you will find some useful tips in it, this is a book about change. It's about digging a little deeper into yourself as you consider your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs . in the workplace, in relationships with others and most importantly, in your relationship with yourself.
For the woman who is dealing with an aging relative this book will support and guide you. It will help you to examine your roles, the dynamics of your family and enable you to see how and where you can ask for help.
Excerpts from Surviving Eldercare: Where Their Needs End and Yours Begin
From Chapter 2: Trying To Do Too Much
You are undoubtedly a woman who is trying to do too much if:
- There aren't enough hours in the day to do what you need to do.
- You find it hard to say 'no' to requests
- Responsibilities feel too big for one woman to manage.
- Your personal life has faded into non-existence.
- You feel depleted, sad or resentful.
To many women it feels natural, even expected, to nurture others and help make their lives easier. I was brought up to please, and spent my earlier years functioning automatically for the most part, from my conditioning, with the unfortunate end result that I became a young woman who didn't really know who she was or what she wanted. Other women may have had different upbringings, but through a chain of circumstances, find themselves with unwieldy family and career responsibilities.
As women, we often enjoy connecting with others and are very good at supporting them. Some social scientists, like Carol Gilligan, believe that women are guided by 'an ethic of care' that leads us to be concerned with personal relationships. Women often prefer to avoid conflict, so we may not articulate our own needs and desires.
When we can't give ourselves permission to seek what we want, we live our lives playing the roles of worker, mother, partner, daughter, community member and so on. Over time we may begin to think the needs of our partner, our children and our aging parents are actually our own needs, says Jean Baker Miller. We have become our roles rather than performing them.
From Chapter 8: Asking for Help
How to reach out to family members
Family relationships are often complex, therefore many of us hesitate to ask for assistance. Primary caregivers may believe that close relatives already know what help is needed, or make the assumption that they won't respond.
From the other point of view, family members may be used to one person taking charge and getting things done, and they may be quite comfortable with the status quo. They may even resent being asked to take on a greater role.
If we first clarify for ourselves what we as primary caregiver are able to do, it will be much easier to discuss the situation with other family members. Take the time to write an itemized outline of the current caregiving situation including:
- Your parent's needs
- The tasks you are performing
- What still requires attention?
We can then make suggestions to help family members know what's needed. For instance,
- Siblings and other members of the family who don't do hands on work may be able and willing to provide money for care.
- Some family members are good at tasks like financial management, or acting as a liaison with care facility administration, government, medical staff or lawyers.
- On the days you're with your parent, let your partner and children know how they can help out with simple tasks like doing laundry, starting dinner or washing dishes.