Caregivers: Write Your Way to A Better Day
You may be surprised how often mental health is being mentioned in conjunction with COVID19. We hear almost every day how depression and anxiety seem to trouble people as they try to cope with the demands of living in a world with a pandemic.
Ongoing Problems Cause Other Problems
It is common for caregivers to suffer from the same stresses as those with the virus. Frequent suggestions in the popular press to help with mental health challenges include regular exercise, eating a heart-healthy diet, and calling an old friend. There is nothing wrong with any of these suggestions. However, there is another idea you might want to try.
When I was a consultant to business owners, they often vented to me about their frustrations with a business problem they had been unable to fix. It was often a problem with another person: a business partner, a long-term employee, a vendor who never delivered on time. By the time they mentioned it to me, they had struggled with the problem for some time. They had reached the point where they just wanted to be done with it. It was disturbing their sleep, and they felt depressed and powerless to do anything about it.
Write a Letter You Will Never Send
My common suggestion was to write the offending person a letter—a letter the business owner would never send. The idea was to get all of the thoughts out of their head and on to the paper. I found, in my own business, that such an exercise not only cleared my head but gave me a sense of having some control over the problem. Anytime a person feels powerless, depression and anxiety are soon to follow.
A Source for Help with Writing
I recently came across a book that may be of interest to caregivers: “Expressive Writing: Words That Heal” by James Pennebaker and John Evans. The book describes “expressive writing” as a way to cope with life's emotional upheavals. The authors encourage writing to deal with “…a single event or a long-term chronic problem.” Caregiving for Alzheimer’s disease counts on both fronts.
Sometimes it seems that there is an emotional upheaval every day as your loved one's abilities diminish. Going on and facing the next task in your day can mean those upheavals pile up and affect every part of your life. You may feel some relief by simply writing about it. Your writing doesn’t need to be perfect and you don't need to read it to someone. Just getting the feelings on paper means they may no longer be bothering you in your head.