Feel like you’re being taken for granted? Feel like a slave? Feel like a whipping boy, an emotional potty or psychic life jacket? You probably are. But you don’t have to be. Just say no. Love? By all means. But live your life, not theirs. By trying to get them to live their life, you may in fact be preventing them from doing so.
Are there people in your life you feel are your job? They’re not. Do you feel compelled to make people happy and to fix them? Maybe all this fixing has been keeping them broken. Fix yourself instead. Just say no.
Why is it always the same people hosting the Christmas dinners, organising the money for the joint birthday presents, looking after everyone else’s children and dropping off the food? The same givers and the same takers.
If you’re one of the givers, great, but learn to say no sometimes. Take time to care for yourself. Emotionally nourish yourself by doing something other than emotionally nourishing others. What would happen if you spent half – or just 10 per cent – of all that time, energy and care you spend on others on yourself? If you decided to say no, grab a book, turn off the phone and hop in the bath? Repeat after me: ‘No. Sorry. I can’t.’ The world won’t fall apart. Sure, they’ll kick up, but they’ll get over it. The more you do, the more you’ll do. And the less you do, the more they’ll do.
If you keep pouring energy in and it’s not helping, stop. It’s not a good way to love them. You may be throwing petrol on the fire. A child will never learn to tie their shoelaces if you keep tying them. Love? By all means. But ask yourself why you’re doing it.
If you are going to care, care for the givers, not the takers. Care for the carers.
When you have a disabled child, the assumptions you had about raising a child and your own life go out the window. Rites of passage and expectations of independence no longer apply. Some people’s lives are a sentence of caring. And no, it’s not fair. But it’s life and, like all of us, they try to make the best of it. And it’s not all bad, though it is hard.
Lesley is sixty-five. Before her mother’s deathshe had been caring for her (she was in her nineties) as well as the high needs of her thirty-year-old disabled son. All on her own. Lesley cares for her son on four hours’ sleep a night, and very little money. When she wakes, she wipes the arse of a grown man. She’s tired, has no social life and at times feels ripped off . As anyone would. She’s an actor who squeezes occasional jobs around caring for her son, whom she adores. Ben’s been on the waiting list for residential care for fifteen years. Like all carers, Lesley’s worried about what will happen to Ben when she’s gone. She wants to feel that he’ll be cared for by someone who loves and understands him like she does.
Kerri and Matt have four children. Seven-year-old Kasper is charismatic, loveable and disabled. All carers say the same things. They want access to quality respite and residential care that respects their loved one’s humanity. That sees them for what they are, not what they aren’t. They want families, neighbours and the community to pop their heads in a bit, take an interest and lend a hand. They want more money.
Matt works as a teacher and Kerri is a full-time carer. She receives about fifty dollars a week. That’s appalling. They have enough to worry about without having to raise money for a new van via donations to their blog. The government bails out businesses and farmers but carers struggle on stuff -all. They feel like they’re filed under NMP. Not My Problem. If carers went on strike people would die.
Like all carers, Lesley, Kerri and Matt care. Like it or not. Some days better than others. Some days they astonish themselves withtheir boundless love and patience. Other days they want to drive away without a backwards glance.
So if you want to give, care for the people who are caring for others. And give them the time and space to care for themselves. And if you stop giving to the takers, you may be giving them more than you’ll ever know.