photo illustrations: Jeff Brandsted
Berman explores common ground for all caregivers: emotional stress. "The emotions took over my life and consumed me," Berman says. Writing, it seemed, helped her cope with the guilt and animosity that she felt from her experience. She says she felt like she wasn't doing enough for her mother or wasn't in the right spirit. When her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Berman put aside most of her life and made her mother a priority. After seeing how everyone ran away from her mother after she was diagnosed, Berman couldn't bear the thought of her mother suffering without any support.
Although my own parents were divorced, I was lucky to find support and comfort from my sister, who was also helping care for our mother. She was just two years older and managing her own schoolwork and a job. I cut my own caregiving experience short when I left for college. I would go home only twice a month. My older sister took over the responsibility. When I was a sophomore in college, my sister pointed out that I had abandoned her and our mom. I had left my sister to tend to my mother's appointments, meals and cleaning. Sometimes my sister would have to skip class just to get these things done.
When Berman talks about the family dynamics of caregiving, her tone becomes emphatic. "Dividing the responsibility of caregiving equally is crap," she says. Berman says she finally just accepted that she would be the only one who would take over her mother's affairs and care, making her part of the 75% of caregivers who are women, according to a report done by the U.S. Administration of Aging. Her voice cracks when she talks about the numerous fights between her brother and her about their mother. Berman says she finally let go of the anger. "I was using all my energy being angry at my siblings," she
says, "and I knew that wasn't going to help my mother."
Show some respect
Berman says the best thing one can do as a caregiver is provide the person you're caring for with hope. "Never belittle them," she says. If they are in denial of an illness, Berman says she thinks the best thing a caregiver can do is be a source of hope by telling them they will get better. "Don't argue because they need to believe things will get better," Berman says.
I think back to the numerous times that my mother was having a good day. She would smile and say all that she had accomplished that day and how great she felt. Then she would say, "Maybe I am getting better. Wouldn't that be great?" I would pretend to be engrossed in something else when she said this or change the subject. Berman made me think twice about ignoring this plea of hope. Hope is all she has left because there is no cure to her disease.
As a young caregiver, help is hard to find. Tiffany Williams, who has been a caregiver
Much needed respite
since she was 9 years old, relied on home health aides to help out her mother who suffers from severe Rheumatoid arthritis. Now 21 years old, Williams says sometimes having the home health aid was more difficult than just doing the task herself. "Of the twenty or so that we have had, we have had about three really good ones," Williams says. She tells about her home health horror stories. For example, one home health aide came in one morning with white stuff on her eye. The curious substance was Elmer's glue. The home health aide mistook the bottle for her contact solution. "How can she have not realized that it was the wrong bottle? The bottles don't even feel alike," Williams says with a laugh. "Some are just not that smart."
But Williams doesn't resent the fact that she is a caregiver. She says it has taught her to be more responsible than most people her age. "Because I have had to grocery shop since I was little, I know the seasons of the fruits and how to pick fruits and vegetables," Williams says. "Most of my friends can't do that."
Williams is studying the needs of young caregivers at the Berger Institute at the Claremont McKenna College in Claremont
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