In celebration of National Family Caregivers Month, we’re sharing the stories of other bloggers and caregivers. Today guest blogger Tara Ulrich writes about the topsy-turvey world of mental illness when young adults have to become the caregiver for a parent.
Children should not have to care for their parents when they are young. In the natural order of life, parents care for their children and then when parents age, children care for their parents. Yet sometimes that order is thrown off balance such as in our case. My sister and I have been our mother’s legal guardians since approximately the fall of 2003. Our Mom had a nervous breakdown shortly after my sister was born so we have not known different. Mental illness continues to be a part of our story.
In 2001, Mom’s lithium level got too high which caused her kidneys to shut down. We weren’t sure she was going to make it. She spent days in the intensive care unit of a local hospital. She eventually pulled through, but the illness aged her a lot. Since that time, Mom has been living in a nursing home.
Prior to the fall of 2003 (fall of 2002), I began a new adventure. I moved hours and miles away from home to attend Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. It was the first time I was not within driving distance of being able to visit Mom at a moment’s notice. It was an important time for me to gain some freedom and independence, but it also was a time I questioned if Mom would always have the best care provided for her.
I remember vividly that September day in 2003 when several of my friends and I were sitting on a blanket, sprawled out on the grass, in the courtyard of Wartburg Seminary sharing about our summer experiences. I was sharing with them about my mom, her/our journey with a mental illness, the death of her dad (our Grandpa) that past August and her aging mother who was beginning to show early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Since our parent’s divorce, Mom’s parents had kept a pulse on Mom’s medical needs, but now we were at a crossroads. My sister and I knew that we needed to make a decision. That afternoon, several of my friends shared with me their thoughts on the situation as many of them had just completed clinical pastoral education (CPE). In addition, we made a list of the pros and cons of my sister and me becoming Mom’s legal guardians. After much discussion and tons of prayer, it became very apparent to my sister and I that we needed to make the decision to become Mom’s legal guardians.
It has been a role that neither my sister or I particularly wanted, but it is a role that we both feel we have been called to. And it is a role that, at times, I particularly have been glad that we have held. While at other times, it is a role that I haven’t wanted. This summer, Mom again had some health issues that reared their ugly head. I was traveling for work, continuing education and vacation which often put me out of the area and even out of state. And as the youngest, my sister doesn’t always feel the most comfortable making the decisions in regards to Mom and her health. But since we are both her legal caregivers, we were able to make calls in regards to Mom’s care this summer remotely.
Legal guardianship allowed us to make decisions for my mom when her health prevented her from making them on her own. Click To TweetBeing Mom’s caregiver is not an easy job. In fact, there are times that I find myself continually asking for forgiveness: Did we make the right decision? And when I try to answer that question, I find myself heaping on the guilt. Yet over time, my sister and I have grown to understand the importance of making this decision for mom and her health.
In so many ways, my sister and I have grown as we have learned what it means to be Mom’s caregivers and to continue to make the best choices for her.
Growing up, when Mom was healthy, she was the best mom in the world and cared for us with her entire being. In return, we want to do the best we can to care for her too. So we do our best to trust the nurses at the nursing home to care for her when we are not there. We also do our best to care for ourselves so we can make the best decisions for Mom and her health. It is a role that God has called my sister and me to until God calls Mom to be with Jesus and her own parents one day.
And until that day, we will continue to do our best to be the best caregivers we can be!
Tara Ulrich lives in Minot, ND where she serves at a Lutheran church as the Director of Home and Family Ministry. She is a rostered Diaconal Minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Diaconal Ministers grew out of the Catholic understanding of deacons and deaconesses; Word and Service rather than Word and Sacrament). Prior to coming to Minot, she lived in Moorhead, MN and served at a church in Dilworth, MN for approximately 6 1/2 years. She is a graduate of the University of Mary (Bismarck, ND) and Wartburg Theological Seminary. She loves to spend time with her friends and family, reading, writing, and on the beautiful prairies of North Dakota. You can follow her at her blog Praying on the Prairie.
