10:28pm October 5, 2014

So the caregiver class…

…I was unsure what to expect. And I can’t tell you details because details would break confidentiality. But I can tell you broad outlines and I’m really impressed so far.

The basic premise of the class is that if we aren’t taking care of ourselves, we can’t take care of anyone else. I’ve seen that idea go into horrible, self-centered and selfish places before, where people renounced ever doing anything for anyone else in favor of their “me time” or whatever. But this seemed more realistic.

Anyway, one of the things they have us do is make a plan for each week where we will accomplish one thing that has nothing at all to do with the caregiving relationship. Just one thing.

And that has proven exactly what I needed to get back on track with crocheting. Because they hold you accountable for how much or how little you accomplish of your weekly goal.

And I need to crochet. I need to crochet in order to feel alive. I was starting to get scared of spiralling into a depression, because I could not get interested in anything at all, not even crocheting. And crocheting is my special interest. When an autistic person loses interest in their special interest, that’s a really bad sign.

So this is forcing me to do it again, and the difference in my mood is already noticeable. I’m going to put the hats and scarves I make in bags in the public park with labels saying anyone cold can take them home permanently. I saw a picture on tumblr of someone doing that, and I realized I had to do it. I’ve always wanted to leave things out for people to find, and leaving useful things out is even better. I know how cold it can get outside, and I am really going to enjoy doing this. So far I’ve got one hat and sort of half a scarf (I need to find more yarn that at least somewhat matches the scarf, in order to finish it, it’s not even good for a child right now).

In other news, I love working in chunky size yarn, it makes crochet projects go much faster.

Anyway, I already feel better just from having something to do. It’s not like all my time was taken up with supporting my family before. Not even close. But it was always weighing on my mind, and to be able to stop thinking about it and think about something else for a bit has been pretty useful.

I’ll be trying to pass on generic stuff I learn in the class – as in stuff like this, that’s in the textbook and isn’t revealing anything confidential – in case it’s helpful to my mom, who has a much more intense caregiving role right now. The basic goal of the class is to keep us from either burning out or outright killing ourselves (literally, not as in suicide but as in making ourselves so overworked and stressed that we get sick and die, which apparently happens more than people think), or other things like that, and to become more capable of being there for our families when they need us, by being there for ourselves enough that we’re able to function when we really need to.

It’s really weird to be considered a caregiver but they insist that the kind of emotional support I’m giving my parents is a form of caregiving and that it can be just as draining as the physical kind. Not that I’d give it up for anything, this is something I’ve chosen to do of my own free will, I love my parents and if I can make my father’s death even a little easier I will give anything to do that. But it is nice to have someplace to go where they know the problems I’m dealing with and know how to solve them – like we’re going to do stress management and other stuff too.

TL;DR: I’m attending a caregiver class (because emotional support counts, to them, as caregiving) and they’re teaching us ways to manage stress and other things, so that we can basically… be there for ourselves, so that when it comes time to be there for other people, we’ll have the energy and the stamina and the right mindset to be there for them. One thing they’re having us do is set one goal a week that has nothing to do with caregiving. Mine this week has to do with crochet, and it’s exactly the push I needed to get back into crochet, which is already turning around what could have pushed me into a depression.