When your family member or friend moves into a care facility, it can impact your physical, mental, and spiritual health. Here are some changes you might experience:
Physical Changes
- Fatigue
- Weight loss or gain
- Appetite changes
Mental and Emotional Changes
- Sadness
- Loneliness
- Anxiety
- Anger
- Guilt
- Relief
- Confusion
- Mood swings
- Grief
- Denial
Spiritual and Identity Changes
- Loss of faith
- Loss of identity
- Feeling like an outsider
- Isolation
Insights from Others Who Have Experienced These Changes
- "You feel like you've lost control."
- "One must continually come and deal with waves of loss."
- "You go out, leave, and the door behind you locks. All you could see was his new pyjamas and his eye in the door that cracked double door, and you are left with that. It was the hardest and most difficult day of my life."
- "Then at night, well, that was the worst part because I couldn't sleep . . . I was going downhill myself. Losing weight . . . it was just turmoil."
- "Uncertainty is a worry."
- "You're in the forest and can't get out."
- "It's like survivor's guilt, in some ways; you feel you are surviving and living your life, and they're not. So it's like being the only one off the train wreck. But is it guilt, or is it grief? They talk about that ambiguous loss because you've lost the person you know and who that person was, but they're still there, and there are still parts of them there."
- "The psychological stress on the caregiver, you know. Everybody is very focused on the person who has the disease, . . . and a lot of the caregivers, . . . they're the ones dying first, probably from stress."
- "A lot of it is because you're in denial about it. We're conditioned to care for that person and not complain."
- "And then the stigma when you do put them in. You've got the people saying, 'It's about time you put him in,' and then the other people say, 'He didn't seem that bad. You were managing'. You know, 'How could you just warehouse him?'"
- "You have to find it (hope) within yourself and just what gives you pleasure daily with friends and family."
Does this meet your expectations?
