Multiple, Cumulative, Conflicting Issues

I haven’t been posting regularly for a while. Part of me feels like I should apologize, but I think it’s more important for a blog that tells the story of how I’m recovering to demonstrate that recovery. During the early days of my recovery, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize my own needs. As I recovered, I began to recognize them but didn’t know how to meet them. I’ve now recovered enough to know it’s okay to take time to meet my own needs. Because of that, I’m going to say I’m glad I’ve recovered enough to know when to take care of myself instead of apologizing.

In the early weeks of my blog slowing down, my husband was hospitalized. The root of the hospitalization caused some ongoing issues we’ve been working on. While working on those issues, my father-in-law had a fall that left him in a wheelchair; therefore, he decided it was time to move to assisted living. That required the family moving him and the stuff he wanted to keep, clearing out his house to get it ready for sale, and distributing family heirlooms. The heirlooms that came to us were added to heirlooms family members we had previously been caregivers for had left us. It was time to get our house in order. I had to go through everything in our house and determine what should stay in the family, where it should go, and what could be donated. Whatever was left here had to be organized and put away appropriately. That process took several months, and we’re still only about 80% finished. In addition, all three of my elderly dogs passed away while all of this was going on.

Since all of this happened at the end of years of caregiving for several family members in a row, I became so exhausted and overwhelmed that I needed to step away and gain control of everything the constant stress of caregiving had caused me to lose control of. I’m happy I recognized and took care of my own needs. This tells me I’m continuing to succeed at growth and healing.

In my early blog posts, I shared how I had been a 100% doormat and was making good progress on overcoming that. One key factor in making progress was learning what kinds of behaviors to set boundaries with. I said I wanted to share what I learned about boundaries before I started sharing information about the other topics on this blog’s resource list (https://ronisharp.wixsite.com/mysite/blog/resource-list-places-that-can-help-you-heal-your-beautiful-self). It is time to start discussing the other topics on that list. Since I haven’t been posting much lately, I will be writing more than one post this week. My goal is to finish the subject of setting boundaries, so we can move on to the items on the Resource List.

In other writing projects, I coined the term multiple, cumulative, conflicting issues. This term describes what a person handling more than one issue on the resource list at a time may be going through. The more issues they are handling at a time, the more this term applies.

Many people can buy a car, get a loan to buy a car, or catch the bus when their car breaks down. Not always pleasant, but not rife with complications. When a person is dealing with multiple, cumulative, conflicting issues, what is written in this list is what needing a car can look like. All of the following examples, when combined, add to the problem.

· If they are handicapped and can’t walk well enough to catch a bus.

· If they are a family caregiver for someone who is too sick to take the bus and a car is needed to get them to their frequent medical appointments, especially when those medical appointments become so frequent that paying for each trip on the Access Medical Transport will cost more than a car payment.

· When more than one person at a time becomes sick and needs care.

· When several people in a row become sick and need care.

· Needing someone to tend to the other sick people each time you accompany one of them to the doctor as their advocate.

· Having tens of thousands of dollars of uncovered medical bills making the financial situation even harder.

· Someone in the house having blood sugar issues and food is becoming less accessible due to money and transportation.

· Medicine becoming less accessible due to money and transportation.

· A family member having untreated mental illness and creating chaos instead of helping.

· That family member self-medicating with drugs or alcohol while you don’t have time, transportation, or a back-up caregiver to allow you to receive the support of Alanon/Narc-Anon.

· That family member stealing from the family’s sparse resources to feed their addiction.

· The person/people who need a caregiver are still in their own home, even temporarily having bills, upkeep, and domestic responsibilities for two or more households.

· People withholding support because they are judging that these multiple, cumulative, conflicting situations are as easy as the one problem they handled recently.

· Facing all of this while trying to find time to grieve the last family member you were a caregiver for who passed away.

· Facing this while people try to give you the good on paper answers and get mad when they perceive you aren’t taking their advice because you’re living it and have repeatedly learned those answers don’t work and you’re too tired to go through the run-around again.

· Being exhausted and/or sick from years of family caregiving that adds to the problem.

In spite of all of this, they have to find a way to buy a car that is a necessity in their situation. In cases like this, buying a car isn’t as easy as many people who’ve had the luxury of buying their dream car with their disposable income can even imagine.

Having multiple, cumulative, conflicting issues can come in many forms. I chose this list, because it is a list I have lived. I chose this list, because many people who were living a similar list were referred to me for emotional support when people recognized the similarity of our situations. Many other people’s list would look very different but be just as unimaginable to maneuver, yet maneuver them they do – just like I and the people who were referred to me did. Multiple, cumulative, conflicting issues means they’re handling more than one issue at a time (multiple), those issues are accumulating and piling up so fast they can’t finish one before they are hit with another one or several more (cumulative), and they finally have so many issues that they have to handle several at one time in order to survive (conflicting). Many people live that reality. By sharing my story, I hope I will be able to help even one person have the knowledge and strength they need to survive their situation. The one thing I will say is what I said at the beginning of this post - learn to take care of yourself and rest at every opportunity. You don't know when another emergency will hit that will prevent you from resting appropriately for days, weeks, months, and in some cases even years. Don't help people who have fewer problems than you do. Don't feel guilty if you turn down social requests. Recognize that people pleasing could mean life or death for your poor, exhausted body. Recognize that you can cut off people who take it personally and trigger on you. Anyone who would trigger on a person going through this much, in my opinion, does not possess the ability to have empathy for others. They very well may get diagnosed with one of the mental illnesses that have that characteristic if they were ever to tell a counselor the truth of the story. You are better off without people like that. Your true friends will still be there for you when your life settles down. Just like I took a few months away from this blog to take care of me, you can take time away from anything that is not life and death, so you can handle the top priorities in your life.

It is time to start discussing the items on the resource list, and especially to discuss how those items can overlap. My hope is that by discussing them, which I hope will include comments from people who have overcome similar experiences, we can learn to make the journey and the recovery after it is over easier. I will share one more post about boundaries, and then we will move on to discussing the items on the resource list.