Caregivers and Guilt: You’re Messing Up His Zen!

 Emotional Health vs Physical Health

Note: I wrote this article on March 5th, 2023. For some reason, it wasn’t published. Life has changed since, but I feel this should have been published because of the important truth it contains.

This morning at 5am I had a breakdown. A tiny reaction/interaction with my husband Dan as he was getting up sent me spiraling down. Now, this moment of fragility didn’t come out of nowhere.

A couple days ago we were told the growth the doctor recently removed from his bladder was another metastasis of the cancer. The oncologist’s prognosis is grim. Even though we believe in food & lifestyle as medicine and are confident we can beat this disease as thousands of people have done and are doing, his authoritative voice knocked me down. The way most Western’s traditional medicine doctors dismiss the healing power of food in spite of highly regarded cancer research centers providing scientific proof of that power, totally pisses me off—but that’s for another day.

So, Dan got up. I stayed in bed, emotions quickly rising up as tears fell down. Despite the guilt of disrupting Dan—he’s the one with cancer and his quiet morning time is precious and healing—I went to him. He soon came back to bed with me. I cried.

Because I’m currently doing a lot of work on my core wounds and false beliefs about life, I knew I needed to pay attention. I peeled the layers of my feelings and connected some dots.

Although what my excavation revealed is most valuable to me, that’s not what I want to talk about today. What I do want to bring up are two things:

One, the guilt caregivers feel when our issues add to the burden of the situation—particularly when dealing with terminal illness.

Two, the discrepancy in how distress of the mind (I prefer the term to mental illness) is perceived compared to distress of the body.
 

Caregiver’s Guilt
Dan had his first encounter with cancer 7 years ago. It was quite dramatic. That’s when I first became a dedicated and loving caregiver. There were a few healthy-er years (although to be honest, once cancer enters your world it kind of sticks around—at least the idea or fear of it), then a serious concussion, then 14 months ago the oh-so-dramatic return of the cancer topped with a case of radiation double pneumonitis that nearly killed him.

This experience has made me very well versed in caregiver’s guilt. As soon as I was triggered this morning, it showed its pretty face.

“You should work it out on your own Annie, don’t disturb Dan, he needs his quiet time. You should be stronger. Just get over yourself already. You should be ashamed of your selfishness. Dan’s meditation is more important. If you bother him with this, you’re preventing him from healing. Your emotions stress him out and stress causes more cancer. You’re not strong enough. You’re not centered enough. You’re messed up. You’re not a good enough caregiver. You’re contributing to his disease. You should be uplifting. You bring him down from his positive mindset. You should be better than that.”

That’s heavy shit. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only caregiver who’s heard that lovely self-talk. And it’s a mighty heavy load to add our own load of fears, exhaustion and whatever inner work we’re doing.

In the wake of my cathartic sobbing and self-realizations episode, Dan and I fell back to sleep. As we later started sipping our healthy morning concoctions, I could feel an underlying irritation coming from Dan. It was now late, and my outburst had interfered with his plans and disrupted his healing, centering, morning routine. Of course, I started feeling the guilt. The guilt, once again, that my emotional distress was not only an inconvenience but detrimental to his healing.

But this morning, a deep desire of freeing myself from this guilt rose inside me and my wiser self spoke these words:

“Hang on there, Annie. Wait a minute. Step outside the pattern and consider this: your emotional distress is as legitimate as Dan’s physical distress.

“The tears your eyes shed on the outside, Dan’s body sheds on the inside in the form of cancer. Your beings simply have a different way of expressing their dis-ease.

“Emotional distress is an actual breakdown, or disruption of the “healthy” structure of your mind/emotional body just as a cancer growth is a disruption in the “healthy” structure of Dan’s physical cells. They are both manifestations of energetic disturbances.

“The only difference is the former is usually judged as a choice or weakness, and the latter typically elicits compassion and care.

“Hear this: Your emotional body deserves as much time and caring as Dan’s physical body. There have been months and years dedicated to his physical health, often disrupting your plans, your healing and meditations, messing up with your own mindset, adding burden to already stressful situations.

“Your emotional breakdowns are as inconvenient as Dan’s physical breakdowns. No more. No less.

“Your emotional health is worthy of time, care and attention.

You are worthy of being cared for whether your issue is emotional of physical.

Same same.”

Thank you, higher-Self.

It is crucial that we, caregivers, transform our guilt into a practice of self-love and self-care. Caregiving takes a lot out of us and our breakdowns are legitimate. Both sides of the experience of disease come with their challenges, and the care taking should, in some measure, go both ways.

In life and relationships in general, it is equally critical that our understanding of emotional distress evolve. The fact that it exists at an invisible level doesn’t make it less real. We may not be able to see electricity, but it is no less real and powerful—its energy needing to be taken seriously.

Judging our emotional distress—or someone else’s—as a weakness or inconvenience is both, and always, misguided and destructive.

But if we choose to instead look under it, dig it out and understand it, it will always put us on a path of personal growth, expansion, and greater freedom.

Guilt is a needy and greedy companion that’s usually hard to ditch, but when we do, the feeling is akin to frolicking in a beautiful meadow on a warm summer’s day. I hope I pointed you in that direction today.

In kindness,
Annie