Belonging to Self

An important lesson learned

One of the most important lessons I learned while I was a caregiver for my husband with Alzheimer’s:

You cannot disappear in order to care well for someone else.

When my husband moved into Assisted Living, I felt adrift. I was relieved to have quiet and uninterrupted sleep. Yet I was also unsettled in ways I couldn’t yet name.

I had lost myself in caregiving. And now I wasn’t even in that role. So who was I?

Research shows that preserving personal health, identity and social connections - in spite of the profound shift in your role (spouse to caregiver) - lead to better physical and emotional health. Maintaining emotional boundaries, prioritizing self-care, and separating yourself from the caregiver role, are crucial to caring for both your spouse and yourself. UCSF Memory and Aging Center: Caregiver Well-Being.

This lesson — that devotion does not require self-erasure — has helped me to:

• Make clear decisions instead of exhausted ones

• Move him to Assisted Living without drowning in guilt

• Begin rebuilding a life that feels like it belongs to me again

It took thousands of hours — and more grief than I expected — to learn this.

If you’re walking this road, save yourself some of that time.

Here is one of the things I did to reclaim myself while still loving and supporting my spouse:

I Changed Something Physical

Everything felt emotionally overwhelming, so I started with what I can see and touch.

I went shopping. Not impulsively — intentionally.

New clothes. New towels and bed linens. Small changes in the kitchen.

I needed to shed the caregiver skin, and changing the physical space helped me begin shifting internally.

• Rearrange a room—I moved some furniture to give a room a new feel. The TV room felt crowded with too much furniture that was too big, so I moved in lighter and smaller chairs. It immediately felt more open and inviting. The old furniture had moved with us through the years and had no real purpose in that room, so the refresh included removing pieces to achieve a new feel.

• Replace something that feels heavy with something lighter—I reorganized and cleaned out my closet, and I lost all my “decision fatigue” about getting dressed. Before, I dreaded looking at the clutter and trying to find something to wear. After, my choices were clear and I could make a selection and get on with the day.

• Refresh one corner of your home—I’m actually a Realtor by day, and when helping clients stage homes, we change out accents to make the home feel brighter and more spacious. We create a special place where we can just “be.”

This lets you signal to yourself: a transition is happening.

I was a caregiver of a husband with Alzheimers for 4 years and lost sense of who I was along the way.

I write to help others who feel isolated in losing the love of their life To find a sense of belonging after.

I write about ways to belong to yourself again (once you’ve lost her) in my weekly newsletter “The Tender Warrior.” Because— I truly had to be a warrior most days, but for the man who was the absolute love of my life.

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