Who Was I, Then?
A lesson in devotion, identity, and the self that caregiving asks you to set aside
You cannot disappear in order to care well for someone else.
When Lee moved into Assisted Living, I felt adrift. There was relief in it — quiet, uninterrupted sleep, a body finally allowed to rest. But underneath the relief was something I couldn’t yet name. Unsettled. Untethered.
I had lost myself in caregiving. And now I wasn’t even in that role anymore. So who was I?
Research from UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center confirms what I was only beginning to feel: caregivers who preserve their own health, identity, and social connections — even as their role shifts from spouse to caregiver — fare better, physically and emotionally. Maintaining emotional boundaries, prioritizing self-care, and separating yourself from the caregiver role aren’t indulgences. They’re necessary, for both of you.
This is the lesson that is slowly learned, through the devotion and giving all you have: that loving someone well does not require erasing yourself.
It took me a while to learn this, after hours and hours of caring and caregiving. It was only after I truly realized I was losing myself, my own identity, inside caregiving, that it hit home. The realization helped me make clear decisions instead of exhausted ones. It let me move Lee to Assisted Living without drowning in guilt. It helped me rebuild a life that feels like it belongs to me again.
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 showing up for my spouse: I changed something physical.
Everything felt emotionally overwhelming, so I started with what I could see and touch. I went shopping — not impulsively, but intentionally. New towels. New bed linens. Small changes in the kitchen. I needed to shed the caregiver skin, and changing the physical space around me helped me begin shifting the space inside me.
I rearranged a room. The family/TV room had felt crowded for years — heavy furniture that had moved with us through every house, a jumble of chairs and a sofa that really didn’t fit. I traded it for something lighter, smaller, and the room opened up immediately, like it could finally breathe.
I cleaned out my closet, and with it, I lost the decision fatigue I hadn’t realized I was carrying. Before, I dreaded the clutter every morning, the search for something to wear. After, the choice was clear. I could simply get dressed and get on with the day.
When I help clients stage a home, we do this same thing — swap out the tired accents, brighten a room, make space feel wider than it is. We create one corner where a person can simply be. I needed that corner in my own home, too.
None of this fixed anything. But it signaled something — to me, mostly. A transition is happening. And sometimes the body needs to see proof of that before the heart believes it.
Vicki.
I was a caregiver for my husband with Alzheimer’s. I write about Belonging to Self, Community and Home, both during and after caregiving.
If this would be of value to you to hear more about how I restored my sense of community after 4 years of caregiving, Subscribe to Vicki’s Substack, “The Tender Warrior”
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