“Best Alzheimer’s quote from Mom today: ‘Where did I get you?’ I had to explain that she and my dad once had sex. She accepted the story.” That’s just one in a long series of funny/sad Facebook posts by Shula Neuman, executive editor at St. Louis Public Radio.
“My mom has alzheimer’s, my dad has Parkinson’s, and somehow I’m supposedly running the St. Louis Public Radio newsroom,” she tells me. “My life is a ball of stress.” She moved back from D.C. to help her dad care for her mother, and when it came time to move her mom to a care facility, Neuman realized that her 81-year-old father had never lived alone, not once in his life. So she stayed “for a week,” overriding his protestations—and noticed that he’d begun accepting dinner invitations for both of them. Now they share a condo, and Neuman races out to see her mother whenever she needs extra calming, then feels guilty about work: “It’s really hard to keep my head cool and make smart decisions when 60 percent of my brain is filled with thoughts of my parents.”
Your guide to a healthier, happier you
Sign up for the St. Louis Wellness newsletter and get practical tips for a balanced, healthy life in St. Louis.
Mary Hilgeman knows what that’s like: She quit her job as an emergency nurse and rented an apartment in Chicago to take care of a mother and stepfather with dementia, eventually bringing her mother home to live with her. Now her mom’s in a care facility, but Hilgeman goes almost every day to feed her meals and turn her.
Dotty Parker survived a “less-than-wonderful” marriage (he’s now in federal prison), worked two jobs to raise her kids, married a man with seven more, raised an unplanned grandbaby, and now manages the deli at the flagship Dierbergs, training employees company-wide and graciously turning aside the wrath of customers who are only spluttering because their own lives are out of control.
Carrie Jones (a pseudonym) was selling her house while settling her mother in a dementia facility. A week before she and her husband were to close, she learned that her workplace was shutting down. Now unable to qualify for a mortgage, the Joneses put their stuff in storage and rented while Carrie got her mom settled and flew overseas to help her daughter, who was having a rough pregnancy. Three weeks after she got home, her daughter miscarried; the same day, Jones got a call from the nursing home saying her mother had tried twice to escape and set off the fire alarm by smoking. Meanwhile, Jones was sorting and shredding 51 years’ worth of paperwork her mother had saved, starting a new job, and closing on a new house. Then the contract fell through, “because the seller had stranger-danger phobia and wouldn’t let anyone in to make repairs. Our landlord had already found another tenant, so we had to move to another rental in the hottest part of summer, and then the air conditioning went out, and I had a five-day meltdown.”
When your life’s in chaos, you figure out fast what you really need—because if you don’t, your own nervous system will eat you alive.
When your life’s in chaos, you figure out fast what you really need—because if you don’t, your own nervous system will eat you alive. After listening to these women’s stories, Dixie Meyer, associate professor of medical family therapy at Saint Louis University, begins describing “caregiving stress. There’s something special about how women perceive nurturing and their responsibilities to others,” she says, “and it puts us at risk for chronic stress.
“You can have one hard day and bounce back,” Meyer continues, “but there comes that point, when youhave these hard days over and over again, that you actually change your homeostasis. The body adjusts how it’s functioning to keep up with the demand.” To increase our energy, we stress our cardiovascular system and pump out more cortisol. Soon our sleep rhythms are off, we’re processing sugars differently, and we’re triaging resources away from basic systems—like our immune defenses.
Somehow, though, we stumble into brief oases. Below, Meyer sums up the research behind their magic.
Peace: Hilgeman finds that walks in nature keep her sane—that and prayer. “Vitamin D from the sun can lower blood pressure,” Meyer notes, “natural light helps reset our sleep cycle, and time in nature reduces cortisol, a stress hormone.” Prayer and meditation “quiet the mind, improve cardiovascular function, strengthen the immune system, and can actually slow the aging process.”
Parker tends a hummingbird and butterfly garden and grows veggies, loving the tangible payoff. She also goes fishing, because water calms her. “Its rhythms can take us all the way back to the womb,” Meyer notes. And not only does gardening offer tangible results, but “the microbes in the soil have [also] been shown to ease depression and boost serotonin levels and immune response.”
Motion: Neuman gets up at first light to cycle or run. “I’ve always been a little fanatical about exercise, but now that hour is absolutely critical.” Meyer points out that “the heart’s a muscle; it needs to be strengthened. And what’s good for your heart is good for your brain: Exercise increases endorphins and feel-good neurotransmitters, and it predisposes the brain to a good mood.”
Comfort and Coddling: “Vodka,” quips Neuman when I ask how she copes. “A good glass of wine,” says Parker. “I used to call it Mommy juice.” Meyer doesn’t discount the remedy, used in moderation if there’s no contraindication: “Red wine, especially, can have cardiovascular benefits and increase your good cholesterol.” Happy hour, comfort food—even the names are clues. Jones and her husband go out to dinner whenever they can, and she schedules massages and pedicures.
Catharsis: “Everybody’s, like, ‘You have to take care of yourself,’” groans Neuman. “F—k you; I’m doing what I can. I’ve held on to the things that are the most important to me, but there’s just always this underlying stress, and there’s no getting away from that.” She and her dad tried a support group and made a U-turn: “It was like a preview of coming attractions—and we’re not group-talkie types to start.” Where she’s found community is with other adult children at the memory care facility: “They’re my support group.”
Cracking Up: Downsizing her parents’ house, Neuman held up the third copy of a 30-year-old collection of speeches by an Israeli activist. “Well, you never know when we might want to give it as a gift,” her dad said, and they both burst out laughing.
Humor is the antiserum for stress.
That’s one reason nights out with good friends are medicinal. “It increases oxytocin, a bonding and calming hormone, and lowers cortisol,” Meyer says, “and the laughter increases dopamine—it’s a natural high.”
Jones has also been strenuously avoiding tearjerkers and angst-inducing news, and Meyer says that’s smart: When our tolerance is maxed out, “watching something that adds to depression or anxiety just primes us to stay in that state.”
Connection: “Very few things in our life are there to stay,” Meyer observes. “Most of it’s situational, and you just have to get through it.” She waits a beat. “Then something else comes up!”
She urges clients to take lots of deep breaths (it combats the fight-or-flight response). Pet animals (it releases oxytocin and lowers the stress response). Hug people “for a long time, really holding that person.” Go away for a long weekend—“It’s amazing what a change of scenery can do.” Do something creative—“It’s like a change of scenery for your brain. It increases dopamine levels and releases endorphins.” Don’t expect instant relief: “Make a list of 100 things that will make you feel better and roll through them until one works.” Above all, keep strong relationships: “People who are happiest, healthiest, and live the longest tend to be in really good relationships.”
And it’s those relationships that lend purpose to the caregiving.
“Every now and then I come up for air,” Neuman says, “and I’m so glad I’m here for this.”
