Desperate for a vacation in Hawaii? Better, yet, how about a one way ticket?! (I’ll meet you there). 🙂 Loving and caring for others can take its toll on us, especially at certain times of the year when everything else seems so overwhelming! So how do we love our vets, and those around us, while at the same time not totally collapse and melt down ourselves?
We who live with PTSD, disabilities or special needs in our homes often subconsciously take on the role of caregiver, which in itself is not bad. The danger in a caregiver role is when we assume WE are responsible for everyone and everything. Those of us with big hearts too often give and give, forgetting the most important thing until it is too late: our needs! We somehow take on the notion that we should be at the bottom of the list, or else we are being selfish. I suspect that there are many of us who not only feel obligated to take on the whole world, but feel compelled to do it perfectly. Nice recipe for burnout.
I am learning that the beauty of it all is
when we take care of our own needs,
not only do we benefit, but so do all those around us.
Yesterday was one of those days for me. I was frantically preparing for a big dinner party, revving up for a grocery store conquest, attempting to answer e-mails, helping my husband find something on the internet, doing laundry, returning phone calls, trying to get caught up on Facebook (silly me), and finally getting around to yesterday’s mail – and opened a letter informing me that I was being audited. That did it! Instantly, Super Woman morphed into Meltdown Mama. It was not pretty.
Thankfully I am still here today and everyone around me is still alive. However, I realized I need to slow down, breathe, and take inventory of my needs. Doing everything perfectly has suddenly been replaced with simply surviving.
As I share in Love Our Vets: Restoring Hope for Families of Veterans with PTSD, I am learning to be aware of my warning signals sooner. When I am tuned in to my basic needs (see checklist in Love Our Vets), and take care of me in healthy ways, not only do I survive, but I am also more realistic about my limitations. And then I am better able to help those I love, and actually stay sane in the process. 🙂
Let’s encourage each other to be proactive, and not wait until we ourselves are worse off than those we want to support. Our vets deserve the very best, and so do we!
