Today I leave to go home..............never thought that would be such a bittersweet sentence.
I am excited to go home and see Damon and the kids and my dogs.....sleep in my tempurpedic bed again.......excited to be back on track with my shakes and not eating gourmet food every meal......
It is bittersweet because today I have to say goodbye to 19 women that have become fast friends over the last 2 days. 2 days ago I didn't now any of them and today as I leave, I'm leaving with 19 new threads to keep me strong. This weekend has given me so much. It has shown me that I'm not alone and that there are others that struggle with being a caregiver to a wounded warrior. Even though our stories vary so differently and we all walk different paths through life, we still come to the same conclusion. We need each others support and love as caregivers. This weekend has been full of laughter, fear, anxiety, trepidation, tears, opening up, sharing and learning how to relax and learning how to cope with some of the things that we deal with on a daily basis. I never knew that we has caregivers develop secondary PTSD and that we also develop compassion fatigue.
What is compassion fatigue? Compassion is fatigue is simple the ability to lose compassion when caring for others. It's also known as caregivers burnout. Apparently it's very common among the healthcare field and for anyone who has ever taken care of someone else, be it an elderly parent or someone with a disability. What I realized yesterday are things that I thought about myself and chalked up to just getting older and not having patience with people like I used to.........nope....all signs of compassion fatigue........it's normal..............you start to lose your ability to have compassion for those that you care for because you are so burnt out on giving so much of yourself and not taking the time to focus on yourself. That is why they stress so much to put yourself first and care for yourself. But anyone who is a caregiver knows that we are not meant that way. We give give give until we have nothing left to give. We let ourselves go, we develop depression, we develop anxiety and we start using (in my case) our spouse's illness as a reason why we don't or can't.........so in turn, that is our secondary PTSD kicking in. We develop negative coping skills that try to keep us from hurting and usually only end up hurting us worse. So this weekend, I have learned some coping mechanisms that I never thought about that I will try to put to use in my life. I have learned that I need to let him do more and not be so afraid and worry so much about his pain. I tend to worry so much about his pain that I stop enjoying whatever I'm doing because I'm so focused on him. I have learned so much this weekend that i can't possibly blog about it all, but maybe in the next few blogs....I will be able to share this information as it comes to me. It's just been so much to absorb!
Ok, so back to what we did yesterday........I woke up early because the time change......UGH!!!
Met everyone downstairs and went to breakfast at the Cascades and consumed another wonderful breakfast, only this time I requested egg whites. :) That made me feel a little better. LOL. After breakfast, it was back upstairs for group again and we learned about dealing with pain and how we can cope with it. Not just physical pain, but emotional and mental pain. We talked about how to move forward and not get stuck in cycles, we talked about what is our language of love and that is something that I'm going to be researching more because I think I fall into several categories of that....More tears were shed as each of us women had more realizations and let down more walls and opened up to others. It felt good to share things that we have never shared to women that we knew wouldn't judge, they would just "get it".......so after group, we went back down to Cathy's suite and had another fabulous lunch......tomato soup of some sort in a bread bowl, with some pasta, salads, sandwiches, etc......(did I mention that I did have both shakes today LOL).....after lunch we had some free time, so my new friend and I went exploring and I did some souvenir shopping......Back up to Sue's suite at 2:00 for compassion fatigue session and to learn some relaxation techniques. This is when I learned that my lack of patience and my intolerance over the last few years has not bee due to my getting older, but simply one of the many symptoms of compassion fatigue......my weight loss and depression that I experienced was yet another symptom. So after the compassion fatigue, a large group of us went downstairs to explore some more and we walked around, snapped pictures, shopped and had a blast. We laughed, we shared more stories, and I kept hearing the same thing. "I'm going to miss you all", and "I can't believe I'm so sad to leave" and "I don't want to go home yet".....it's like we were all brought here as strangers and we are all leaving wanting to hang onto that thread that there is someone out there that we can talk to that understands......So back up to the room to freshen up and we all met down in the lobby at 5:45 in our pink wounded warrior shirts and our robes for our pizza/PJ party in the presidential suite.....we had a great presentation about all the resources available to us and I think we all learned some valuable information about some much needed information. The night closed with the staff (Cathy, Sue, Dana, Katie, Nina) all sharing with us their experience of this weekend and telling us how beautiful, amazing and strong we are. They all told us that they were humbled just being in our presence and that we are all such strong resilient women and as a group, our strength is beyond amazing. We were all moved to tears...........we ended it on a happy note. Nina showed us all how to make survivor bands and they symbolize how strong we all are and that even though we are strong, we know that we have all these threads on the inside that are supporting us, meaning that we have all these new sisters that are behind us and supporting us as caregivers........
So we split up for the night and some of us decided we just weren't ready to say goodbye so we took more pictures and hung out until about 2 a.m. and had coffee. I have formed some lifelong friendships from this weekend and I am so blessed and grateful to have been able to come on this trip. These women have all impacted my life in ways I probably can't even see yet. I'm really going to try to take home everything that heard and learned and apply them so that we can grow as a family and learn to live within our new normal.
And yes, I will be glad to be going back to NORMAL EATING!!!! :)
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