Welcome to my lecture on guilt, and shame and shaming. So, if you're taking this class, I want to immediately absolve all of your, your guilt, okay? A lot of caregivers feel very guilty for this battle. The other, you know, if they got mad at their loved one yesterday because their loved one was asking them a million bajillion questions. And they had a moment of like, Ah, you know, or they're thinking about moving somebody into a home, right, which we will get into. And they feel like, I shouldn't be even thinking about that, right?

That makes me a bad person that makes me a bad caregiver. And that's not true. So we're going to talk a lot about in this section, what it means, you know, to consider moving somebody into a different living environment. But I really want to talk right now, about you guilt that comes along with caregiving. And if you're watching this right now, I mean, I already think anybody who takes care of someone full time or even part time or even like calls them on the phone every week is a great caregiver. Right?

But if you're taking the time to take this class, that means so much, right? You're trying to educate yourself, you're trying to get better at what you're already doing. I mean, most of you taking this are probably unpaid caregivers. I mean, I'm sure there's are some professionals in this class who work in geriatrics for a living. But for the most part, most of the people that I educate on a regular basis are family caregivers, they love someone with dementia. That's a really hard job.

So give yourself a break is is what I'm saying. Like cut yourself some slack. You're going to mess up at times you're going to say the wrong thing. I have right I This is what I do for a living is I talk to people living with dementia and I educate people who are taking care of them. But I have definitely said the wrong thing at times, right? I've definitely like not always done the right thing when working with people living with dementia, it's not possible.

It's human nature. You're working with humans, you can't do everything right. So, all I'm saying is cut yourself some slack. I once met a woman who she came up to me and she, you know, was like, I need to tell you something, you know, I need to I need to like tell you something. I need to ask you something. I said, Okay.

And she told me this story that happened five years ago, of how she believed that she caused her mother's death. And her what had happened was, she was she was taking your mom who had dementia out to you know, go to the doctor's appointment or something like that. And she was like, Oh, Mom, I forgot something. I need to run back into the house. Just sit right there. Okay, just sit right there.

I'll be back in two minutes. She was back in two minutes. And in that time, her mother who had dementia had gotten out of the car and had fallen and gone head injury. And, you know, I think she was around for a couple more months. But essentially, this head injury led to her steep decline. And this woman had lived with this guilt of like, she thought killing her mother for five years.

And I said, Listen, and it's not your fault. I mean, you told her to sit in the car, but here's the thing like people with dementia, don't listen, I said, if it wasn't that it would have been something else. You can't be on top of that person. 24 seven, right. I mean, like, you just can't it's not humanly possible. You didn't cause your mother to die, you know, it caused your mom to die.

It's dementia that caused your mother sad. It wasn't you. Right. There's nothing you can do to like, you can't protect someone all the time. Right? I mean, it's not possible.

You know, if you have kids, you send them right you send them out into the world. hope everything's gonna be okay. You can't like, protect somebody all the time is horrible. Scary is scary. That is right. I also want to talk about shame and shaming.

I think especially in this section where we're we're going to be talking about living situations and living environments. There's kind of this stereotype or this idea that like, you have to take care of this person at home and like not a good person if you don't take care of your loved 124 seven at your house. And that's crazy because it's possible for a lot of people. You know, a lot of people live out of state they live far away from their loved one. Or it's not. It's just not the house isn't equipped for them.

I mean, maybe socially, like, I'm a huge extrovert. I do not want to be if I have dementia, I do not want to be taken care of at somebody's house. I'm gonna be bored out of my mind. I would love to be in assisted living and be around a whole bunch of new friends. Right? That's me.

So that's not always feasible to take care of somebody at home all the time. And yet, even when families make the right decision for whatever that means, whatever that means their loved ones still somebody like shows up out of nowhere with a lot of information like, Oh, you shouldn't have done that. Or, you know, the family out of town is often a problem. So I've talked to a lot of caregivers who will say, Oh, well, you know, my cousin came in from Georgia, right and said, Oh, well, you know, your mom seems fine. Your mom seems fine. So I don't know why you moved her, you know, into a long term care community because she seems totally fine.

Or like, Oh, well, your mom seems fine. I mean, I don't know why you're hiring a homecare agency to help with her. I mean, like, I could take her right like I could handler. And what I want to say to those out of town people is Get lost. You are not taking care of this person. Like I am right.

So That person doesn't know what you're going through. They don't know what's happening. And they don't understand that taking care of someone with dementia is a way bigger job than like raising a kid. Right? Like, Oh, well, your mom raised you why shouldn't you take care of her? It is not the same thing.

Raising a healthy child is different, right? children get older, they get better at stuff, they learn skills, they learn tasks. And you suck quite literally, like you mean you signed up for that, right? Probably to have a kid. It wasn't your plan to take care of an aging parent or spouse or whoever. And it just happened and you took on the role because you love that person and you felt like you needed to write and let people living with dementia get worse over time.

They don't get better at stuff. They don't learn things the way the children do. Right? So it's not like someone's improving and like being able to eventually live independently, they're going to get more and more dependent on you. So caregiving for someone living with dementia is very different from even caring for anybody who isn't in the top of health right in the top of their health. But don't let someone shame you for making a decision that is healthy and safe for you, and for the person that you are caring for.

Don't let anybody show up, you know, and tell you that you've made the wrong decision. Because if you're taking this class, I can pretty much assume that you are not making the wrong decision because clearly you're putting a lot of thought into everything that you do. So absolve some of your guilt, right or all of it. Please do Like, get rid of it. I'm telling you to, right I'm telling you to do this. And then don't let anybody get up in your face with their bs about, you know, shaming you because it's not right