Becoming Aware & Adjusting

Tries to maintain balance at home, takes on increasing household responsibilities.

Early Feelings As You Deal with Trauma

• Feeling the need and constant guilt that “I need to be present at all times to care for my” soldier/Veteran/family member.” Feeling overwhelmed by managing the complex medical situation of the ill person and needing to be present 24/7, so as to “be the voice,” speak-up for the person who is unable, and left to experience enormous guilt if you do leave and something goes wrong.
• Caregivers often know they NEED to take care of themselves, but do not feel like there is any time available to do so. Eventually, the weeks roll into months and even years that caregivers will put off their own health care or general everyday healthy ways to care for themselves (healthy eating, sleep quality, exercise, etc.). Or, when you do take the time, caregivers feel an overwhelming sense of guilt if something gets forgotten during their absence or something negative happens when they are away. When this happens caregivers are less likely to take time in the future.
• Being a caregiver to another person is hard. It is easy to forget about ourselves or other responsibilities. Often caregivers do not allow themselves to think of the negative emotions, or to admit the “being a caregiver is hard.” Caregivers often feel the need to be positive and are not allowed to entertain the difficult emotions that are normal for caregivers to experience, i.e.: fear, anxiety, worry, overwhelmed, anger, loneliness, and dislike for the situation to name a few. It may help to find a caregiver support group to normalize one’s experience and understand that both positive and negative emotions exist when providing care for another person. It is healthy to talk about all emotions, even with the ill person (when appropriate), as they are likely experiencing similar emotions.
• Pride – can often get in the way of asking for help when you really need it. Sometimes very minimal things are needed: respite for the day to go to a much needed medical appointment to something much larger, i.e. financial concerns becoming unmanageable. Often, the challenges associated with being a caregiver are easier to deal with when addressed sooner vs. later. Waiting to address problems until they are so large and overwhelming is much more difficult to resolve and/or find resources for. As difficult as it may seem your situation is not unique and there are often agencies available to help before things get out of control.

Most of all caregivers need to know there is help.

Caregivers are not alone and there are many support services available to help navigate this journey. Caregiving is a complicated experience, leaving loved ones with a highly demanding job as caregiver, dealing with emotions associated with the changes in their loved ones person and juggling the normal, everyday demands of life.

Information contributed by:

The Fisher House program provides “a home away from home” for families of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers. Learn more: www.fisherhouse.org.

Veteran’s relationship with family and friends begins to change, and the caregiver begins researching symptoms.

Video

Faun is a caregiver to her husband, Danny. Danny, a wounded combat veteran, provides care and support to other veterans. Faun discusses how she adjusted to her role as caregiver.

A recent RAND study found that since 9/11, 2.77 million service members have served on 5.4 million deployments. It is now common to see veterans who served in multiple combat tours; in the case of continuous deployments there may be little rest in between those potentially traumatic experiences (PTE). Increased deployments also impact military family life. Family members are called upon to meet the unanticipated or unplanned needs of their veterans.

About Potentially traumatic experiences (PTE)

As time spent deployed increases, subsequent exposure time to PTE increase. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) prevalence among Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veterans is estimated at 23%. This rate is higher than experienced in past conflicts. For example, PTSD rates of returning veterans from the Vietnam War ranged between 2-17%. A wide variety of symptoms may be signs that you are experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder such as feeling upset by things that remind you of what happened, having nightmares, or flashbacks, feeling emotionally cut off from others, feeling constantly on guard, and irritability (Fulton et al., 2015). This increased level of trauma may have a collective effect on the family.

Another source of potential psychological distress may occur when transitioning from being a service member to a civilian (i.e., transitional stress). This is not as simple as transitioning careers; it involves transitioning cultures, worldviews, and master identity roles. Warriors transition in a relatively quick manner from a collective culture (i.e., military) to an individualistic culture (i.e., mainstream culture in the United States), allowing for minimal, if any, form of guided adjustment.

Video

Danny discusses how his relationship with family and friends began to change.

Adjusting to civilian life

In the military, individuals become part of an identity or value system that is greater than the individuals who make up the whole. This notion is lofty and encompassing enough that individuals consider it is worth sacrificing a life for. The worldview that is created from the notion that you are willing to die for your fellow service member at a moment’s notice and they are willing to do the same provides a salient and deeply anchored self-identity that is unique to the military culture.

Moving from a culture that provides you meaning for nearly all that you do (i.e., in the form of rules and regulations) to one that lacks that type of instructional identity formation can be a stressful journey and is a journey that the caregiver or family member will also experience. Moreover, moving from a worldview of being part of a greater good to one that endorses self-interest, self-reliance, self-governance (i.e., individualistic culture) can augment psychological distress that may be present due to invisible or visible wounds of war.

This anomic sense of self and identity may further isolate the warrior and make him/her feel alone and worthless as they struggle to find meaning in their life. This may then lead to isolation and entrenchment in that isolation from family and friends, who are left feeling frustrated and powerless.

Information contributed by:

Since 2003, Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) has been transforming the way America’s injured veterans, caregivers, and family members are empowered, employed, and engaged in our communities through over a dozen free services in mental health, career counseling, and long-term rehabilitative care. For more information visit: www.woundedwarriorproject.org.

Video

Meg Kabat, National Director of the VA Caregiver Support Program, discusses how to manage the stress of being a caregiver.