Caregiving: When Expectations Turn to Frustrations

After my mom had a stroke, I spent months in crisis mode, doing everything humanly (and sometimes inhumanly) possible to help her recover.  Now, more than a year later, with the dust settled, she is gaining independence and I am gaining some of my life back.  As I was finding a new life outside of only caregiving- work, friends, a relationship; unbenost to me, I began to hope… My mom had made some recovery- both physically and mentally.  From where she had begun, she had gained quiet a bit of independence.  I never was naive enough to think that things would go back to the way they were before the stroke, but I unconsciously had hope that with the recovery she had made, maybe just maybe I would have my mom back.  And somewhere along they way, that hope had turned into expectation.  My expectation that at any moment now, she would just snap out of it, and become my feisty mother that would call the shots and tell me what to do.

And during the holidays, my expectations became the catalyst for frustration.  I had all of our usual holiday traditions planned out.  I was determined to recreate our Christmas to be as close to normal as possible.  I planned for us to go to the local Christmas tree farm, holiday shopping, decorating, and all of our other traditions.  All of these traditions were ones that we had done since I can remember.  And always my mother would call the shots on what we were going to, when were going to do them, and how…me diligently following her suit.  So, ok, this year I had to do the initial planning, but I thought surely once we got started, our roles would be as they always had been.  They didn’t.  It began when she struggled at the Christmas tree farm, unable to have an opinion on the tree and didn’t seem to know how to work her tree stand once we got home- something she had done countless times and in the past had always barked at me that I wasn’t doing it right.  Shopping became a complete disaster.  We had a list of gifts to get for her friends and family, and I was hoping for her to pick something out for me… because this was her only chance to get gifts.  Three frustrating hours and countless meltdowns later…we had nothing.  I then asked her to pick out something for me.  This was her only chance for shopping before Christmas.  I had picked out my own birthday gift that year and I desperately wanted to not have to pick out my own gift for Xmas.  My mom had always been amazing at picking out gifts for my before the stroke.  She couldn’t do it.  I had a meltdown.  And she cried.  We had worked hard for over a year for her recovery.  And she wanted to be the mother that I needed her to be.  She simply couldn’t.

As I thought about what had happened during the holidays over the next couple of weeks, it finally dawned on me- the only way a good relationship between my mom and I would work- would be if redefined my expectations of her.  She sensed my expectations and it did nothing but frustrate her and stress her out.  It now made sense to me why she seemed to be more relaxed and have more fun with her sister or even the hired caregiver than she did with me.  I will always want my mom back; that is a feeling that will never change.  But I need to accept that she can’t be exactly what I want her to be.  Perhaps in letting some of my expectations of her go, we will both be more relaxed and just be able to enjoy each others company for what it is.  It may not be how it was before illness struck, as a defined mother and daughter relationship, but now just as two people who love each other.