“Mean” boundaries— creating boundaries in caregiving

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Providing care for a loved one who is chronically ill is a process of deconstruction. My life and what it meant before, and my life and what it means now. My relationship and what it meant before, and what it is and what it means now. My expressions of love and responsibility before, and my expressions of love and responsibility now. It is a slow demolition, and it doesn’t ever feel complete or over because the person in need is still there — no matter the altered form. This fact, the fact that chronic illness is a constant war, means that there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. When my mom died of Pancreatic Cancer, my sister and I provided all her care in her remaining 6 months of life. It was awful. And beautiful. And exhausting. But at the end of six months, it was over. As terrible as the suffering was for my mom, or the burden and grief were for me and my sister, there was a day it would end and we all knew it. The devastating thing about caring for a chronically ill person is that there is always a tension between wanting it to be over and needing the loved one to stay alive, to be ok. That tension breeds all kinds of pain, guilt, and overcompensation.

I want to start by saying that I realize we are all in different places with caregiving. Some of our loved ones still have some independence, some are completely reliant. Some of us have the…