My friend is living with her parents. Her mom has what I would consider advanced dementia, needing help with personal care, with all that that means. The dad suffered an injury a few years back and can't help with her care. I know this is hard, frustrating and lonely for my friend and it has seriously impacted her life. Like most of you, this is not what she planned to be doing with her life. I want to be supportive and encouraging to her, but I don't know how. I cannot physically assist with her mom's care and I don't know how else to help.
In another thread there was much discussion about how a person not in this position can't possibly understand or care, and I feel like that outsider here. Please help me to help my friend. Tell me how you would like to be understood or cared for.
Oh, and point your friend to this website, for me it has been a life saver.
You guys are awesome, thank you SO MUCH for your suggestions, we will definitely do this again, and I will try to be more sensitive to her needs.
Now if I may offer a suggestion back at you, with the understanding that it may or may not apply? Don't assume that your friends, church family, or whomever, don't care. Maybe they really just don't know. They don't know what you're going through; they don't know what it's like; and unless you tell them, they don't know what you need! There is only one way they can know, short of going through it themselves, and that is for you to let them know. People don't read minds.
Do you need someone to come sit with Mom for an hour while she naps so you can get out of the house for a bit? That's probably doable, but the idea of having to change her Depends while you're gone for several hours is just too daunting.
Do you need a sympathetic shoulder to cry on after putting Dad to bed? That's doable, too. Call your friend and tell them you just need to talk. How about a prayer partner, someone you can text in a crisis when you're losing your cool that you know will drop everything and just lift you up in prayer right at that moment?
Do you, like my friend, just need to know somebody cares? Don't wait to be asked; if you know you are going to have some free time, reach out and do the inviting yourself! Ask a friend out to lunch or for coffee and a donut or whatever. You get the idea. Be proactive. Assume your friend is a dummy like me, lol - wanting to help but not knowing how! 😉
Y'all have given me some great ideas. I'm going to make a pot of soup for them so she won't have to cook this weekend.
Blessings!
If she can get away for a couple of hours, take her to lunch, to a movie. Or for a picnic in the park.