Being a caregiver is stressful, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, you’re entitled to a separate support network for that experience
Being a caregiver is stressful, writes advice columnist‘Caregivers can wind up feeling like a plus-one to the hardest things they’ve experienced.’ Painting: Florence Nightingale as the lady with the lamp, attributed to J Butterworth.‘Caregivers can wind up feeling like a plus-one to the hardest things they’ve experienced.’ Painting: Florence Nightingale as the lady with the lamp, attributed to J Butterworth.My partner is going to start chemotherapy in a couple of days. It will last six months.
I don’t know what to do. Should I tell him the way I feel? I don’t want to hurt him. I went through cancer before I met him. I survived, but my then-relationship did not.Grief counsellors sometimes talk about the concentric circles around tragedy. There’s the person in the centre, to whom the thing actually happens, then one circle out there are the loved ones and close relatives who will wear the marks of the tragedy for a long time.
It would be easy to think of yourself as in the second circle immediately around your partner. But I want to encourage you to think that you deserve your own circle. There are two distinct stressful experiences coming your way here – one as the partner of someone suffering, and the other as a caregiver. In the first, you’ll be with your partner’s friends and family, all oriented around the shock of his diagnosis and treatment.