The Sandwich Generation: Grief, Boundaries, and the Needs We Were Never Allowed

Renae: What’s the biggest thing coming up in your experience of black right now?

Laura: Ah, I think just navigating everyone’s parents aging. Yeah, it’s like, not, I think, is a little bit of what we were talking about before, where you’re in this stage of life, where you have these adult children, and they don’t quite know what they’re doing, but you really need to leave them alone, which is difficult. So there’s some pain there, because you’re watching them bumble around and do dumb shit that you would advise against, but they have to learn for themselves. And then you have your parents. Who are? You know, both of our dads have dementia, so that’s its own thing, and that’s really painful. And then my mom is caring for my dad. She just got her knee replaced last week, and so I was able to go down there and stay for a few days just to help her. Because, you know, a, she just needs help, because she just had major surgery. And B, my dad needs taken care of. He can’t do pretty much anything for himself. So my my older my other sister, my younger sister, stayed for a couple days, but she lives there so she can drop in and out. And then I stayed there for two days, and then my older sister came and stayed for two days, and then my little sister came back, just like for another overnight. And now my mom seems to be doing fine, but she’s just really sad all the time because my dad’s No, not my dad. He’s still he hasn’t been he’s not one of those people that became mean or anything, and like Dan’s dad isn’t either. So that’s really fortunate, because I hear about that a lot, but it’s just they’re not the same people, and they don’t know you know that you have to change clothes every day. And so my mom’s just really sad all the time, which I don’t blame her, but then it’s it is very draining for me to talk to her a lot, because, you know, she’s so sad, and then now she’s frustrated and angry that she’s not recovering fast enough to just be right back at 100% level, which, of course, is completely unreasonable that she would. And, you know, went to the doctor and went to the physical therapist this week, who both said, wow, you’re way ahead of where you should be. You’re doing great. Don’t overdo it. And she’s still mad that this recovery is taking a lot of time, she feels tired, and the pain medication is making her kind of sick, which I’m sure that is true, but, you know, like, I just, she’s just so frustrated with the whole thing. I So

Renae: did they have any I’m gonna ask this question. It might be naive to say, but is there any therapy woven in for treatment plans for people going through recovery, because it seems

Laura: like mental health support. Yes, no, no. And my mom’s very resistant to mental health support. She’s, she’s of the generation or the belief where you know, like that means you’ve had a psychotic break. You know, see a mental health professional, and she’s there have been a few times when if she is considered like maybe going to a support group or something for people who spouses have dementia, and then immediately dismisses it as something that would never help and have them change anything, you know, yeah, like, nothing’s gonna cure my dad from having dementia, so why even try it? So she kind of has so interesting, this nihilistic attitude about the state of her own mental health, and my sister and I have tried to tell her several times in various ways, ranging from gently to my sister being pretty overt of like, you know, like it it’s less about it’s more about you being able to just feel a little bit better, and maybe you can, you know, we ease your mind to know that you aren’t the only one. And it just it seems to not, doesn’t ever process. So she’s not open to trying it. And then even she has like a caregiver that comes. Like to sit with my dad when she, like, she let she’s on a bowling league and then, and this person was there when she went to her physical therapy this week, and when she my sister took her back to the doctor for her follow up. And she’s almost just kind of, like, even dismisses of that person, like, why don’t need somebody here? What? And I’m like, Mom, oh yeah, yeah, you don’t. She’s like, Dad doesn’t do anything. So why does someone need to be there? And I’m like, Well, you know, you have her there, so in case something happens, like he falls down or something, he’s really a huge fall risk. And I think it’s also like that two Ness. She’s a two of not need, not wanting any help, not needing help, not, you know, being the person that can do every single thing for everybody but themselves. So I think that’s just all that, you know. And now Dan’s dad is in, he’s in a facility which actually has worked out right, and I think it that has been easing our mind. So he’s been in there since, I guess, you know, early June, and now we’re at a point where we’re cleaning out his house. We’re going to sell his house. So we went through like we thought about, okay, let’s make it an Airbnb, and then we’re going to do a long term rental. And then finally, Dan was like, I just, it just feels like a lot, and I just rather get rid of it. And so now that’s what we’re doing. None of that is a big deal, but it’s just like, everything is just like, there’s a lot of it. One book isn’t that happy, but 20 books all right

Renae: ahead, yeah, so Well, there’s a couple of things on that. One is, it’s so interesting, and it makes total sense that we, culturally in America, we are not good at grief and loss, and so the anger that your mother is experiencing is because her concept of recovery even very telling in the it’s not going to cure my husband of his dementia. If I go to support group, though, well that’s not the goal. You’re never going to get back to what was before, and that means that you’re angry because you’re grieving with that. It’s all misplaced. It has nowhere to go, and so it’s coming out as anger. And so if that’s what the quality of life that you want, I guess that’s okay, yeah. Yeah, and wouldn’t, wouldn’t you rather have a better, like experience of life where you can experience more peace and be more joy? Maybe not.

Laura: That’s the message that my sister has basically been giving. Like, you know, it you might feel better. No, I won’t. I never will. I mean, that’s, that’s the basic answer, you know,

Renae: then you’re right. You never will. You’re absolutely right. 100% You’re right. You so all work, poor lady.

Laura: And that is why it’s draining. I think that’s one of the reasons that’s draining for me, is that’s just like it’s, it’s a stuck energy that’s never

Renae: moving. So here’s the two questions I have for you about that. The first one is,

Renae: are you and Dan together, together or separately, going through your own grief processing, because this would be the good time for

Laura: that. Yeah, I feel like I have gone through a process like that with my dad, because he has been this. This is not new. You know, I was really angry and upset and even embarrassed, I would say, when it first started happening. Because if you know how it is, it’s not like he’s totally fine one day and then totally off the reservation on the next, like it’s this slow decline. So somewhere in here, you’re just like, my dad is not acting right, and I don’t want other people to know that, you know. And so that was, I think that was a phase I was, I mean, I know it was a phase that was very painful and very just uncomfortable. And I it was at that point when I really had to, um, figure out how to move through that, because, you know, I knew nothing was going to change. Yeah, so that was a while ago, and. And you know, just and I do feel a little bit more at peace with it, and I also feel like I don’t feel bad for myself or for him anymore, as far as he’s concerned. And honestly, his quality of life is great, according to him. He feels great. He loves my mom. He has my mom there, taking care of him all the time. You know what I mean? He’s as sweet as he can be. I just hope that for my mom, that’s the person that I think is really suffering in this, in all of this.

Renae: Which brings me into my second question, where do you draw your boundary line for that? Where you make it okay for her to choose what she’s choosing, and it doesn’t pull you into staying feeling bad for her?

Laura: Yeah, that’s a good question. I Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll start by telling you what I my current approach is always remembering to myself that, like when I I don’t know, sometimes kind of like painful for me to call her or to visit or, you know, and I always try to remember to myself like this, I’m not doing it for me, you know, like I’m doing it in support of of her, and this is the best way that I can support her right now, is just sitting with her energy, even though it’s really hard for me to do that.

Renae: What I’ve heard you say is that there is this, what almost magical thinking, but it’s really this, this desire to control the control the narrative into a point of the in a situation and put things into place, and so that’s coming into conflict with the reality of everyone else’s desires, sometimes,

Laura: um, and everyone else’s diagnosis.

Renae: Well, that too, right? So, so So what do you how? What are the things that you are doing to not be resentful? Because I do have to say, when you said the I have to remind myself, this is for her, not for me. I can feel that I would get resent there’s a good chance I would get resentful after a while.

Laura: Yeah, I think it’s less about feeling resentful and more about there’s a danger that I will shut down and close off that I don’t want to do to her. Does that make sense? Because it would be a lot easier for me to not deal with it, and that is a preferred way for my lizard brain to be like, Okay, we’re compartmentalizing that over here, and never thinking or talking about it. Well, you know, like, that’s my seven work is to be like, that’s not a real solution,

Renae: right? I can’t escape it. I can’t flee from it. And so as you’re as you’re sitting in that reality and accepting her for who she is, where she is, like the concept, to me of boundaries comes up in this of what, you know, I I’ve been thinking a lot about boundaries this one, I’m sure we will talk a lot about boundaries in our time together, because it’s just such A rich topic. And I was even thinking about yesterday, um, that will phrase people say, Well, they didn’t respect my boundaries. And I realized a new response has come up in my brain, which is, will sound unkind at first, I think in that is, No, you didn’t respect your boundaries.

Laura: Yeah? I mean, I have a similar phrase, which is, I’m not responsible for other people’s feelings,

Renae: which I think you and I have talked about before, yes, and my you

Laura: and I are good at boundaries.

Renae: Yes, if I think my take on that, you have not responsible for people’s feelings yes and no because of biological things. But you know, like we can has a cause of biological response on people, and I am responsible for what I bring into space that might cause biological i. A reaction. And so I’m not responsible for what people do with their feelings. I’m not responsible for the choices they make, but if I might be responsible for dysregulating them. And so I think that that’s the part where it’s like I always dance that line of I can, you know, I know that I can cause a biological response in somebody, that they will feel something, and I have more responsibility not to incite terror. Yeah,

Laura: I guess I use it more in a case where you have a person that’s like a two that is take to heart every single thing that everyone else ever thinks and feels because they feel some sort of responsibility like, you know, they took the wrong turn on the freeway and now someone’s crying, you know, and that’s somehow their fault. So when I say that, I’m talking to a person that I think is over thinking, what other people have going on in their heads?

Renae: Okay, so what I what I hear you saying, is that it’s about, I’m not like, I shouldn’t hold what I don’t own.

Laura: Yes, I think that’s a that’s probably a better way, a more accurate way of saying it

Renae: right, like I can’t. It’s not something, it’s not something I can change that I can’t, I can’t, I don’t own it, right? And so we can walk when we’re walking with somebody, like when you’re when you’re there to to witness your mother’s own journey through being a spouse and a partner and a caregiver of someone who’s experiencing dementia. You as you’re walking with it, you’re leaving space for her experience. And maybe not even, you know, maybe saying, I might make different choices about how I process and deal with this. But you’re not trying to hold it like you own it. You’re you’re holding space for her to own it, right? I would say that feels respectful, right?

Laura: Yeah, and also asking, and I’m glad you’re bringing this up, because I I’m good at doing this when with my husband’s grief, or when he’s acting in a way that I know is out of grief, but maybe isn’t the way that I would prefer he be interacting with the world is it’s I can say to myself, Okay, well, what, who do I need to be to help him regulate? Or do you know what I was saying? Like, what, what can my role in this be? And I think that if I could, would start more actively asking myself that for my mom, that would probably

Renae: be helpful for me. Now, the the key that I go to, for mine is, what is the need here? Well, what is the need that’s being expressed? And even when you had said that your mom, you know, being angry about recovery taking so long back at the beginning of our conversation, it came up with me, okay, I got curious. I was like, oh, what’s her need? So then I extrapolated out and said, Well, you know, her need is to feel. And I I just have to think about people as babies, and go back to babies don’t have words. Babies have behaviors. And so someone’s showing me a behavior that means they don’t have their words to get their need met. And I gotta look at them and say, what does the baby need? You know? And, and I think that that’s actually does a pretty good full circle for what we’re talking what we started talking about today is that part of being in the sandwich generation is that we are looking both ends of our timeline, forward and back, meeting needs. And we were a generation of people, I’m actually getting tearful saying this, a generation of people who, in general, were not allowed to have needs. And so there is when there is this other piece of it that’s the wait a minute and like maybe part of why the midlife, the midlife crisis, of who am I? Anyway, especially for women who often are relegated to a caregiver role across all. All our spaces and places, is The when is it my time to actually, like, have my life? Because I never, I’m meeting the needs for all these people, and I don’t get to have my needs. I mean, you know, I’m, it’s, it’s selfish, it’s whatever. It’s, uh, I’m not doing whatever enough, because there’s this expectation, this obligation. So I know we can pick that up at another at another time, but I think that that’s the it is the the that space right of, how are we, how are we being thoughtful about making sure that we are meeting our needs, not so that we can meet other people’s needs, but just because it’s okay for us to have those needs and for those needs to be met, and when that happens, we are so much better at being able to be present with other folks in the midst of their distress, right? So I guess at the end of all of it, what we’re saying is, is that we’re worth the time. We’re worth the time to listen to a podcast, we’re at the time to read the article. We’re worth the time to do the self care practice. We’re worth the time to doom scroll for a limited amount of time. Please set a timer on your phone. You know what I’m talking about. You know who you are. So like but we’re worth it, and so we keep showing up and saying it, and maybe eventually we’ll totally embody it, but thank you for the rich conversation. Even though we had some tech issues today, it was good. It’s as always, it’s good stuff. So thank you, Laura.

Laura: Always enjoy it. Yeah.