Resources -Smith

 

When Mrs. Smith started to be mentally affected by the caring, she decided to go to a caregivers support. It turned out to be a very good resource.

Written testimony

Mrs. Smith: I didn’t know where to turn and I felt like it was only me. I kind of thought I needed help, and sometimes men and women are not on the same plane. The men usually kind of take it lighter than women do. Women take it more seriously or more emotionally.

Mr. Smith: And when it’s your own mom, that also makes a difference.

Mrs. Smith: More emotionally, so therefore I was finding it really hard. Then I was kind of saying, “I’m going to the Caregivers’ Society.” So we meet once a month, last Monday of the month, and that was one good resource for us.

Mr. Smith: It was extremely helpful.

Mrs. Smith: And extremely helpful both emotionally and resource wise, because everybody was sharing their experiences. And from there we knew how to reach out because you are telling your story in a group and other people will say, “Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?”

Mr. Smith: “I tried this, I know this person,” and so on. You are pooling information that was really helpful.

Mrs. Smith: We still belong to that group and once a month we still go.

Mr. Smith: Yeah, now we’ve become a source of information after all our experiences. If you only hear stories over there, it’s beyond belief what you hear. People are just sitting there just crying their heart out because they are just desperate, right? So it’s unbelievable.

Mrs. Smith: But then you feel like, okay, you’re not that worse off [compared to] the next person, because some of the stories you hear from other people, to what extent they have to caregive, and what it takes out of them…

Mr. Smith: Yeah, it’s incredible. And then the situation is resolved and you see that the people are totally changed, like you barely recognize them. And you can really see the stress on people’s faces, and I think this is really a big issue I think. With us becoming old fogies, I think, it’s going to be a much larger issue. I’m sure it’s not being sufficiently realized how big an issue this is going to be. I think with the younger people having two jobs and stuff like that, I don’t think they will be capable of looking after us.

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