A Carer's Guide to: The 'guilt monster'

Help and support A Carer’s Guide to: the ‘guilt monster’ Guilt. It’s a word that rears its head all the time on the Carers UK Forum, where it’s often referred to as the Guilt Monster. Here, a member explains how being part of that community can really help to tame the beast. The signs are easy enough to spot. Sometimes people come right out and say it: ‘I feel so guilty’. Other times, it’s more hidden, but it’s there, between the lines: ‘I can’t stop thinking about it’, ‘Did I do the right thing?’, ‘I should have done more’. As carers, we face heart-wrenching decisions on a regular basis. We have to live with the knowledge that we can’t always make things better, that we can’t go back to how things were. We own our feelings and carry them around with us every day. By turning these feelings into the ‘guilt monster’, we’re taking a small action to turn the guilt into something external to us. Something we can interact with – something we can redefine, kick away, break down. My top tips for tackling the guilt monster... Sit with it At times there are only tough choices and whatever we do, we feel guilty. If we take a break, we feel bad for leaving the person we’re caring for. If we stay, we won’t be able to do our best because we’re exhausted. It can help just to accept that guilt is normal and that we only feel it because we care. Kick it Healthy guilt can come from different places –from making a painful choice to a mistake in our caring routine. Healthy guilt can help us keep doing our best. But sometimes it arises because we set standards we can’t possibly meet. Or because other people impose judgements on us. In both those cases, we need to kick that guilt monster away! 10 Caring ISSUE 43.indd 10 Redefine it Guilt can eat away at us, filling us with doubt and making us feel that we’ve done something wrong. But consider why we’re in this situation: because of love and care and sad circumstances out of our control. Sometimes reframing guilt as sadness can make it that bit easier to cope with. Break it down Just being open and honest about the guilt monster and the impact it’s having on us can help. Being able to talk to people who understand what we are going through and how it’s making us feel can help us break down the guilt bit by bit, and feel less isolated with it. We’re here for you... Adviceline: 0808 808 7777 23/09/2016 17:58

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