When your loved one came home from the hospital, you became a brand new kinship caregiver and while in the beginning you were as proud as can be at having been entrusted by the individual,...

When your loved one came home from the hospital, you became a brand new kinship caregiver and while in the beginning you were as proud as can be at having been entrusted by the individual, your family, and the physicians with the care, the novelty of the situation may have begun to wear of. In the beginning you were awed at the level of responsibility for another person you now exercise and in some way it was satisfying to apply yourself to helping someone else unselfishly. This is especially true if you are a spiritual person who believes that one avenue of expressing your devotion to a higher power is the unselfish care and love for another.

Yet in addition to fulfilling your destiny, now that you became a kinship caregiver…should you put respite care on speed dial or is this an admission of personal weakness? Accepting respite care is no more a sign of weakness than taking a nap when you are tired or eating when you are hungry. It is instead a normal requirement that those who are not in a kinship caregiver position will not consider, understand, or most likely ever consider needing for their own lives. It is only when an individual does take on the care and intense relationship that exists between two people where one is dependant for life, wellbeing, and wellness directly on the other one that respite care becomes a need.

In the beginning of the kinship care relationship there is a bit of a honeymoon period when your energies are still running high and you are able to almost without effort juggle your life and household – and in some cases even family — and also another person’s life, wellbeing, household, and also family members. Over time, however, this newness is bound to wear off and before long you will become fatigued at the constant demand on your time that leaves you unable to meet your primary familial obligations as well and conscientiously as perhaps you believe you need to. This is especially true if you have children who clamor for your attention and do not understand why the other person is taking up so much of the time that you would normally have spent with them.

While you know that you cannot fault your children, you also know that you cannot leave your loved one and you are stuck in the middle, with frustration building and eventually guilt also taking its toll on your good spirits. To avoid burnout, the need for forging a good working relationship with a respite care organization or even multiple such organizations is highly suggested. Although it might appear odd to immediately try and find respite volunteer connections, does it not make sense to have everything put together for the time that you need the help? Is this not the reason why so many individuals carry an emergency repair kit in the care? After all, there would be no value in searching for emergency supplies after the problem occurs, but instead having them on hand in the immediate aftermath. The same is true for a relationship with a respite care organization.

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