Healing Overload

Have you ever taken a driver’s safety course? Did you learn about highway hypnosis? This phenomenon is where driving on long straight stretches of road the driver mentally “checks out” and goes on autopilot. Many miles can pass without even realizing the distance driven. Often a near accident is what snaps a driver out of the hypnosis.

In my experience caregiving for a loved one with dementia causes a similar phenomenon. I’ve been referring to it as caregiver hypnosis.

There was a point a few months ago where I realized I had “lost” a whole year somehow. I wasn’t just disconnected and busy; it just simply didn’t feel like the time existed for me. The realization came when I was in a conversation with a friend about how they were getting ready to move off base because their 20 year military career was ending. I had known this was coming because we had talked before about how they had 2 years left. Time had continued to pass, and at the point of this recent conversation I would have sworn that only a year had gone by so far. Needless to say I was shaken. It was like suddenly seeing the headlights of an oncoming semi-truck and realizing I needed to swerve back into my lane or I was going to die. 

Dramatic? Yes but also true.

It is so easy to get caught up in the monotony of daily care giving that you become hypnotized. You stop thriving and simply functionally survive along side the one you’re caring for.

I suspect this is the case with nearly any form of care giving but dementia is such a cruel disease. It often feels like a merry-go-round that forgets to stop and let you off. It’s a kind of fun house that stops being fun in turns into a haunted house with locked doors.

For me this “wake-up” after losing so much time was the biggest sign to get help. For me that came in the form of placing my mother in memorycare. That won’t be a choice for everyone. I will forever stress though that if you are a full-time caregiver to a loved one find help somehow! If it’s imperative to your own survival.

When it comes to highway hypnosis or caregiver hypnosis breaks are more than necessary, they are life saving. Do not assume this is something that only happens to the weak or uniformed. No one who dedicates their life to the full time care of a loved one is immune! I’ve had people in the care community tell me they thought they could handle their own loved one’s care with little to no issue because they were an expert only to find out there’s a reason people clock out and go home after an 8 or 12 hour shift. Not to mention professionals also get a paycheck which is the trade off that loved one’s rarely get. That is by no means to say it’s all about money and not about honor, but let’s be honest, you give up huge parts of your life to keep another person functioning and being compensated for that sacrifice helps.

Anyway that isn’t exactly the point of this post. The point is to acknowledge a weird pitfall of caregiving I never knew existed: lost time.

I cannot get back that time, but now that I have some of my own time again I will use it to heal and learn to thrive again.