All of this, you know, it’s, it’s like putting your hand up and saying, I’m doing this for me. It takes courage. It takes courage to show up. It takes courage to share your story. It takes courage to just admit that you need this help. And it’s not a defeat. It’s support, and we all need support.

Are you caring for others while working and trying to live your own life? Wondering how to find the time for your own health and happiness? Well, you’re in the right place. The Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, which is part of the Whole Care Network, is the show where real family caregivers share how to be happy and healthy while caring for others.

Hello and welcome. I’m your host, Elizabeth Miller. I’m a fellow family caregiver, a care. Advocate, a professional speaker, author, certified caregiving consultant, and certified senior advisor. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. This is a show produced biweekly to help family caregivers integrate self-care and caregiving into their lives. Each episode has an accompanying show notes page. If you’d like more detail about the topics, products, and resources. we speak about, or you want to see any of the related photos, you’ll find the show notes by going to the website, happyhealthy Caregiver.

com, and underneath the podcast menu, click the image or episode number for today’s show. The link for the show notes will also be in your podcast platform’s episode description. Now, let’s get to it. Let’s jump into this episode. Thanks for being here. I know that you have choices on how to spend your time, and I’m grateful that you chose to listen to this episode. We’ve got a great one on learning how to accept help, frankly, uh, with Roseanne Corcoran. So I hope that you stick around to listen to some great practical wisdom from a caregiver who really understands.

Before we get into that, I first want to share a couple of announcements, some of my favorite things, and to thank our sponsor for this episode. I make a living by Professional speaking and also partner collaborations. So I want to know, does your company, your organization, and association you’re a part of, do they have events that appreciate family caregivers, working family caregivers, maybe they’re educating their attendees, or they’re promoting overall self-care and well-being? If so, I would be delighted if you would let them know that I am a professional speaker and would love to learn more about working with their group.

I will share the link to my speaking page so that you can pass. Along and would love to set up a call with them to learn more. I want to thank our sponsor, Presidio. Caregiving is an act of love, but it can also feel overwhelming. That’s where Presidio comes in. When the unexpected happens, you don’t want to be scrambling for information, prescriptions, doctors, family contacts, or important documents like a healthcare power of attorney. You need it fast and easy, and you want to be able to share it with the People.

Presidio helps you collect, protect, and share everything that matters most, all in one secure place, always accessible, ready when it counts. It’s one less thing to worry about so that you can focus on the moments that matter most. Learn more at Presidio.com. That’s P R I S I D I O.com. What I’ve been reading lately is called The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I have been a longtime fan of Kate Quinn’s historical fiction because of the depth of research that she brings to her storytelling.

And this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s set during the McCarthy era. The novel introduces readers to fascinating and very different women living in Briarwood House, each carrying their own secrets, their struggles, and their hopes. And as loneliness, suspicion, and social pressures shape their lives, unexpected connections begin to form, showing how shared vulnerability can bring people together in powerful. The mystery slowly unfolds as the hidden stories are revealed, making it both a character-driven and a suspenseful read. It’s the kind of book that feels cinematic while you’re reading it, and so I truly hope that it eventually becomes a movie.

I will link to it so that you can check it out. One of my recent, why did I wait so long to try this discoveries is Cava. It has quickly become one of my favorite. Favorite fast, casual options because it offers fresh, flavorful, Mediterranean style bowls and pitas that are customizable. So when I’m out running errands or coming back from a caregiving or personal appointment, it’s really nice to have a fast option that still lets you load up on greens, grains, proteins, and vegetables. Well, it still kind of feels like a treat, frankly, although I will admit that it’s hard to resist those fried pita chips.

It takes real discipline, so I try to go for them more as the topping than as the side. One insider tip also that I’ve come to appreciate is that if you’re not especially hungry, the kids’ meal for yourself is actually a fantastic value. I think it’s around 10 bucks. You still get the same fresh ingredients, you just get a little bit less of them in a smaller portion. And it makes a perfect lighter lunch or a tasty snack. They’re not a sponsor of the show, but I’m just sharing that one of my favorite things is Cava.

If you want to check it out, I’ll link to it so you can find a location near you.

Let’s meet your caregiver in the spotlight for this episode. After spending more than a decade as the primary caregiver for her mom living with vascular dementia, Roseanne Corcoran dedicates her work to supporting and empowering family caregivers nationwide. She’s a leading voice with Daughterhood, host of Daughterhood, the podcast, and was named a 2024 advocate for aging by Next Avenue and the American Society on Aging. In this episode, Roseanne shares practical wisdom on accepting help from community and support networks.

So that you can carve out time to be off the caregiving clock and learn that it’s OK to share uncomfortable feelings outside your family. We also talk about aging well, navigating in-home dementia care, seeking everyday joy, and what true self-care can look like when caregivers finally take time for themselves. I hope you enjoy the show. 

Welcome, Roseanne to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast. Thank you, Elizabeth. It’s great to be here with you. Finally, how has this not happened before? We talk frequently, not as often as we want to, um, for sure, but we have a lot of things in common.

And then I was thinking, have I ever met you in person yet? Like I feel like I know you so well, and yet I’ve never hugged you. No. That’s so strange to me. We need to have, we need to, we need to make that happen. Well, we always start the show with a little bit of TLC. I’m going to call it today from the Happy, healthy caregiver jar. And I have cycled through all of the quotes already. And I have a refill insert. I need to create another one because you know what I find is like different things resonate with me 11 years after this that didn’t early on.

But let’s see. Let’s see what we got today. It says, you are never too old. To set another goal or dream a new dream, and that’s a CS Lewis quote. So, never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream. I call these like You know, Elizabeth 2.0, Elizabeth 3.0. I mean, we got so many Apple iPhones, can’t we just have different versions of us? But what are your thoughts on that? Any, any goals or dreams that you’re, are still out there for you? Do you feel like age is a factor?

You know, it’s interesting because I don’t think you’re ever too old to do anything. That’s just my It’s a number. I think it’s a number, and I think it’s because I’ve always been around people that are older, being the youngest in my family. My mother was the 2nd youngest in her family of 303. So I’ve always been around older people, and they’ve always fascinated me and um I’ve seen them do great things. So I don’t, I don’t look and think, oh gosh, I’m going to be 60 and what’s going to happen?

I don’t. I don’t. And I don’t know if that’s good or bad, really. No, I mean, there’s no limits, right? Like, I mean. We can, whatever we, we can put limits on ourselves. Like you said, let’s take those off. Let’s take those off and see what happens. And like you, I’ve had many entrepreneurs in my life, you know, creative people in my family who have, you know, done one thing and then done another. So there’s lots of good examples. I don’t have a lot of people in my particular family that have shown us how to be longevity and aging well, like with chronic issues and stuff.

So I’m up for the challenge of making that, you know, a different, different for my family. I’m one of 6 kids. How many, how many kids in your family? 44 kids. OK. And you said you’re the youngest. I am the youngest by a lot, a lot. OK, by a lot. There’s a gap. I’m kind of the oldest because there was a 6 year gap between me and my brother. There’s 6 kids. I’m Jan Brady, so middle girl, but kind of I’m number 5. So my mom’s first husband died. She got remarried and had me and my sister.

So it’s funny. It’s like in those things, I’m more identify with the oldest child stuff versus the, and I think that was because of the reboot. And is that true for you if there’s a gap? OK siblings. 1614, and 8 years older than me. OK. So it was. They were up and out. Yep. So it was almost like I was an only child. Yes. So interesting, isn’t it? And how do you feel about that now as the youngest, like, and I’m number 5, like my older siblings, are we going to have to care for them?

Well, and that, and it, and that’s, it made me think of that when you said about aging. We always talk about aging, but we don’t talk about. About aging well. We don’t talk about that because exactly, because we just think, oh, we want to live to a nice ripe old age, but can we function in that ripe old age? Are we able to go up and down the steps, OK? Are we able to do things that we normally do now then? And that’s, that’s the question that we have to start asking because we are living longer.

We know that. Everybody’s living longer, but how do we want to live? Yeah. And what can we do in the days to make it that thing? I know. And it’s, I’m hearing it’s a lot of squats. I did my squats today. I’ve already worked out, did my little, what does she call them? Goblet squats. squats. Yeah, the lunges is the hard thing. So yeah, it’s, I got to go to a class. I don’t want to do this stuff on my own. So I, I really, I love my small group class.

So shout out to trained, T R E I G N E D in Marietta, Georgia. There you go. So tell us, Roseanne, um, you know, the ups and downs of your caregiving experience. The ups and downs of my caregiving experience. Well, I cared for my mom. She had vascular dementia. She had vascular dementia. She had a vasovagal condition, which meant she passed out if she got hot or if she was in pain. Yeah, that was, that was, that should be an Olympic sport. And she had vertigo.

So she had a bunch of things that were working against her and trying to balance all of that and trying to care for her in the midst of all of that was quite a challenge. So she lived about 43 minutes from me, tried to keep her as independent as possible. And um we moved her in with, with my husband and my children and myself for the last 6 years of her life and um caring for her as an in-home primary caregiver was um a very interesting process. You know, you, you learn a lot about yourself when you’re caregiving.

You learn a lot about yourself. Looking back on your caregiving journey and it was, it was something else. And, and it was funny because when I first moved her in, I thought, OK, you know, I know my mom. I’ve been caring for her. I’ve been caring for her, for her running back and forth. I knew all her doctors. I knew her medications. I knew the pharmacist. I knew everything, right? And then it’s like, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is getting to the point now where it’s more everything has been ramped up obviously because she had to move in with us, she couldn’t live alone.

So then it’s like you don’t have that, I would call it the, you know, the commute. You don’t have the commute from her house back to your house to then come into your life to decompress or compress if you’re on your way. Like, yeah, exactly. You don’t have that anymore. And I spent the first probably Well, I don’t, I don’t know if I, if I ever got past it, you know, I would be with her thinking my kids and my husband are downstairs because she lived, she stayed in our, I had a 3 car garage and turned sideways, so her living room and her bedroom fit in that space, which was great.

I had access to the bathroom, great. So when I was upstairs with her, I was like, did I check the kids’ homework? Did we, did they finish that sentence, and then I’d be downstairs and I’d be talking to them thinking, oh wait, does she need something up there? So it was like, it was like not having a home base almost because I always felt like I should be in the other position, and there’s a lot of guilt that goes with that because your kids. You know, I’m watching my mother get older and I know how this ends, and my kids are also growing up to move out of the house and it’s like you’re on the clock and you can’t stop that clock and you’re trying to figure out how to manage the time on that clock and it’s ever figured out.

Sort of kind of like what worked? Like what did you duct tape together? Getting help, getting help worked before I got help. It was patchwork. My siblings would come if I had a doctor’s appointment or if my kids had a concert or they had an event or something, and it was patchwork, but I always had that clock in my head. As soon as I left the house, it was like, I’ve got to get back. I’ve got to get back. I’ve got to get back. Like I would run from the grocery store to my car to throw my stuff in the in the car and then run home.

Um, but I, I finally got help, and the reason I got help was when I had, when I was, you know, at 3 in the morning trying to figure out how I was going to maintain this because it’s impossible when you’re looking at it like how am I going to do this? And I found Anne’s, Ann’s blog on daughterhood, Anne Tumlinson’s blog on daughterhood, and I thought, this woman really gets it. What is this? And I would read, the more I would read, the more I would realize you can’t do this alone.

You You need support and you need at least to be able to speak to somebody who understands what’s going on. And you know, you know, I, I’m Italian. I’m 100% Italian. We don’t talk about things outside of the house. You don’t talk about what happens in the house outside of the house. So for me that was an internal barrier that I had to get over. Yeah, talk about that. So it’s, you feel like it’s a cultural thing. It’s absolutely a cultural thing. Yeah. Yeah. My mom’s first husband was Italian and It was interesting, like even when he passed, like how they, how they responded to that and how she, how her role in the family changed and this and that.

But yeah, that like, but even then I think that generation as well, like that combined with your Italian culture and then the greatest generation was what my parents were part of. I’m not sure if that was what you’re. Yeah, and so you do, you keep things close at home. So how did you manage that? I actually saw Tipa Snow and she had said, if you’re not getting 5 hours of break a day, you’re not going to make it. And I was like, 5 hours? Who has 5 hours of a break when you’re caregiving?

Like how is that possible including sleep, right? Not including sleep, no. No, no. And I really tried to sit with that because in my mind also, and I know caregivers feel like this, right? I can’t have somebody come in from the outside. I can’t, because number 1, it feels like I don’t know if I can trust them to be nice to my mother, right? Number 2, am I Not doing my job because as much as we love them, or you don’t, some people don’t really particularly care for the person they’re caring for, that’s legitimate, you’re still bringing somebody into your house and it’s, it’s hard to release that.

It’s hard to let go of that. I’ve got to be the one. It has to be me. And I really, I really had to try to work on that and think about that. And in the meantime, I knew I was breaking down. My, my body was breaking down. Yeah, what were your signs? My back was just constantly hurt, my hips, and because my mother was upstairs and I was downstairs, I’d run up and down. I had a little camera under her TV, so I had the monitor.

My iPad acted as the, as the monitor, so I would look at the, I would just do this. I mean, I’d be talking to my kids, looking at the monitor, uh-huh, OK, looking at the monitor to make, yeah, yeah, because when she stood up she got dizzy. So she would, she’d put her hands on her chair to stand up and I’d start up the steps. You would think I’d been, you know, in the best shape of my life running up and down the steps like that. No. So my hips were killing me, my back, I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t sleep because my mother wasn’t sleeping.

So all of that takes a toll. And then of course, you know, trying to eat, who wants to either you’re like, Oh, I’m just over everything or first you got to make it. Like, why do these people got to eat? Like who’s, is there anything more? Is there anything that fills you with more rage than, does anybody want, what do we want for dinner? I don’t care. I don’t care is enough to make me just bounce off the wall. So, and it’s like, I don’t care. Listen, I’d have cereal.

It doesn’t matter to me. But all of that turned into, I’ve got to, I’ve got to find a way to get help. And thankfully I was able to, I have a few friends who are nurses. And I asked them if they had any friends in the area, you know, that kind of thing, and I found somebody to come in. And then I had to sell it to my mother because, well, where are you going? Who is this person? Is it, is it going to be a match?

I want you. Yeah. How are we going to do this? And I had said to her, I went to high school with her, and she heard that you were living with me and she wanted to come and say hi and she was like, hello, we didn’t go to high school together. It’s OK. It’s OK. The positive thing was she’s about my height. She’s dark hair and dark eyes, so it worked. And, um, and that’s how I did it. But the first time I left, I went out with my daughter.

My daughter said, we’re going to leave the house, and I was like, Oh, I don’t know if I can leave the house. We’re going to leave the house. And we went, we went to a Starbucks and we sat there and she said, Are you OK? And I was like, I, I, I, I, I think so, but it’s that type of thing. And then it Got to be, OK, this is a little bit of breathing room for me. And then I realized when I went back, I wasn’t like this.

I wasn’t all together. I had a little bit more room and I had a little bit more motion and, and things started to feel a little bit better. Don’t get me wrong, it was still, it still sucked. Yeah, it was still like, uh, you know, sustainable, sustainable sustainable. And, and that’s the part that we forget because The caregiver matters just as much as the person that you’re caring for, and that gets lost in translation because we talk about Providing care. We’re giving care. We’re doing this, we’re doing that.

And we forget that without us, that doesn’t work. Nothing happens. So we have to find you are the nucleus. You are, you are. You break down the whole thing as a wrye. I know, I know it is counterintuitive, and I’m glad that you found, found help. Did you ever, did you ever get to the 1.53 hours? I did. OK. get to the 5 hours. So that we do needed permission from Tipa, who is an expert in dementia. She’s been on the show. You’ve had her, I think on Daughterhood too.

She continues to be one of my top rated shows. I’m not sure about your. Yeah, because the way she explains things, and so we’ll of course, we’ll link to those, both of those episodes. And also Ann Tumlinson, we’ll link to her episode. You needed that permission and hopefully people are getting that permission in different ways now. And I wish that it were just like, hey, you’re a human being. You deserve TLC like everybody else, but that’s counterintuitive and not the case. So thinking about the whole system breaking down and that being, and you’re a witness to this.

Like you came back as a different caregiver and you noticed, you kept doing it because you noticed the benefits of doing it. Yep, and I also noticed the lack of that when the pandemic hit. So it was like, OK, I’ve got this going. This is great. Maybe I can get another caregiver to come at night so my husband and I can actually go out to dinner because, you know, your family relationship changes completely because you don’t have the time. Spontaneity goes away. Everything goes away. And I was like, OK, I’ll have, I’ll have somebody come in at night, blah, blah, blah.

It was like, 2020 is going to be different. And boy was it ever like, darn, we should have been more specific. I know, I know. So then when that happened, it was like, oh my goodness, that really did make a difference. I had nobody because you were afraid of the, yeah, because I also knew if my mother got sick and had to go to the hospital, I wasn’t going to be able to go there. Oh. We were, you know, we were in our bubble, and then I could see the difference both in me and in her during the pandemic when there was nobody coming.

So it was a nice, you know, in, in a, in a, in an experimental way, it was a nice way to see, here’s your help, and then here’s your no help, and how does that feel? You were like. Case study. I was a case study. I was my own case study. I was great, great, but go ahead. I’m sorry. I, you were starting to, I mean, I hope someone’s listening and is, I’ve never seen a solo caregiving situation work. Have you, have you seen that work for you?

Not work in a positive way. Let’s say that. Let’s say that it never turns out well. Yes. And so having a plan for backup care and a plan to make care sustainable, I think is definitely the goal. And it’s not easy. It takes intention and we’d like to be two resources for you to help figure that out. One of the great things that we all have a connection is, I was an underwriter for the Wine, Women and Dementia documentary, but you were a, she doesn’t call it, what does she call you all?

Protagonists, a protagonist. Yeah, she calls you protagonist. That’s her producer hat. Kitty Norton. She’s been on the show as well. Lovely individual documentary. And you were one of her people, right? That she talked about this, and finding her community. What was that like from your end? Well, you know, it was, it was, it was great because when I found her blog, and you know, Kitty, for anybody that has read Stumptown Dementia or seen the movie, you know, Kitty is very free. Excuse me, she’s very free. She’s very like.

She’s just going to tell how it is. And I remember reading it thinking, wow, I don’t know. I don’t know how you put it all out there like that. Yeah, yes. And I reached out to her and said, you know, I love your blog. Thanks for speaking out. You know, my mother and her mother had vascular dementia. Her father died of pancreatic cancer. My father died of pancreatic cancer. So we started emailing, and then, you know, we would email all the time or we would talk to each other and it was that it was.

 

Another example of community. Even if it’s just one person, that’s a community. And when she decided to do this, I was like, OK, and her mother died two months before my mother. Oh, I didn’t realize it was that close. Her mom died first. She got it. So when, when she came to see you, had your mom already passed? OK. OK. My mother died in May and she was in my driveway in September. So, and that was the first time that we had met was. When she came with the with the film crew and that was some pretty heady stuff because, you know, it was great to be able to see her in person and it was great to be able to talk with her.

I was honored to be asked to be even be in it and I, I applauded her. You know, taking that on, but it’s different when you’re talking to somebody who’s gone through that, and it was the same year we were both in early grief. It was raw. It was raw, and it was really nice to, you know, nice is an understatement. It was, it was powerful. It was, it was. It was life giving to be with that person in that space and to be able to talk about it because it’s really hard, you know, when, when your person dies, people think, Oh, aren’t you happy you got your life back?

And it’s like, happy isn’t even in the top 100 of what I feel right now, you know. There’s a little bit of grief relief, relief, or not even for you. Like, no, I’d rather have, there wasn’t a point for you where your prayers changed, like, because there was that point for me where I thought, OK, whatever we can do to keep, keep mom alive or keep things, and then like, no, this is the quality is not there for her anymore and my prayers changed. Yeah, I, I think my mom had a stroke towards the end.

It’s just hard, like I said, for people to, they don’t understand that you got your life back. And it’s like my life. It is completely different. The life that I had before I start caring and the life that I have now in the world where my mother is no longer physically here is completely different. Yeah, it changes you. Caregiving changed. Like, how does, how do you put that into words? Like, how does it, how did it change you? It’s like you’re sent, well, number one, when, when you’re providing this care and then they’re gone, you’re left with, what am I doing with my day?

Like, at the very basic, before we even Get to your emotions at the very basic, what am I doing with my day? You lost your job. You lost your job and you lost the routine of your job, and you lost your purpose. And when you lose your purpose, it’s very disorienting because you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what to do. And then you have all of this time and you’re like, and what am I supposed to do? Because I forgot about me. I forgot what I liked, because I couldn’t do what I like to do or what I wanted to do.

For so long and now here’s all the time in the world and you’re like, I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know what’s important to me and I’m tired and I’m exhausted and I’m traumatized from what I just went through and I’m so tired I can’t sleep or I’m sleeping 18 hours a day and I don’t want to eat or I’m sticking my head in a potato chip bag. Like, it’s, it depends on how it hits you and it’s so, it’s just so disorienting. Again, I’ll say disorienting because it’s like, what, where am I supposed to be?

Nothing feels the same. My body didn’t feel the same. It took me, it took me months to be able to drive. Like I didn’t know, even just walking. I was like, well this is weird because I wasn’t in that tick tick tick. Got to get, got to get back, got to go, got to do. It was just, it was just, you were on the clock. You didn’t know what it was like to be off a clock. No, no. And then what to do. I mean, I would sit out on my porch like All right, so what should I do today?

And I didn’t want to do anything because I was grieving because on top of it all, where’s my mother? Where was my mother that I had been caring for that I had seen every single day, every minute of every day, and you know, it was, it was trying to rebalance yourself. You put that in words nicely. And so have you figured out. Your purpose, Roseanne. How long has it been since, since, I forget your mom’s first name. What was her name? Rose. Rose. How long has it been?

Roseanne, how long has it been since Roseanne passed away? Gosh, it’ll be 5 years in in May. OK, OK, 5 years. It was 5 years, yeah, 5 years from my mom last August. So yeah, yeah, interesting. Well, and where, you know, what is one of your purposes? Because I also think we don’t have to just have one purpose. So what are you leaning into these days? I’m still, I’m still working on. You know, it took me, because of my relationship with my mom and because of the depth of the caregiving that I provided, it took me probably 3 years, 203 years, if I’m being honest, to actually feel like a human again, which was a long time, and I knew it was going to be a long time.

So, so it’s almost like I’m new to this now. It’s almost like right now this year, and this was the year I said to myself, this is your year of yes. This is your year of doing things that you’ve always wanted to do, reconnecting with those things that bring you joy, that feed your soul, not make you happy, bring you joy, and there’s a difference. What do you see the difference as? How it feels in my body. Joy feeds my soul, and it’s a, it’s a, it’s one of those things I heard somebody say, if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

I say this, there you go. So, if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no. So if I don’t feel it, if I don’t get that. Yep. And it, it makes me feel bigger. It makes me feel full. That’s what I do. And if not, I don’t do it. And I’m really happy about that because this year, and for the last year, I’m starting to feel my body again. I wasn’t feeling my body. I was disconnected from my body. You’re, yeah, detached, totally detached, and That’s also part of the struggle of trying to figure out what you wanna do now with all this time and your new life.

The struggle is, I can’t, I don’t, I’m not in my body. I don’t know what I want because I’ve detached myself. And trying to get back to me and then going back out forward is a complicated process and it takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of stillness, which is the last thing you want to do when you’re in grief because you want to move, right? To try to disperse some of this. But the flip side of dispersing it is sitting with it and seeing what it tells you and seeing what you can learn from it.

Not that there has to be a lesson, but there’s something in there for you to understand. So I’m still working on that purpose. Part of it’s like self-discovery all over again, trying things on, you know, seeing how they make you feel. We do something called the 20 for 26. We’ve done this for like 8 or 25 years in the happy, healthy community. with my family. And the whole point is like, what is kind of your bucket list of joy? It’s not necessarily like you’ve got to get them all done. But you know for me, I’ll just see something and I’ll be like, Oh, I want to try that.

I want to do that. And now I keep kind of a list on my phone so that I’ve got these kind of in the hopper when they come around. But like last year I wanted to learn how to play mahjong. You know, this year I’m going to take a class, so I’ve signed up for a needlepoint class to learn different stitches. What are the things that you’re planning or looking forward to infusing more joy in your 25? So I, I was a softball player. I’ve always played softball and I’ve wanted, you know, I then transferred into golf.

It’s been years since I’ve golfed on a regular basis. I want to get back into golfing as a regular, not as a, you know, I’ve golfed once in the last 215 years or once in the last 230 years like that, even just going to hit a bucket of balls, something, yes, something, and I’ll, I’ll never turn down a trip to the batting cages. Fun for softball, that’s, you know, last in November, I actually went to the Endwell conference. Shoshan Ungerleiter had invited me out to the Endwell conference. Oh God, you don’t know about Endwell.

I don’t think so. Oh, look it up. Oh my goodness, look it up. It is, it’s a fantastic organization that talks about end of life because we don’t talk about end of life in any depth. And, um, so I went out to the conference. There was 24 people. I hadn’t been on an airplane in, um. 21.5 years. Oh my goodness. What was that like? I forgot how much I liked it and I flew out to LA. I had never been to LA, always wanted to go to LA. My husband came with.

We went to Dodger Stadium, which was just, that was a bucket list for me. You know, I was able to meet so many people. I met Barbara Carnes in person, hadn’t met her in person, had done many podcasts with her, met Barbara in person, met Jessica Zitter in person. I, I met Lisa in person. These were the things like it was, it was a dream come true for me. And flying back for the last hour and a half, I just sat there. I just sat on the plane and thought, look where you are.

You haven’t been on a plane in 40003 years, and instead of saying, no, I can’t do that, I said yes, yes, I’m gonna take myself, and I’m gonna take my worry and I’m gonna take any fear I have of getting on this plane, and I’m gonna push it in my backpack, and I’m gonna put it on my back and I’m gonna carry it with me. Yeah. And I’m going to go and I’m going to do it and it’s, it was so far outside of my comfort zone and I didn’t care because it was that feeling, Elizabeth, of it’s time to try something new.

It’s time to allow yourself this joy because as caregivers, we don’t allow ourselves the joy or the prospect of joy sometimes or the thought of. Well, gee, this is what I want to do. We don’t allow ourselves because when we can’t access it, it’s disappointment and we don’t need one more thing to disappoint us or to make us feel bad or to make us feel less than. And this was the time it was worth it. It was, it was like, here’s your fear and worry, and here’s everything else that it can be.

And here’s how you punched it in the face. Yeah. Exactly. Take that chance. Take the chance that it’s going to be OK and that it’s actually going to be more than OK. And that you’re going to come back like refreshed, rejuvenated, excited, empowered, all these feelings that we want to infuse in our lives. So it sounds like you’re going to be some golfing, you’re going to get some baseball games, some new stadiums, maybe some more travel. Yeah, yeah, and, and you know, I even signed up for a writing class because I love to write.

I love to write. I wrote the whole time that I had my mom in my house. I wrote every night. That’s how I processed. I would just open it up and start typing and see what came out because you have to get this out. And if you’re not comfortable, if you don’t have the people around you that you can share this with. Then you have to find a way for yourself to get that out. You know, we say that, and you know, we say that all the time at daughterhood, right?

That’s why we have these circles so that you can come and be with other people and go, Wait a minute, I feel like that. You feel like that? I thought I was the only one that felt like that. It’s like, no, we all feel like that. We just feel shameha. Absolutely. Talk about daughterhood. Like we, yeah, we are connected through for a couple. Things. First of all, your podcast is part of the Whole Care Network. You know, I’m a daughterhood circle leader. I’ve been one since I think 24000, and, and you, of course, but for those people who don’t know about that national nonprofit, what is that all about?

Why are you a part of it? Why do people need to know about it? So when I, when I first moved my mom in and I found Dan’s blog, I had said, the minute that I can get some help, I want to start a circle. Now, Daughterhood started in 24. It’s a national nonprofit, as you said, and our goal with daughterhood is to provide that support, right? So, we, you know, the practical side of caregiving, the nuts and bolts of everything that goes with it, managing and all of that, and the emotional side, which is something we don’t talk about.

And, um, I had help. It was October of 2300 when I got help in. I started my local daughterhood circle in January of 20. 19. Now, back then is when we used to be in person. We used to meet in person and right, the first meeting, I remember sitting there with these 12 women and everybody was saying the same thing. And I could see this wave of, I could see it on their faces, like, it’s not their shoulders, their posture. Yep, yep. Like, wow, it’s not just me. I’m not the only one that feels this way.

I’m not the only one that’s in this. And I was like, Well this is great. And I remember that leaving that first meeting and getting in my car and feeling like, wow, like I felt like I had just gone to a concert. Like, you know that feeling when you have euphoria of like, wow, that was great. That’s how I felt after meeting with, you know, 12 women. In a room and you know from there it just, it just kept going and that’s also how the podcast came to be.

But when it comes to daughterhood, we switched then when the pandemic hit, we switched to virtual because we had to and we actually found out we could probably reach more people that way because you could have your care partner in another room and run in here and be on, be on a call. Um, you don’t need to have your, your camera on you don’t You need to even speak. You can just listen. But the ability to hear from other people, and, and I know people will say, oh, I don’t want to go to a support group.

I don’t want to hear other people’s problems. It’s not about hearing other people’s problems. It’s hearing yourself in somebody else’s story or even hearing something and thinking, well, that would be helpful for me. So it’s not just it could prevent a crisis, it could prevent a catastrophe. It could, it could lighten your load. And I also think there’s It’s a big value. And yes, there’s help that you’re going to receive, but there’s power in you sharing and it validates this experience and say, OK, yes, I’m living something hard and I’m helping other people.

You don’t have to lead the circle. Just showing up and show up before you really, really need it would be my advice. I fully agree with you. I fully agree with you. And there hasn’t been a circle. That I haven’t heard somebody say, I’m so glad I came tonight. I feel so much better now than I did when I logged on, or I wish I would have known about this sooner, because that’s, that’s the part. And all of this, you know, it’s, it’s like putting your hand up and saying, I’m doing this for me.

 

It takes courage. It takes courage to show up. It takes courage to share your story. It takes courage to just admit that you need this help. And it’s not a defeat. It’s support, and we all need support. And it’s been life changing. It has been life changing for me. It was when I was caregiving, and it is now even after. I’ve been, I mean, you know, I don’t take it lightly that there have been people that I’ve been with through their caregiving journey that I’ve known for, well, I started in 2019.

I’ve known for 7 years now. Like, I don’t take it lightly that they Started, they were caring for their parent and then their parent died and now they’re still with us in our grief groups. They’re with us in our after caregiving group. That means something. And to be able to, to offer a safe place for somebody to come and get that support and that comfort is everything. Yeah, what I love about the You know, because I think we were skeptical skeptical about going all in on virtual. At first we’d like to miss this, you know, as in-person leaders.

For me, I kind of transitioned my in-person group over to this other local nonprofit that I’m a part of called ACAP, Adult Children of Aging Parents. So that felt like a transition. But then What I really, the power of the virtual too is that it’s not just one circle a month. There’s so many circles. Like there’s multiple circles a week and you’re you’re part of the team. So not only are you a circle leader, you’re part of the daughterhood organization. Yes. That’s vetting potential new leaders and so forth.

Are, are we looking for more new leaders? Do we have a hole? Do we have holes that we’re trying to fill in certain categories? Always looking for new leaders. Always looking for that heart and because there, there are enough caregivers to serve. It’s not like we’re ever lacking in people that we can help. So we’re always looking for leaders. Um, you know, we’ve grown to, we have 43 circles a month now, which is, which is insane. And, you know, you say I’m, I’m part of the leadership team, and that to me, sometimes I have to pinch myself because I look at this as, you know, I found it by accident and it helped me so much.

And now I’m, I’m actually in the position to help other caregivers receive that support. You know, I, I don’t want to be a, you’re a success story. I don’t want to be schmaltzy, but you know, yeah, yeah, that’s OK. I mean it means a lot. It was, you know, it’s interesting, and I’ve done something similar. It’s like you’re leaning you leaned into these leadership, you leaned into the podcast thing while you were caregiving. Like it was an out you needed it just as much as they needed it.

And same, like I’m just like, hey, here’s what’s going on, you know, and I’m still there too, with caregiving for my brother, but You know, having access to those experts, you know, through your podcast too, and being able to ask questions in real time where you were actively caregiving is something I think that many caregivers could benefit from. You know, can you share an example of something where you got this guidance or peer insight just in time when you needed it and you were like, wow, thank goodness.

Yeah, I mean, I um It was a few months into being a circle leader and I thought, you know, why can’t, why can’t everybody have this? Really? Why can’t we do this on a bigger scale? And I had, you know, my, my degree, I have a BA in English and communication. So I knew that I could kind of figure out what, whatever was, whatever this podcast thing was. And um, And I was fortunate enough that, you know, Anne was like, yeah, sure, you know, go with it.

And reaching out to Judy Cornish. Now Judy Cornish wrote Dementia with Dignity, and she has her website is the Dawn Method, which is about, which is about meeting your person where they are. It’s not what, and Judy always says it’s not what they’ve lost, it’s what’s left. And that’s what I had been doing with my mom because I knew her so well and I knew what she. And I knew her patterns and I knew how everything worked with her as a person, not just as my mother, but as a person.

I knew what was important to her. I knew how things, I knew how she felt by the look on her face, like that kind of stuff. And I had read Dementia with Dignity and I thought this was great. And I reached out to Judy Cornish and she said, Yeah, I’d love to be on the show. And I had her on for challenging behavior. In dementia, the, you know, I want to go home, those types of the recurring, you know, the question after question after question, I want to drive.

Where’s my, you know, somebody stole my whatever, all of that, those really practical things that when you’re caring for somebody living with dementia makes you absolutely bonkers because you’re like, I don’t know how I’m going to deal with this. So having Judy on and being able to ask her those questions and not just the question, but that’s great, that’s great. I’ll tell her that, you know, we can’t go home because it’s being painted. What happens when she asks me again in 4 minutes or 2 minutes or whatever because I know that I wasn’t the only one that was feeling this way.

I wasn’t the only one content to pull from right within your. Exactly, exactly. So that was the one off the bat when she said yes and I reached out to her on LinkedIn and when she said yes I was like, oh my God, Judy Corn, she said yes like I was crazed, but those types of things, you know, there were so many people because I was, because I’m living it, you know, I was recording in my closet. I was in my walk-in closet. My clothes talking to Judy Cornish and Jason Karlawish and Lisa Gibbons for God’s sake in my closet.

It was great in the closet, Roseanne, or, or saying, could you hold on a second and running into the other room to see what did, what did you need, Mom? OK, the whole time going, don’t forget where you left off. Don’t forget where you left off. You know, I had to cancel on Lisa Gibbons because my mom passed away. But then I, she, she was very gracious and rescheduled, but I was like, of all people, of all people, but of all people that would understand, that would understand, and she’s, she’s the best.

She’s a heart of gold, totally a heart of gold. Oh, she’s wonderful. But yeah, so, so that, so I was able to do that. But now, even after being now, you know, even after my mom’s not here, every interview, I’m still that caregiver. I still feel like that. caregiver that needs the answer, right? That doesn’t just go away. I still remember feeling like, Oh my God, I don’t know how I’m going to do this. Oh my God, what do I do next? What am I supposed to do?

How do I deal with these feelings? Like all of that is still, it’s still in me. Well, the authentic authenticity really shines through. And I think, you know, as a as a podcast host, as a speaker, as a leader, like that is, that is the gold of being in that position. All of this is going to land much differently from somebody who is in the trenches or has been in the trenches. You know, and that is why for me, for my podcast, I have, they can be an expert, but they have to have firsthand caregiving experience.

Like that was an important boundary for me is I just felt like that was needed. Because the show, my show is called Happy Healthy Caregegiver and the podcast as well. Like, what is being a happy, healthy caregiver? Like after your lived experience, like What are we striving for here? What does that look like? And while you’re thinking, like people call me that, and I’m like, Oh, don’t call me that. This is the beacon. This is what I’m still striving for. I’m working through some burnout at this moment.

So you know I’m just kind of out there saying like, Here, I’m struggling too. But what do you think? What’s the best we can hope for there, being a happy and healthy caregiver? To understand that you matter in all of this. That you are an actual person aside from being a caregiver, you know, look, we, we all have different things that we are in our lives, right? We’re daughters, we’re spouses, we’re moms, we’re cousins, we’re aunts, we’re workers, we’re whatever, whatever title we have. But underneath it, you’re still a person and what you need matters, what you want matters, and what you can give yourself to continue matters.

It’s OK if you take those 10 minutes. It’s OK if you take those 5 hours, and if you don’t have those times, if you can do things that maybe you can stack on top of each other. So that your 5 minutes becomes 15 minutes, becomes 30 minutes, becomes 4 hours. But whatever it is that you can do that feeds your soul in whatever day and daily, and I know that it’s like, how am I gonna do that? I get it. I get it. Totally get it, but there has to be something in your day that you can take for, for you, even if you have to go in your closet, shut the door, and breathe.

I don’t care the bathroom, the bathroom. Take a little extra time in the bathroom. I mean, I don’t know. You know, I was really good at the, at the 1.5 minute shower. That was my game. I was in and out of the car. I used to scream in my car. I used to scream in my car. It was great. I’d ugly face cry. I can do a really good ugly face cry in the car, yeah, yep. I mean, whatever it takes for you to do safely for yourself is what you do.

And if you need the permission, I’m giving you that permission. If you need somebody to say you’re allowed, I’m saying you’re allowed. You’re allowed because you have to to. Yes, you have to do it. If we can take you. Yes, I know. It’s so counterintuitive. And just even listening to this podcast, thank you so much just for listening and learning and trying to forge a new path forward in it. It matters. It is self-care. It’s intellectual self-care. It’s emotional self-care. Like I leak a little bit in every episode, as you can, I get, she’s like, Oh, her eyes water a lot.

No, no, I’m leaking. They’re tears. They’re tears. So I’m going to ask you a few questions, Roseanne, from the Just For You Daily Self-care Journal, because writing was important to me and yet I wanted an easy entry point for people to kind of try this on. It’s written with caregivers in mind, but it’s more about prioritizing health and happiness. So anybody, um, OK, what was the last thing, or a recent thing, let’s say, that happened that made you laugh? Out loud. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

So I’ve been trying to stay off social media because I feel like it’s just, it’s just all too much. It’s all too much. And I picked up my phone and there was a picture. It was a, it was a reel of a woman that was sleeping and her cats kind of just jumped on her and she jumped out of bed. Yeah, yeah, it made me laugh out loud. It made me laugh out loud. To see if I can find it, the real cat. And listen, all you have to do is find one and then you’ll see 20.

So yeah, you know, do you have cats? I do not. Yeah. Someone was telling me at the gym, they’re like, we were talking about AI and how it’s got, you know, how it’s duped us many, many times. Like, wait, wait, like all, and she’s like, the only reason AI should exist is for social media is for, she said. And I haven’t watched them yet, but animals doing the Olympics, doing Olympic things like a horse doing a dive. And so she said it to the guy who owned the gym while she was training us, and all of a sudden I hear him over at his desk laughing out loud.

And I’m like, Are you looking at those Olympic animals? So we’ll have to check that out to see. Yeah, because I mean, laughing is, we need it. We need it need it. Yeah, that’s where, that’s where, you know. You know, even if you can find a show and you know, even if you have to go back and watch things that you know, make you laugh on TV that you’ve seen 4000 times, you know what? Watch it. Who cares? That’s what my coach, I’m working with a coach, a coach also needs a coach, helping, you know, specifically with burnout.

She said that. She said there’s been research in rewatching old shows that make us laugh. So like, you know, Friends or The Office or whatever, that there’s. The anxiety, like, you know what to expect. It just is like a, it’s like a warm little hug. Yeah, absolutely. I’m watching it. I’m rewatching Grace and Frankie as we speak because my mom and I show, yeah, because I can’t, and all the shows now, they’re like, I don’t want to say all, and I don’t want to sound like I’m screaming at the clouds, but it’s like they’re so dark.

It’s like, can we just, could we, could. Did he make a comedy? Just something silly. Just something like, I don’t know. So yeah, Grace and Frankie’s my thing right now. I was watching the other two on HBO on HBO Max, like Saturday Night Live writers. It’s pretty funny. Pretty funny. Yeah. And then my husband and I are watching the pit and that will make you anxious. Don’t watch that. I started, we started watching it. Yeah, my husband and I started watching it, and we were, I don’t know, 4 minutes in, and I looked at him and he looked at me and I’m like, Are you enjoying this?

He was like, I’m not. I know. Well, and I’m also like, they don’t help caregivers like that. They don’t, you know, I know. Well, but the really, the really interesting thing is, is that Endwell is one of the consultants for. That’s why like last week they had a death doula storyline on. I don’t watch it, but I keep up. On it, but they had a death doula storyline on. So the positive thing, and you know, like Barbara Carnes, hospice pioneer Barbara Carnes always says, we don’t die like we do in the movies.

So let’s consult if Shoshana can bring in some real life, this is end of life and people will watch it and go, Oh my goodness, that’s what that was? Wow, I didn’t know. So even if it’s not the way that we experienced it, per se, it’s another resource that’s available that we wish that somebody had said. In that environment. I do think, like my daughter says medically, like a lot of things are on point there. You can tell they’ve got good consultants with all of that. Yes, yes, yes.

But no, it’s going to make you a little anxious. And for me, I’m like, I got to look away. I can’t watch all that. For those of us that made it through ER all those years. Yeah, you know, it’s like ER just jacked up. Yeah, Noah Wiley, he aged, he aged along with us. How would you spend a day, Roseanne, if you had it all to yourself? If I had a day to myself, I would, I would go to the beach. That’s what I would do. I would, I would stop and get a cup of coffee and probably something, um, something healthy in the egg family, however that was, egg whites, OK. And I would go to the beach and I would put my chair in the sand and I would sit and I’d eat and I would look at the water.

Because that is my happy space and that kind of just makes everything feel better. So that’s what I would do. And I’d probably bring my AirPods so I could listen to some music or not. We’ll see. It’s kind of, I mean, no clocks running there. The clock has stopped. The waves are running, you’re just like calm and peaceful. I’m feeling it. I love, I love listening to that, the sound of water and things when I’m in the calm map and so forth. Well, lovely. Well, What, how do people learn more about you, learn more about the things that you care about and are part of?

Where should people go to kind of check out that? And then do you have any parting words for caregivers? Daughterhood.org. Excuse me. Daughterhood. org, where you can find everything. You can find our calendar of all the circles, Ann’s blog, all of our resources, and the podcast. The podcast lives there, but of course the podcast you can find anywhere. Anywhere you listen, as we say, Elizabeth, right? Anywhere you listen to your podcast. Podcast. That’s it. Your favorite podcast podcast platform. Yes. So, that’s where that is. My parting words to caregivers are that, again, you, you matter, you’re important.

Your caregiving journey wouldn’t exist without you. Please allow yourself the support. Allow yourself, even if it makes you uncomfortable, even if you’re not sure where to start. Just allow yourself. The opportunity to think about it, and then maybe try it and see how you like it. You might have to try a couple groups. You might have to try different ways of interacting with those groups, whether, whether they’re message boards on platforms, or they’re call-in support, or they’re something like Daughterhood where you can come in. But allow yourself the option of trying and see what happens.

See if it helps you at all. Because I will guarantee you, when you feel heard and you feel like somebody sees you and somebody understands what you’re doing and what you’re going through and what you’re feeling, it will make a difference to you. So, just give yourself that opportunity and please know that you are doing the best you can in an impossible situation with, with where you’re at, you know, in case nobody said thank you to you, thank you for all that you do. Thank you, Roseanne Corcoran, for being a shining light on the Happy Healthy Caregiver episode and a wisdom.

I love that. Allow yourself the support. We may have our podcast title there. So thank you so much, Roseanne. Delighted that caregiving brought us together. And thanks for being on the show. Same. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, podcast listener. If you’re caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s or dementia, you don’t want to miss All Authors podcast, Untangling Alzheimer’s and dementia. I’m your host, Mary Anne Chuuco, a registered nurse, author, and dementia daughter. In each episode, I interview one of our 300+ authors about their personal dementia story and why they chose to write about it, sharing intimate details and painfully obtained.

Knowledge to help you on your own journey. We share a variety of stories across all diagnoses and from a range of caregiving experiences. You can find us on your favorite podcast platform and the Whole Care Network. Remember, you are not alone. One can sing a lonely song, but we chose to form a choir and create harmony. Find us at allsauthors.com. See you soon. Thanks for listening to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast on the Whole Care Network. I hope this episode provided encouragement and practical tips to infuse into your life.

You’ll find the show notes and all the resources mentioned at happyhealthy Caregiver.com. I also invite you to check out previous episodes of the podcast that you may have missed. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Ratings and reviews also help others discover the podcast, and sharing with a fellow caregiver is a great way to spread support. Stay connected with me between the episodes by following Happy Healthy Caregiver on your favorite social media platforms and subscribe to the weekly newsletter where every week I share something happy, healthy, and care-related.

Just visit happyhealthycareegiver. com to join. Until our next episode, I’m Elizabeth Miller with a reminder to take care of you. Are you still here? Well, it’s time for the disclaimer. I am not a medical, legal, or financial professional, and I am not providing medical, financial, or legal advice. If you have questions related to these topics, please seek a qualified. Professional. I have taken care to spotlight family caregivers and experts, but their opinions are theirs alone. This podcast is copyrighted and no part can be reproduced without the written permission of Happy Healthy Caregiver LLC.

Thanks again for listening to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast on the Whole Care Network.