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Caregiver Burnout: Protect Your Health, Identity, and Future · My Best Caregiver Life

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to my best caregiver life.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Christy Moore, and this is where we center the Black Family caregiver, your health, your identity, and the life you still have to live ahead of you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We also talk about what can help the person you care for, because what helps them can absolutely help you too.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Caregiving is something you do.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not who you are.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a chapter in your story, not the whole book.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: As you hit play and listen to this podcast, I want to do something a little bit different to start this episode.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take a few moments of rest and mindfulness.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: This might be the only few minutes of rest and mindfulness that you might have today, so let's take advantage of it.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you're somewhere where you can close your eyes, that would be great.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, if you're still driving, do not close your eyes.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So find a place where you can sit down, relax, place your hands in your lap.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Next, if it's safe to do so, I want you to close your eyes and take a few breaths in and out your nose, and I'll do them with you.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: First, let's breathe in through our nose and exhale through our mouth.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Again, breathe in through your nose.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Exhale through your mouth.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Last one, breathe in through your nose.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Exhale through your mouth.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to picture a hill.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It can be any type of hill.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Something that you may have seen in a picture or on vacation.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe hiking is a hobby or rock climbing is a hobby.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just love pictures of hills and that type of scenery.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to picture the expression or listen to the expression that says, is this a hill you want to die on?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned in my podcast trailer, my understanding of that expression is that the person who says it really means that they have a very strong opinion about something they believe in.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It may be a political point of view, it may be a health point of view, it may be any point of view.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: The point of that is that it's something that they feel really, really strongly about and they're willing to go to the map for it.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought about that.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an expression that we've all heard, right?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is a hill I'm willing to die on.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, after I've been thinking about it, I've been seeing that phrase everywhere on different posts and social media clips and so on.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: As I was thinking about it, I wanted to think about that differently.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I look back over the last five or six years of my caregiving journey, and I got to thinking about what were the things that were important to me, the kind of pillars of my life that really were the difference that made the difference from where I started to where I start now.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have flipped the script on this is a hill I'm willing to die on.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I think of it as, no, this is a hill I'm willing to live and thrive on.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that hill stands for something in particular.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're standing on top of that hill, you see a great vista, it's a beautiful view of everything around you, and you're on that hill.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that hill is a metaphor for your life.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: H stands for your health and well-being.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I stands for your identity, who you are before you became a caregiver or before this caregiving season.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the LL stands for the long life to have to live ahead of you.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you're in your caregiving season, doesn't mean that you don't have a life separate from this particular chapter in your life.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about the first letter up Hill, which is H, that stands for health and well-being.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this became crystal clear for me in the beginning when my husband was first diagnosed with early onset dementia.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it had been several months of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, figuring out how to get some in-person appointments, because this was during the pandemic, and a lot of things were done by telehealth.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: There needed to be diagnostic tests done.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: There needed to be an appointment scheduled with a neurologist, just so many different things.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I remember finally I had the nerve to call a social worker at the Alzheimer's Association to find out about classes and resources and where I could learn more.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially, she did an intake about my situation.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: She asked me a lot of questions about things that my husband was doing, things that included me, how we interacted, getting a snapshot of our situation.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget, at the end of that conversation, there's just a few moments of silence.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Christy, you know what's going on with your husband.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what if something happens to you?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then what?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then she goes on to say, Christy, you are more important than your husband right now.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: You are.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, if something happens to you, then what?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I tell you how shocked I was to hear that, because as a registered nurse, caregiving and putting other people first has been ingrained in me through the practice of nursing, it's become an operating system.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So for her to say that I needed to basically put myself first was a little bit of a cognitive dissidence for me.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: As we talk a little bit further, I understood what she was saying, and she was absolutely right.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that anyone in a caregiving season knows that truly, if you do not put your mask, your oxygen mask on first, you really can't help anyone else if you're passed out.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can't help the people that you love, the people that you care for, if you are not loving on yourself first.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Caregiving can take up every corner of your life and every hour of your life if we let it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to remember that caregiving is a chapter in your story.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the full book.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that you're doing, but it's not who you are.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about my health, starting back then, this is in 2021 or 2022, it was really out of whack.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not uncommon for this to happen when you are focused and taking care of someone else, adjusting to what that new normal is and what the needs are of that person, what your capacity is, and how you're going to show up and do things.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I remember going to a doctor's appointment and my blood pressure was sky high.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was so high that the nurse would not let me leave the clinic.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: She asked me a few questions.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are you having any headaches?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Any dizziness?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Any blurry vision or changes?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then she looked at me and she said, You're the person I worry about.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: You will go get in your car, start driving, and could potentially have a stroke and not even see it coming.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: That really also opened my eyes to taking care of my health.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm grateful for these two individuals that really ripped the band-aid off of what it is that I needed to focus on.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: So from that point forward, I started dabbling in different things.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I always know where I am in my life by looking at my Amazon order list.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when I went back to look in preparation for this podcast, I saw that I've been ordering different books off of Amazon, different eating styles.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Vegetarianism, veganism, keto, you name it, I ordered it in service to trying to improve my health.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because at that point, my weight was just about the highest it had ever been in my life that I can remember.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that set me on a journey for doing things to take care of my health, changing my diet, exercise.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I got into my appointments.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of putting off my appointments, I made sure that I found and created the time for it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I became more vigilant about how I saw myself.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing about this is that without this diagnosis coming up, would I have done that?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Would I have been focused on that?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Would I have had to have had some type of catastrophic event before I woke up and started dealing with my blood pressure or my weight?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not so much.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this diagnosis for him is a silver lining for me in terms of turning the page for me on how I look at and take care of my health.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy to say that I am over 40 pounds lighter than I was before.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had a few ups and downs, and I finally found my footing in the world of whole food plant-based eating.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that really began in 2025-ish, where I started being more conscientious about what I was eating.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this year in 2026, I just doubled down on it altogether.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I got some additional support in transitioning to this eating style, and I could not be happier.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Through it, I have lost almost half the weight that I have lost over these four years.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Half of it came from just the past few months with this whole food, plant-based eating.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that is my health and well-being.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Next in the word hill is the letter I, and that stands for identity and who you are.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this also is important because it's easy for us to become enveloped or engulfed by the term caregiver and the world of caregiving.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not too difficult to go down kind of a slippery slope and somehow morph your identity into or wrap your identity in the identity of being a caregiver.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's reinforced as well.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: People may ask you how the person you're taking care of is doing, how's your mom doing?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: How's your aunt doing?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: How's your dad doing?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: How is whoever doing?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they really don't ask you.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you're really answering questions from the point of view as a caregiver.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's easy, as I said, to become engulfed in the role of caregiving and see yourself as a caregiver first.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what created space for me here and reinforced that I am still who I am was what I said at the beginning of this episode.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Caregiving is a chapter in my story.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is something I do.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not who I am.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important because it comes from my experience of being a nurse.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that whole notion of being selfless and always putting patients first.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's always important, of course.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Patients' health and well-being and their safety needs absolutely come first.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it does not come at the expense of my health and well-being.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know many nurses who have gone many hours in a shift without even thinking about getting to the restroom or just stuffing their lunch in their mouth or not even taking a true lunch break and serve as taking care of patients.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we all know what that leads to: burnout and health issues for individuals, for those of us still in the nursing profession who are doing bedside nursing.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew about identity and I knew to separate that nursing is something that I do, it's not who I am.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, my profession is a nurse, I work as a nurse, but I was careful to start saying that nursing is something I do, it's not who I am, to maintain that separate identity.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I would have some opportunity to focus on myself.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the same is true here in the instance of the caregiving journey.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is something that I'm doing.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm providing care to other people, but there's still me here.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am still me.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I am here.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was me before this started.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I am me now.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am me after this season of caregiving is over.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And even if it's not over for a significant period of time, maybe the person you're taking care of is a person with chronic illness.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't necessarily have a prognosis of someone passing away from it anytime soon.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: The point being that you are still there in your situation.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So by creating that space, I started looking at what was important to me and what mattered.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, my health and well-being mattered.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that I just discussed.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: What about my career and my life?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: What mattered as far as that?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did have to make some adjustments in my work life.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So at one point, I was on a leadership track and determined and felt in my heart of hearts that I couldn't continue because of the time it would take to learn and develop, to learn how to coach and train and hire other people.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Traveling, I work in a field-based position in the pharmaceutical industry.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so there would be a lot of travel.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that wasn't possible anymore.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: When I decided to drop that opportunity, release that opportunity, I then asked myself, is that something I really wanted to do anyway?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in my heart of hearts, I could say, not really.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that was implied as my next step in my career.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the pharmaceutical industry, it's very linear.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: You start here, then here, then here, and it was the logical next step.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't my next step, given the season of life that I am.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: What it did help me do in terms of my identity was find something that was going to work for me, that I could enjoy, that was going to work with my living situation.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I did find something.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was dealing with some really unfortunate energy, I'll just say, at the job prior to the one I'm at now.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that I needed to find a new job in 2026.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of 2025, I just released it.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I surrendered it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know where I was going to go, how I was going to find it, what I was going to do.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: What I did know is that I had made a decision to find a new job in 2026, whether that be in January, June, or December.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And as I like to say, as spirit would have it, in January, I did receive an offer for a new position that I absolutely love and enjoy, that does not add any stress to my life, where I am appreciated, where the work is meaningful.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any overnight travel.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it works 100% for my situation.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So in this instance, again, there's a silver lining to this experience, and that it really helped me to refine and look at what mattered to me in terms of my career.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to that, it created space for me to be here with you right now, recording this podcast and doing other things that I'm planning in the future.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: That may not have happened had I not again refined what was important to me with the backdrop of this situation.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really, really grateful for that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then that kind of leads into the long life to live.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So of course, health matters.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maintaining who I am matters because I still have dreams and desires and plans and visions to bring forward.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I have to modify them with where I am now, that doesn't mean they go away altogether.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not either or.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to speaking with you again next time.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to my best caregiver life.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if today's episode helped you, please share it with another caregiver and take a moment to rate and view the show.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, caregiving is something you do, it's not who you are, it's a chapter in your story, not the whole book.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next time.