By Pamela D. Wilson, The Care Navigator, CSA, MS, BS/BA, CG

February is the month of love: Cupid shooting arrows, bouquets of flowers, boxes of candy, Valentine's Day cards -- everyone wanting to feel loved. And yet a feeling of mixed emotions often exists with those providing care to others. You look at your life and wonder how you got here. It's not what you had hoped for and certainly not even near the ideal situation. Sometimes you wish you could just run away. Research indicates that caregivers with mixed emotions about caregiving experience a higher degree of psychological stress and that the foundation for these feelings is the quality of the relationship with the person receiving the care. (1)

Let's go back to childhood and your relationship with your parents. Your memories are positive, negative or mixed. You loved your parents or you hated your parents. I remember times when I was an angry child telling my mother I hated her when she withheld something I wanted. God bless mothers for putting up with children as temperamental as we were. Fortunately this early love hate relationship, at least for me, did not have a negative affect on the care I provided for my mother in later years. I have many positive, loving memories.

However for many finding themselves now in adulthood, memories of parental relationships return and you either feel a close relationship and bond to your parents or you have mixed feelings. One day the relationship is positive and the next day the relationship is negative. Or the reality is that you have no relationship at all. Or you feel a degree of guilt because you have mixed feelings. There are times in the past and the present when you just want to be accepted and loved for who you. And there are times when your parent or a friend withholds this approval and it hurts and you are unable to forget the hurt.

In caregiving relationships these mixed feelings can have the opposite effect of being positive. While you are doing all you can to support a parent, friend or family member you feel that your efforts are not appreciated, that the receiver of your care is ungrateful. Research also indicates that these mixed emotions are associated with depressive symptoms and poorer mental well-being.

I see this relationship many times with children who feel like they are banging their heads up against a brick wall in trying to help their parents who resist. The current relationship often relates back to the relationship in childhood. The degree of emotional support early on in the parent child relationship often results in the ease or difficulty of relationships in later life. Parents with long term close relationships to their children often feel more supported and will sometimes accept help more easily.

Wouldn't it be great if we all had the foresight to see years down the road the issues that would arise when we age? I wonder if this would impact the quality of our relationships at the early age of being raised as a child and as a parent raising a child. We've all seen the t-shirts that say "be nice to your children – they'll pick out your nursing home". This may seem humorous but in many situations it's true.

The same can be said of marital relationships. Mixed feelings result in the same degree of emotional distress especially when one spouse becomes ill and the other becomes the caregiver. Realize that if you are a friend caregiver, a child caregiver or a spouse caregiver with mixed feelings it's time to ask for help in a manner appropriate for you. This may be help from a psychiatrist or psychologist or it may be help from an advocate who can see the forest through the trees and make recommendations to support your caregiving relationship. The important point is that you recognize the need for help and act.

(1) Fingerman, K.L. et. al. Ambivalent Relationship Qualities Between Adults and Their Parents: Implications for the Well-Being of Both Parties. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 2008, Vol. 63B, No. 6, 362-371.

Copyright 2011 Pamela D. Wilson, All Rights Reserved.

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