Lori La Bey, Alzheimer’s Speaks host, joins Suzanne. In this segment, Lori asks Suzanne about her experiences as a caregiver and founder of Answers for Elders.
Suzanne says, “I was a family caregiver, taking care of my mother for the last six years of her life. I don’t consider myself a stupid human being, but I had no clue what I was dealing with. There was terminology being used. I didn’t even know there were caregiving agencies out there that could care for my loved one. There’s no school out there that teaches you what you’re supposed to know.
“One of the things that was so stressful for me was, I would wake up in the middle of the night after making a huge decision for my mom that was maybe monumental in certain ways. And I would be laying there wondering if I did the right thing. And that was almost more stressful to me then knowing what my resource were, because I was making decisions believing that I didn’t have all the facts. I had what people were telling me, but they didn’t know my mother, they didn’t know her values. And I needed to feel like I was empowered, and I didn’t have that feeling ever.
“I lost my job due due to caregiving. I was in my early fifties, and I realized really quick, if you’re in senior management, you’re not gonna get looked at because they’d rather hire the 35 year old that would work for half the salary that I was, at the top of my career, and it was also a recession, 2009. And I made the choice. There was a spiritual teacher that I read a lot of, Emma Curtis Hopkins. I’m paraphrasing, but one of the things Emma says that resonated with me was, if you see a job, it’s yours. And I thought, you know what, it is mine.
“I realized that caregiving is interconnected. There’s all different pieces. There’s financial, there’s legal, there’s housing situations, there’s care solutions, there’s health care that you’re juggling, and somehow you have to coexist in a family where sometimes you’re feeling resentful, and feeling taken advantage of, and feeling overwhelmed. And you have to take care of your own self. And I realized more and more what was needed out there was a resource, Answers for Elders, where we can help empower people, and that’s how we started.”
Learn more:
Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com
Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
