Attending the young adult caregiver support group represented time that I had to make for myself. It allowed me to cry and express my emotions in front of strangers. It helped me process things that I was holding in that day.
When I first joined the group, it felt a little like an AA meeting...or at least what I imagine AA meetings to be. Everyone sitting in a circle, waiting for their turn to reveal their story. In a addition, it was a bit of a trek getting into the city every Tuesday. There was always traffic. One time, I made the mistake of taking the Lincoln Tunnel and cars moved at a snail's pace. When I finally got into Manhattan, the meeting was already over and I basically had to just turn back around into Jersey. Plus my mom would often give me errands to run of what groceries to buy in Chinatown or things to drop off to my brother. So I'd often get to the meetings either late and/or extremely out of breath.
The good thing was that I was able to express my feelings people in the group also felt and it was extremely cathartic. At the same time, I was one the few people who were actually directly care giving. Some were mainly dealing with the issues of having a parent diagnosed and not directly involved in that person's care. I think this is a really big factor and an important difference. That's why I often am able to connect with spouse's of cancer warriors because we can talk in "cancer language" without missing a beat. It is really a unique distinction.
But a few new people joined later and I even met someone who was caregiving for a parent with the same diagnosis, so I was glad to have made this connection. I think it just really hits home that there are not that many young adult caregivers out there.
Kairol Rosenthal wrote a blog post with some great tips of how to find a support group that's right for you. You can find her blog here. For convenience purposes, I pasted her post below.
September 01, 2011
Do Cancer Support Groups Work For You?
By Kairol Rosenthal
During my stint with cancer, I’ve attended both thyroid cancer and young adult cancer groups. They ranged from excellent to abysmal. Here are six tips I’ve come up with for making the most out of a support group experience. I’m curious if you’ve ever tried them:
1. Contact the leader first to see if it’s a good match for you. Ask if participants have a similar disease type or variation as you, what stage of their disease are they in, if the focus is emotional support or swapping practical medical coping strategies. If age, relationship status, race and ethnicity and other personal factors are important to you, ask about the demographics of the group.
2. Try a few meetings. Sometimes groups vary hugely from meeting to meeting depending on who is there and what issues are coming up. Give it more than one shot.
3. Go out on a limb. If you want to discuss an issue that nobody is talking about, be daring and bring it up yourself. Many support group participants are often waiting for that one person to talk about the elephant in the room.
4. Find your wonder twin. Sometimes a support group is a great place to meet one person who you really connect with. It is perfectly fine for you to ditch the support group and continue to meet for one-on-one support with each other over coffee.
5. Chose a format that’s right for you. Telephone, online support groups, social networking groups, one-on-one peer support through matching organizations. People have even told me that reading Everything Changes was their support group. If one format of support group isn’t right for you, find one that is.
6. Don’t feel guilty or badly if you are not a support group person. The point is to get support if you need it and it doesn’t have to always come from a group. I personally find better support through my friends who do not have cancer than I do through organized support groups of people my own age living with my disease. I’m okay with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment