Caregivers Quotes

“When "caregivers" become addicted to the neediness of others, their needs may become destructive or exploitative. If women give up their empowerment, they abandon their potential for freedom and personal growth and lose their own sense of self. (" Sweet smell of Submission")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“All infants and children require and deserve comfort in order to develop properly. Soft cooing voices, gentle touch, smiles, cleanliness, and wholesome food all contribute to the growing body/mind. And when these basic conditions are absent in childhood, our need for comfort in adulthood can be so profound that it becomes pathological, driving us to seek mothering from anyone who will have us, to use others to fill our emptiness with sex or love, and to risk becoming addicted to a perceived source of comfort.”
― Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence

“It’s crucial to practice self-empathy, for trust can’t be willed into existence. That didn’t work when our caregivers tried to impose their will on us, and it won’t work internally, either. Only when we can tap into a place of self-trust, with a reliable process of reparation for inevitable mistakes, can we build trust with another person.”
― Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence

“People tell you to keep your "courage" up. But the time for courage is when she was sick, when I took care of her and saw her suffering, her sadness, and when I had to conceal my tears. Constantly one had to make a decision, put on a mask and that was courage.

--Now, courage means the will to live and there's all too much of that.”
― Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979

“Where there were once several competing approaches to medicine, there is now only one that matters to most hospitals, insurers, and the vast majority of the public. One that has been shaped to a great degree by the successful development of potent cures that followed the discovery of sulfa drugs. Aspiring caregivers today are chosen as much (or more) for their scientific abilities, their talent for mastering these manifold technological and pharmaceutical advances as for their interpersonal skills. A century ago most physicians were careful, conservative observers who provided comfort to patients and their families. Today they act: They prescribe, they treat, they cure. They routinely perform what were once considered miracles. The result, in the view of some, has been a shift in the profession from caregiver to technician. The powerful new drugs changed how care was given as well as who gave it.”
― Thomas Hager, The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug

“Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children

“Never give up hope. If you do, you'll be dead already.--Dementia Patient, Rose from The Inspired Caregiver”
― Peggi Speers , The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love

“My caregiver mantra is to remember 'The only control you have is over the changes you choose to make.”
― Nancy L. Kriseman, The Mindful Caregiver: Finding Ease in the Caregiving Journey

“Never give up hope. If you do, you'll be dead already.-- Dementia Patient Rose in The Inspired Caregiver”
― Peggi Speer and Tia Walker

“I believe that most caregivers find that they inherit a situation where they just kind of move into caregiving. It's not a conscious decision for most caregivers, and they are ultimately left with the responsibility of working while still trying to be the caregiver, the provider, and the nurturer.- Sharon Law Tucker”
― Peggi Speers, The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love

“Caregiving will never be one-size-fits-all.”
― Nancy L. Kriseman, The Mindful Caregiver: Finding Ease in the Caregiving Journey

“Since I've been taking care of her, the last six months in fact, she was "everything" for me, and I've completely forgotten that I'd written. I was no longer anything but desperately hers.”
― Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979

“You are a VIP, a very important person so take care with self care. If not you, who? If not now, when?”
― Toni Hawkins

“For every wounded warrior, there is a myltitude of family, friends, and communities who are forever changed.”
― Diana Mankin Phelps, A Mother s Side of War

“Caregivers, like all of us, inevitably reflect their culture's attitude toward children and life. The story goes that when Pearl Buck was a child in China, someone asked how she compared her mother to her Chinese amah. Buck replied, "If I want to have a story read, I go to my mother. But if I fall down and need to be comforted, I go to my amah." Her mother's culture valued teaching and learning, while her amah's placed a greater value on nurture. Even as a child, Buck instinctively knew the difference.”
― David C. Pollock

“Gran...I just want to say thank you for everything. I didn't realize how much you sacrificed.” “Children never do. Good Lord made it that way.”
― Sadeqa Johnson, Second House from the Corner

“One of the things Mom’s journey with dementia has taught me is this: Life is in the small things, like the word “Amen”—a simple agreement, a yes to words prayed, and a statement claiming the promises of God.
I’ve cried and begged for Mom not to have to go through this valley of loss, but it has come regardless. Now my one plea is that—in all that she has or will lose—she will never lose the love of God and her family. That is a truth worth saying “Amen” to.”
― Jenny Knipfer, Under the Weeping Willow

“At a gut level, she knew this illness was one more ploy by her mother—one more ploy to keep Karen under her mother's thumb.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

“Ask yourself: “who cares for the caregiver?” Answer: I do! Preservation of self is foremost.”
― Shirley Polk

“Former Chief Neurologist at Miriam Hospital, says Mellor's book "...offers a wealth of information for caregivers," while "the mixture of prose and poetry is refreshing.”
― Dr. Norman Gordon