I'm on the edge of quitting caregiving!

INTRO - J Smiles:  0:00  
It was bad. Very bad. And for no reason. I woke up that morning, everything was on my nerves. Everything in the entire house, the blinds, the carpet, the toilet tissue, myself, anywhere I turn, I was pissed off. The smell and there was no smell. I have horrible allergies so I don't even use perfume. I have non scented air freshener in the toilet. I walked past the couch; my trusted coffee and Bailey's did nothing. Still, bad mood Betty right here. I walked into Zetty's room. Hugging, kissing, squeezing her. Now, I wasn't pissed with Zetty. But even her good loving could not get this stink off my face. It was just one of those days that a caregiver goes through. I think that's a Monica song from back in the 90s, you can look it up. Either way, I was like this is bad. And J Smiles, if you hang around here and engage with Zetty or caregivers or anybody on your team, folks are gonna start quitting. And you might get reported to the authorities for abuse. You got to get the hell out of here. Fast! In hurry! Grab the car keys! Go go go go go! 

INTRO - J Smiles:  2:04  
Parenting Up, Caregiving Adventures with comedian J Smiles. Is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for the well being of my momma. For almost a decade, I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her, and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat. Spoiler Alert- I started comedy because this stuff is so heavy. Be ready for the jokes! Caregiver newbies, OGs, village members trying to just prop up a caregiver, you are in the right place.

INTRO - Zetty:  2:35  
Hi, this is Zetty. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast. Is that okay?

INTRO - J Smiles:  2:48  
Today's episode -  I'm on the edge of quitting caregiving.

INTRO - J Smiles:  2:59  
Parenting up family, here's the deal. I did not have any where to go. Right? I grabbed the keys in a huff. I left the house. But now what? I threw my little temper tantrum. Okay, that was wise. Okay, left or right? That's literally how unplanned this excursion was. At the end of the street, "J, are you going left or right?" Family caregivers, you know how it is. When that frustration hits a level that is past nuclear warfare, it's a edge and if you don't release it, somebody's gonna get hurt. You, your LO, a tree, a table, an unsuspecting squirrel. Somebody's about to get this smoke. While I had no idea where my car was going to end up, I knew it was better than walking over to my bar and pouring a strong tall glass of 1738 neat. Y'all remember that Remy Martin and how it got me through those first dark lonely years of caregiving. Know thine self, caregivers. If you're a caregiver newbie or an OG, know your buttons, know your limits. After roaming around the city for 20, 25 minutes, say, "Oh, the post office, I could go and check my PO box." J Smiles has a PO box. Fans send stuff, clients send stuff. Like, ah! That is productive and responsible. Go to the post office, then I get some stamps. Yes, I actually still send snail mail. Every so often it feels great to take out a pen, a pen, not a pin. "P.I.N. pin, something that you use to affix a piece of material or paper to another item." That's my grandmother speaking. Versus a pen, P E N, something that you write with. But I do like writing personal notes from time to time, especially professionally or to give gratitude. In this digital world that we live in, the human touch can go a long way. I digress. Anywho, the post office was such a winner for me emotionally. But right after I did something responsible, the part of me that was irritated and on the edge in the beginning was like, "Uh, sister girl, hello, we is mad." And I'm saying is with poor subject verb agreement on purpose to emphasize the level of pisstivity, which is another incorrect word. But if Beyonce can get bootylicious in the dictionary, maybe y'all gonna give me some love with pisstivity. Hello!  My innards were like, "Uh, we need to be satiated up in here. Milkshake, please, ice cream, something delicious, and that is not good for us, but will allow us to continue driving safely." Ha! Yes, yes. What am I going to do? So, in the south eastern part of the United States, is a place called The Cookout. It's a restaurant, a fast food restaurant. I believe it started in North Carolina. I have zero dog in the fight about the burgers. But I'm going to go to the mat for the milkshakes. Y'all, they got milkshakes that tastes like dessert. The bits and pieces that are inside the milkshake, feel like you are eating the item itself. My favorite is the banana pudding milkshake. There are slices of banana and nella wafer. I know you're supposed to say vanilla wafer, but I'm from the south, so we'll say nella wafer. You have to use a spoon to get those good ingredients out. It's just not the flavor of a banana pudding. You got banana and the wafer in there. You see what I'm saying? So I went way out of my way to find a Cookout to get that shake. It was a least three days worth of calories and a week's worth of my cholesterol intake. But I needed all of this, okay. I was on the edge. I was like if I got, I got to do something. I'm on the verge of quitting caregiving. In those moments when I was in the house, even with all the love I have for my mother, caregiving was too much. The enormity of the responsibility, the unrelenting never freakin ending 25/8. On the edge, walking on glass had taken me into the stratosphere of, "That's it! It's either me or caregiving. One of us gotta go." A good, good, good, good girlfriend's house was very close to The Cookout. I called her and said, "Hey, girl, hey, what y'all doing?" "Y'all" actually really mean other people this time. You know, in the south, y'all could really mean one person. What y'all doing? Actually, is misleading. Because I could have only been saying to her, "Girl, what you doing?" So that's confusing to some of you who may not live in the south, but just trust me. This time, I actually really meant it. What are you and your entire family doing? She's married and has a son and a daughter. "Hey, girl, what are y'all doing?" She was like, "Girl, nothing. What you doing?" I was like, "I'm on your street, bout to stop at your house." She say, "Come on through." Bless her heart. She had no idea. I showed up at her house weary like a transient, lost and turned out. Lost and turned out. It was not that late. The sun was still up - ish. It wasn't nighttime yet. I wasn't horribly inappropriate going to their home. But the meat of the day was over. She greeted me warmly. I entered her home with my purse, and an empty milkshake cup. Neither of us knew I would be there two and a half days. Y'all, I was there for dinner, and then breakfast, and then brunch, and then dinner, and then lunch, and then breakfast, and then brenner. Which is when you eat breakfast for dinner, which is what I had to do a couple times when they didn't expect me to still be there for dinner. And they had not put me in the dinner pot. So I just said, "Well, no problem, I'll just warm up what's left over from breakfast." It was a full out J Smiles couch take over. Do you hear what I'm saying? The momma and the daddy left going to work, taking over whatever they were taking over in the world. The kids went to school or to sleepovers or to all their activities. I was still in the house on their couch, flipping the remote or falling asleep. They gently continue to offer me the guest room in full denial and totally oblivious to how much I was lightly disrupting their entire ecosystem. I said, "Na, I'm good right here in your family room, on your couch, taking up this 80 inch huge television that you all likely watch everyday together for dinner, or after dinner movies, that I've now commandeered. I was so mentally distraught. So thick headed. So then aired. Remember, I went over there with a purse and an empty milkshake. I felt like it was freshman year of college and I was sneaking out the dorm to go meet a boy. Holla if you hear me. Wherever you are, honk your horn, snap your fingers. Let your mind go back, family caregivers, to when you might have snuck out your mom's house, snuck out the dorm room, snuck out the barracks if you're in the military, to go meet somebody or see somebody and then you over there and you don't have no clothes. You don't have no undergarments, no toothbrush, no nothing. But my mind was so twisted and so fragile, I didn't even realize that I had been laying there in my outside clothes. Before I know it, their whole family is putting together sleep wear for me. So, I'm in my girlfriend's shorts, her son's socks, and then her husband gave me one of his large basketball T-shirts. Her daughter gave me a sleep bonnit. I mean, they rallied to at least put me in some clothing for me to get night night. I was rolled up on their couch with their clothes on for two and a half days in a flat sheet. The top sheet not the fitted sheet, just the top sheet, like rolled up like a burrito. (16:35) just flipping through channels, aimlessly, weirdly. I did not check on Zetty not one time during this entire impromptu staycation. I did check my text messages to make sure that the caregivers were not looking for me. But that's it. I sent a text message to my J Smiles team that says, "Unless, unless Saturday Night Live calls and needs me to host the show this week, don't call me, I'll call you." My friend would say, "Hey, so I got a toothbrush for you. Some dental floss." Was like, "ahh, I'm fine." "Here's a towel, facecloth, if you want to take a shower in the guest bathroom, it's right there. It's a shower cap if you want to." "Uh, I'm fine." She probably was thinking, "Heffa, I'm not handing you these personal care items for you, they're for us. You are stinking up our atmosphere and you are causing potentially non removable odors on my couch." As the days progressed, I started to give a little bit of verbal insight to my friend around what happened the day I left my house and how I ended up at her house. It wasn't one major verbal diarrhea moment, just little bits and pieces and crumbs of my mental state of being. Luckily for me, she picked up on it. Her spirit danced with my spirit. And undoubtedly, though she's never admitted this to me or shared this with me, she spoke with her family and put them on some type of notice to let me be. Nothing else can explain the level of flexibility and hospitality that they gave me. Sure, they've always been kind and gracious, of course. But when I tell you I showed up out of nowhere and took over their common space for days. And I'm walking around, like without a bra on, which is highly inappropriate in a home with a husband, and an adolescent son. You know what I mean. When I got my brain in order, and I'm firing on like at least four of my six cylinders, I get that, or like six of eight or ten of tweleve. I know that's wrong. But I, I'm walking around in their clothes, and just free styling. The kids didn't even try to come in and watch TV on this big glorious television. They went to other parts of the house. My friend would get on the couch and watch things with me. Her husband would go other places. They never even looked at me weird or did the, "Ugh, God, seriously, is she still here?" I never even felt that energy. So she must have said something, right? Like, I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure. Either way, what I do know is the reception that I got was as soft as a baby's bottom. A perfect landing, like a cloud that just enveloped me. In a moment of a caregiver crisis, that had nothing to do with my mom's health. Righteously, I couldn't point to anything that would describe or justify the mood I was in. It was just a day where I was fed up. I had enough, no outlet, I was over it. I didn't want to do anymore. I was tired of doing. I was tired of giving. I wanted someone to take care of me. I wanted somebody to do something for me. I wanted to somebody ask me what I needed. Now, this is what I can say now. But that day, I didn't know what the hell I was feeling or why, but I did know I needed to get out of the house. The coolest thing is, I went home on day three, without doing cocaine or quitting caregiving. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my friend and her family. I'm also quite certain that my journey of meditation and therapy played a major role in me ending up at her house. Meditation and therapy have allowed me to make better decisions in moments of pain, in crisis, in calamity, in chaos, in any other kind of negative word you can think of. Under pressure and in the heat of the fire isn't a good time to try to start the practice of intuition or following the charm or figuring out, "Hey, I wonder how do I get out of this pickle without harming myself or making things worse than they already are?" I will never know exactly why that day unfolded how it did. But I do know the facts. It started out as an effed up day. And I had some really negative thoughts that had not happened before. And quite frankly, have not happened since. And it was super clear to me what to do in the moment. Number one, get out the house. And I wasn't unsure and uneasy about, "Well, I need to know where I'm going first." A pre-therapy and pre-meditation J Smiles would have been way more likely to beat herself up about walking out on her mother with Alzheimer's and driving around the city without purpose. Now you're wasting gas, you're wasting time. There is too much on your to do list. I'm not just gonna get in the car and start driving around with nowhere to go, that's stupid. I'm wasting gas, wasting time, I got too much to do, J Smiles, blah, blah, blah! Get over yourself, take a shower, get back in the game. But, no, I thought, "Hey, I don't know what's going on. But it's a big deal because it has taken over my whole essence. Roll with it, chick." The only thing that came in my brain so clear was leave the house. And then I was just driving around. And then I said, "Well, what the hell am I about to do?" And when I tell you the only thing that came was the post office. I said, "I just went to the post office." I don't second guess. Don't, "Wonder why the post office? Well, that's silly. I just went to the post office three days ago, I don't even need nothing. Who cares? I'm mad, F the post office, somebody might shoot me." Uh uh, I don't have time for all that. I am in a mental health crisis. And if something in my spirit says go to the post office, guess what? You right, I'm going to the post office. And because the post office was so responsible, and so function driven, the little child in me that was hurting so much for all the time and the effort, and the experiences that have been lost. The plans that me and my momma had, where how we were going to do it and do it real big as she aged and as I came into full womanhood. All of that had just come to a head because I thought about all the stuff we would never be able to do. Not only what I can't do in my personal life anymore because of the decisions I've made to care for her. But then all the stuff that she can't do, I'm just mad about it. But the response was, "You know what? I'm about to go do something bad, but that's good for me." But it can't be, it can't involve anything that's kind of like DUI under the influence, you know what I'm saying. The only thing that came, milkshake. What's the best milkshake? Cookout. And then the closest thing to the post office, everything that I went, well, The Cookout ended up taking me right near this particular family's house. You know what I'm saying? The universe is divine in its logic. Even when you feel alone and everything is crumbling around you, the universe is divine in its logic. That's been my experience. To this day, I don't know where else I could have been in this city to receive the care, concern, and fast flexibility, space and room to grieve and be and heal like I did at their house. And technically, when I left my house, I didn't I know where I was going. And when I walked into their house, I didn't know I was staying.

OUTRO:  29:35  
Do you have a comment about today's episode? Is there a topic that I've never covered that you want me to handle in a future episode? Cool, text a purple heart to +14047371449? Of course, I'm gonna put that in the show notes. 

THE SNUGGLE UP:  29:55  
Number one, when your many mental health breaks happen, when they bubble up, when they leak out, respect them. Don't turn your back on them. Don't force yourself to get over it. Don't wonder why now, what's happening? Respect it. Number two, after the fragile mental episode is over, share it with someone. Someone professional or someone else who is similarly situated. The therapist, your internist, your family doctor, your primary care physician, someone of the clergy, a dementia related support group. Let someone know what just happened as soon as you can. Number three, if you have not had what I'm terming "a small mental emotional health crisis" yet, trust me, more likely than not, one is coming. Think through how you might respond. What are some options that are local, low cost, and easy for you to execute? A walk, a long drive, couch surfing, which means staying with somebody else for free, going to the library. Why do I say the library? It's free, it's quiet. They have a lot of books. (32:07__) Sometimes that can be calming. Sitting in the park, not playing, not walking, not talking, just sit there and let nature absorb your pain. 

OUTRO:  32:23  
We keep the Parenting Up caregiving content coming on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. As well go to www.jsmilescomedy.com and sign up for Parenting Up newsletters. That's it for now, thank you for listening. Please subscribe for continuous caregiving tips, tricks, trends, and truth. Pretty pretty please with sugar on top, share and review it too. I'm a comedian, Alzheimer's is heavy, but we ain't gotta be.