For Adkins, it wasn’t until after her mother’s passing that she sought out healthcare specifically for her burnout. “I knew I needed a break and I took a leave of absence from work to get the care that I needed, and began a long journey of healing,” she says.
The help she needed included group therapy, psychiatry, talk therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, brainspotting, and transcranial magnetic stimulation, Adkins says. She says she was also very intentional about seeking out mental health professionals who shared some of her life experiences, including her Black womanhood.
After seeking support, Adkins is able to do things a little differently as she now cares for her father with dementia. While her healing is still a work-in-progress, part of her work now is to prioritize herself instead of solely others, she says. “Part of my treatment plan is figuring out: How do I not crash and burn this time around? How do I stay afloat? How do I seek ease? How do I maintain a level of peace and of calm and a level of gratitude?”
Here are some steps Adkins has taken to have more support in her current caregiving role:
- Communicate diagnoses with friends and family early on. Allowing others in can give them a better opportunity of offering the right kind of help, Adkins says.
- Understand who’s on your medical support team. It can be difficult to connect with different specialty physicians and understand the services the patient needs. Adkins suggests relying on a team of medical providers, especially if there’s more than one diagnosis to manage.
- Determine if respite care (a short term break for primary caregivers) is an option. Such services are available through some state-funded programs, as well as federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Have conversations with the family member sooner about their care preferences. Adkins has made a point to talk to her father while he is still able to share his desires for his own care. This removes some of the burden of making important decisions as the caregiver, which can often come with anxiety.
- Practice self-care, including eating well, moving, getting quality sleep, and staying hydrated.
- Practice self-compassion.
- Speak to a mental health professional.
- Find support, either in-person or online, to support your mental health as a caregiver.
After her experience with caregiver burnout and then finding the support she needed, Adkins decided to create her own nonprofit Caregivers of Color Collective.
“Our purpose is to be a resource hub for caregivers of color that are encountering caregiving, and making sure that there are resources presented in a way that is easy to access so that folks can find care that is culturally relevant to them,” she says. Currently, the organization is sharing this information primarily through its Instagram page.
For identify-specific mental health support, whether it’s an inclusive mental health provider or connection with your community, some resources to get started include:
There are also increasing numbers of caregiver-specific resources and groups online. A few of these resources include sites like Family Caregiver Alliance and the ARCH National Respite Network.