Sandwiched Support

Tag: self-care

  • August 7, 2025

    Different Standards

    It can be extremely difficult when people who live together, or who are in a serious relationship with one another, have different standards for how the house will be kept, how the shared schedule will look, what to spend money on, and what to make for dinner.

    My husband and I have had plenty of wars over all of these things. Sometimes we come to an agreement, sometimes one of us has to accept that we are not getting what we prefer, and sometimes we are just at odds like we are right now. We see so much so very differently. It didn’t seem to matter when we were much younger. And now it’s the same things on repeat.

    Being a licensed therapist does not make you immune from marital conflict. And though you may know, and try to communicate the solutions ad nauseam, if the other person does not choose to do to work individually and as a couple to engage in pursuing helpful solutions there are a number of very significant challenges.

    This post is not a post about divorce. This post is also not a post about conflict resolution, marital counseling, or reconciliation, growth, or improvement. It is about the dark valley that any of us can find ourselves in when we invest an unfathomable amount of everything that we have and everything that makes us who we are and we find ourselves without that expected return on our investment. We find ourselves wondering how we got to a place of questioning whether all we have given and continue to give has been worth it.

    This post is not about whether it has or it hasn’t been worth it. It’s about those moments when it’s almost impossible to remember that there’s absolutely so very much hope and so very much to hope in, despite the imperfections of both human beings in every relationship and despite the state of being on such very different pages and sometimes even different planets of thought and behavior.

    I’ve been here before and I am holding space for the weight of all this again today. May you know that I see you and I have been there if you are in, have been in, or will be in a similar position.

    When it all felt like more than I could handle today with unexpected words of condemnation coming at me almost simultaneously from three significant adults in my life, I texted a best friend. I set verbal boundaries firmly. And I used ACT principles to practice Mindful Radical Acceptance and to shift my focus back to meaningful work. There are many other worthy tools.

    Relational conflicts, even for seasons, can be a very heavy part of the sandwiched stage. Know that you are not the first or the only one to experience this and that you can trust yourself to know what is and is not best.

  • July 15, 2025

    Rain Storms

    There has been so much rain in our area back home lately that some of the local parks have had to close or make modifications to the hike program we love due to heavy mud or down trees. Our swimming instructor sent an email that their pool, basement, and street had taken on so much water and were such a mess that our being away on vacation isn’t the only reason our daughter didn’t have swimming lessons today. Challenging weather comes and goes and can certainly be unpredictable from surprise storms to states of emergency, the worst does happen sometimes and we do not know when.

    Today we had the privilege of being part of a river rafting experience, mild when it came to rapids, but packed with the beauty of nature and the friendly hospitality. The experience was rain or shine and after a pleasant initial half hour the downpour that both weather apps and clouds in the sky told us to expect began. Delightfully the kids laughed through almost the entire experience as I ended up hunched over, protecting the cell phones in a bag close to me. And then some hail pounded down as well and all the while we continued to float along. Time didn’t stop and we were in the thick of the experience without a pause or a stop. Ponchos were offered to us by our guide (who was fantastic!), but we chose to persevere without. As I waited for what ended up being two rounds of storms to pass, I watched the delicate raindrops dance on the water and remarked at how beautiful they looked hitting the river.

    Watching those raindrops was quite grounding for me in those moments, as was the laughter and relaxed chatter between my children. On a day when I had to make a call to a family member’s doctors, regarding some test results, while navigating spotty cell reception as we traveled, this was a valuable pause. As the weather intruded upon our tour, a glimpse of peaceful, mindful radical acceptance and refocus came into play and provided the pause I needed to keep going.

    May we the sandwiched find that pause as we navigate each additional challenge that arises and may we always be able to see beauty in small and big ways while we keep going.

  • June 19, 2025

    Compassion Fatigue

    This reality will certainly warrant a number of posts to do it justice, but I wanted to acknowledge hearing some compassion fatigue from some of the medical professionals we have interacted with lately. I know it’s epidemic at this point due to so very many relevant factors and that everyone must have heard of it by now. However, I am wondering if we are seeking to find adequate solutions.

    So I have experienced Compassion Fatigue at times in my work as well as in my personal life as a sandwiched adult with both the top and bottom bread in the same household with me. And I heard it last week in the voice of the case worker in charge of the ED at the big hospital when I called upon her to assist me with getting Mom discharged from the ED before we reached the second midnight.

    For me personally as the daughter of a patient who has been in and out of the hospital every few weeks or less starting exactly 8 months ago today, it’s been, and continues to be quite the journey. Last week when I realized we could pick Mom up while she was still under the care of the ED in time for her not to lose the 3 weeks she put together at home (now she has 4!) I was making some pretty passionate phone calls advocating for this to happen. I was calling from a noisy place and ended up in tears while explaining everything to the ED’s case worker after already explaining it all to the Utilization Review Specialist and the bedside nurse. I just began to cry from a place of overwhelm and from that place of daring to hope while also managing those expectations. The case worker sounded cold and matter-of-fact. She helped, but it felt very clear to me that she had heard too many crocodile tears in her time and did not hear mine as any different.

    Today I was chatting with someone who is a close friend of mine who is a provider who worked many years ago in an ED far away from here. This person still works in the medical field, but the day to day is very different these days. And this friend shared that there probably are more genuine individuals such as myself who really have been through a lot with their loved ones and truly do need more empathy than we are getting. However, this individual shared something said frequently in the past during a time when there was quite a bit of med-seeking, exaggerated symptoms, and other manipulation on the part of patients in this person’s work life, coming into that ED back then. “I must have left my compassion at home on the kitchen table.” And before anyone judges this individual who is an excellent provider and has a lot of compassion for true needs, I put this here as something for us to think about. I have challenged providers who have not taken care to do their jobs well. I have elevated some concerns to supervisors during these last 8 months and I continue to do so because all of the patients, especially those who have no one to advocate for them deserve ongoing improvements to their care. But I want us all to take some time to think about what medical staff deal with each day and how those experiences accumulate and pile on and can lead to Burnout and to Compassion Fatigue.

    May it become easier and easier and more and more affordable for those caring for others to get the support they need from mental healthcare to respite care to case workers who explain important concepts to patients and families effectively. When life gives them lemons, may they be able to cry into something other than the hospital tissues and find a way to recharge so that they may continue to provide the level of care and compassion that their jobs require. And may we as the caregivers and advocates recharge effectively as well.