While caring for a loved one has many rewards, it can also take a toll on your physical, mental and emotional health if you don’t have the right support systems in place.

Here, however, psychotherapist Therese Maguire of The Psychotherapy Clinic in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin – a former employee of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland with a keen interest in the effect of long-term caregiving – shares her top tips for self-care with Irish Country Living.

For further information, visit www.thepsychotherapyclinic.ie or call 01-903-3112.

1. Be connected: According to Therese, the most important thing that a carer should do is “be connected” in their personal relationships, ie with family, friends, colleagues and the local community.

“We know that no person can sustain a journey of care on their own over a long period of time, so it’s very important that they have the supports of those close to them to enable them to do that,” she explains.

“That’s for a multitude of reasons: so that they can share their caregiver’s experiences; it’s so that they can feel supported in the caregiving role; so that people can understand and offer advice and be empathetic and offer support through that journey of care.”

However, it is equally important to be connected to appropriate support services, be it Family Carers Ireland, the HSE or a specific organisation like the Alzheimer Society of Ireland.

“What that does is it provides information, education, peer support, emotional support and you can feel part of a group, so you feel less on your own,” she says.

2. Be you: When you become a carer, it is very easy for that role to become your whole identity. But according to Therese, it’s important to “continue to be who you are”.

“Do the things that you have always done. Whether that’s going for a coffee, whether it’s getting your hair done, whether it’s going to bingo, whether it’s going to the match on a Sunday, going to Active Retirement, or going to the cinema. Whatever it is you’ve always done, continue to do those things as far as possible,” she explains.

3. Be direct: If a friend or family member asks “can I do anything for you?”, don’t be shy in accepting a helping hand.

“The answer could be: ‘Yes you can. Is it possible that you could do the grocery shopping for me on a Monday morning?’” Therese uses as an example.

“It’s about being ready and willing and able to accept the offers of help that people offer to you.”

4. Be willing to share the burden: Often in families, the burden of care can fall on one or two people. To avoid this happening, Therese advises that the family get together as early as possible to discuss the best plan of action.

In more challenging cases or if there is a conflict, however, Therese recommends seeking external help, be it from a family mediation service, a therapist, a social worker or healthcare professional from the HSE to help make a plan.

“The mediation person can come in, will meet with the family in its entirety and will mediate so that decisions can be made,” she says.

“On the other hand, a family therapist could be engaged to talk about the kind of complexities that are emerging, to understand why they are emerging, so to bring those to the fore and to empower the family to make the decisions themselves.”

5. Be ready to let go of guilt: When working with carers, Therese has noticed that many feel guilty as they don’t think that they are giving their loved one “perfect care”.

“And there’s no such thing,” she says, “so accept that you’re doing your best, whatever that is.”

Indeed, she explains how guilt only gets in the way of doing your job as a carer.

“Guilt is quite debilitating,” she says, “so that’s why I say to accept that you’re doing your best, try to understand what’s driving your guilt and how it can result in inaction and that can lead to increased and unnecessary challenges.”

6. Be positive: While caring for a loved one can present a multitude of challenges, Therese believes that by practising self-care and seeking support as early as possible, it can also be “very rewarding”.

“A lot of the characteristics of the relationship that you had prior to the onset of the illness can still remain,” she says. “It means that you have to think and do in a different way but there’s still a lot of positivity to be had because there’s a real closeness there, and a closeness that is borne out of love and concern and intimacy, so it’s important to highlight that as well.”