December 2, 2016
Establishing Healthy Expectations for Yourself, Other People and Circumstances
Mary’s Story
My mother’s house was always the place family went for holidays. She decorated, cooked meals from scratch, housed out of town family members, bought and wrapped gifts for all dinner guests and entertained during dinner parties. When she went into the nursing home I took on these responsibilities for the family without even thinking about it. I just did what I’d always seen her do. Plus, I now had to care for her. But I don’t have my mother’s energy or organizational skills. While things turned out ok, and by that I mean nothing burned down, I got very little sleep, ended up forgetting to pay the bills and felt disappointed in myself for not holding things together the way my mother always had. The next year I stressed about the holidays and dreaded them even before they got started.