Moving an aging parent to a nursing home is often the last resort. Nursing homes don’t have the best reputation, and a lot of elderly people don’t want to be sent off to one. It’s obvious that if you do end up having to make this decision, feelings of guilt will arise.
Why Do You Feel Guilty?
There is, understandably, an emotional concern attached to sending your aging parents to a nursing home. Most often, this guilt comes from the feeling of having failed your loved ones and breaking promises to them. For many people, their aging parents make them promise never to send them to a nursing home, while with others, it is an unspoken one.
If people are unable to care for their parents until the end of life, it’s understandable that they may feel guilty. After all, there is an understanding between family members that they will be responsible for each other’s care and wellbeing. So, being unable to deliver on this is not only upsetting on its own, but having to break the promise around it can make it worse.
Guilt is also often due to the fact that family members may not be happy at the nursing home, and can get worse when one feels some sort of relief after sending a parent to a nursing home.
How to Cope With Guilt?
Guilt is normal, and a natural reaction to such situations. The guilt you’d feel in this scenario is a sign that you love your family members. Again, nursing homes are often someone’s last resort, so having reached a point where no other option is available means that there was no way around it.
If you feel guilt about placing your loved ones in a nursing home, the best way to get around it is to find emotional support from people who will understand your situation and help you cope with the feelings without making you feel worse.
You may want to consider journaling your experiences with caregiving so you can consider the facilities that professional care homes are able to provide and compare them with your own capacity. In many cases, having professional care is much more beneficial to seniors than staying at home, where the quality of care remains compromised.
Senior living facilities are able to care for your loved ones with them as the first priority. As the caregiver, you’d have had to juggle your daily life and responsibilities and the caregiving of your elderly parent. In a senior care facility, you can rest assured that your parent will get the love and care they need without any compromises.
You should also try and visit your parent as much as possible, to show them that even though you were pushed into making such a decision, it does not mean that you don’t love them. You may even notice an improvement in your elderly parent’s demeanor towards being in senior care.
Inspirit Senior Living provides the best senior care facilities. From healthcare to memory care and social activities, your loved ones will be quite happy here, which may help you feel a little less guilty about having to make the decision.
