The 30% Club

I’m currently working on a project I’ve been pushing off to the side for the past three years. I won’t say what that project is–my complimentary gift to your imagination–because it’s too embarrassing. Here’s what I will share, though: pushing this project aside has not served me well.

Thoughts of the put-off project run on near-constant background in my mind. I feel overwhelmed when I think about it. Depressed. Embarrassed. Ashamed. I hate myself that I’ve let all this time go by and I haven’t just dealt with it already.

It was bad enough when I first realized the problem. Yet, somehow, I deluded myself into thinking that if I didn’t really think about it, it would go away. Is it just me, or do you see how unhinged that sounds, too? I had a conscious thought to not have a conscious thought, thinking that would make everything okay. 

 

My Best Thinking Got Me Here

A well-chewed chestnut in 12-step recovery programs goes, Your best thinking got you here. Meaning, Maybe it’s time you stop taking your own advice, Einstein. The joking response is often, Yeah, I’d probably have better luck picking a random person from the phone book to make my life decisions. Kidding, but not really.

So if my best thinking got me here, to this place of self-loathing and overwhelm, maybe it’s time to look at someone else’s thinking.

 

Dr. Phil Is Kind of A Jerk, Right?

Motivational guru Tony Robbins says we’ll do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. We’re far more motivated to not touch the red-hot burner than we are to ___________. Fill in the blank with whatever you want, because nothing sounds as good as not setting your hand on a hot stove.

Dr. Phil says if we keep doing something, whatever that something may be–even if we say we don’t like it or want to do it, let alone like or want the results–that we’re doing it because we must be getting something out of the deal.

He may well be right, but Dr. Phil sounds like kind of a jerk when he puts it that way, doesn’t he?

 

What Would Tony Robbins Do?

Tony Robbins, on the other hand, is on to something. He says the “trick” to getting out of the mess you find yourself in is to leverage the pain it’s causing you. Really feel all the ways it’s causing you grief. Really feel all the ways it’s costing you. Write it down. Contemplate it. Feel it.

Then use all that to leverage yourself into changing it.

Make a decision that you’re done

You’re not going to live like that anymore. No, now, you’re going to do whatever it takes to get out of that pain and move toward whatever it is that brings you pleasure instead. In many cases, just getting rid of the pain will be the pleasure part of the equation, at least at first.

Trick your brain

One thing Tony Robbins emphasizes is that the more vivid and real you make the idea of the change, the greater your chance of success in completing the change. You can essentially trick your brain into thinking it’s a foregone conclusion, because your brain can’t tell the difference between reality and your imagination.

So he advises imagining in vivid detail what will be different when you take action. How will you feel? How will you look? Where will you be? Who will be with you? How will it impact your life, your relationships? How will all that make you feel? Again, write it down, contemplate it, feel it.

I can attest to the power of this approach. I’ve used it in more than one area of my life to great success.

 

There’s Always A ‘But’

But–oh, there’s always a but, isn’t there?–this also brings to mind a conference I attended several years ago. The conference was about barriers to service in dementia care. Meaning, we know there’s a problem, and help is available, so why isn’t everyone taking advantage of the available help? What’s the barrier?

The one bit that still sticks with me is that 30% of all dementia care partners will never accept help because they’ve lost all hope that anything in their situation could ever be different.

I was thunderstruck as the words left the speaker’s mouth, and it still breaks my heart every time I think about it, all these years later.

You have to believe

There’s sort of an unspoken part to the Tony Robbins approach to change: before you take action, somewhere, deep down, you have to believe that your situation can improve. That any action you take will actually have a pay off. That there’s reason to have hope. The 30% doesn’t have that.

The speaker’s point about the 30% was that we as service providers and allied professionals need to stop wasting time on trying to make a difference with the 30%. We need to focus on the 70% we can help, where we can make a difference. I remember I felt somewhat relieved, validated that I wasn’t a total idiot who mostly had great success but sometimes failed spectacularly. See? It wasn’t my fault; they didn’t want help!

But sometimes you just can’t

For years, I followed that advice. I concentrated on the 70%. I know I’ve made a positive impact in people’s lives, and I feel good about that. Somewhere along the line, though, the 30% really started bothering me. I realized I’d conflated don’t want help with lost all hope. That’s actually a Grand Canyon-size difference.

 

A Tsunami of Overwhelm

We know that care partners have a higher rate of depression than their non-care partner cohorts. And it’s often untreated. Depression is one of those terms thrown around so much now that I think it’s become easy to sort of gloss over it: Yeah, it’s a fact of life, just like stress. Oh well.

But I’m talking about what it feels like to be a care partner who’s getting swept away in a tsunami of overwhelm. The kind that leads to losing all hope.

 

More of The Same

Doesn’t it sound reasonable to lose all hope if you wake up in the morning knowing that your day is going to be more of the same: a stack of paperwork and bills that still needs dealt with, a full-grown person you love dearly (and who can jump up and down on your very last nerve) who needs your hands-on help throughout the day, a pile of laundry, a sink of dishes, weeds in the garden….

Add in the details of your own day. If you’re generally in good shape, hallelujah! If you’re in a place, though, where it all feels so overwhelming that the thought of brushing your teeth seems like a heavy lift, well….I think that’s how people become part of the 30%.

 

Drowning

It’s not that they’re impervious; it’s that they’re drowning. Doesn’t losing all hope seem like a perfectly reasonable response to untreated depression? Doesn’t untreated depression seem like a Duh! outcome to not enough hours in the day to get to a doctor appointment?

If you’re part of the 30%, or think you may be flirting dangerously close to it, here’s what I want you to know: you’re not alone. I’m on the other side of your screen. It’s true that I’ve never cared for a parent or partner living with dementia, so I don’t know what it feels like to be you, to be in your position.

I’ve been in your neighborhood, though, with five grandparents who died of dementia and having served over 1100 people living with dementia and their families in a professional capacity. I know it’s hard, and I know it’s overwhelming at times.

 

Been There, Done That

I also know what it’s like to have depression take hold, to lose all hope. I know what it’s like to feel embarrassed and ashamed. It’s hard to put one foot in front of the other. It’s hard to pick up the phone. Everything just feels hard.

Years ago, my then-husband and I were in the process of adopting a pair of siblings, Savannah, 5, and Amelia, 3. The ladybug-themed room was ready. (Ladybugs because I finally felt lucky!) Years of infertility treatments were nothing more than a rare bad memory. Everything I’d gone through to that point had all been worth it, obviously.

The whole thing fell apart the night before it was supposed to happen. I wanted to claw my own skin off. I wanted to call my parents, to be pulled into that safety net of their voices 700 miles away. But I didn’t call, not right away. I was too ashamed. I mean, something was seriously wrong with me, clearly. The universe understood in its infinite wisdom that, no matter the method, I just didn’t deserve to be a mom.

Fear of homeless was the only thing that got me out of bed and into work every morning. My costume for Halloween that year was “Clinical Depression.” I pretty much just rolled out of bed and went to work that day, free to show on the outside what I was on the inside.

I know that my experience isn’t the same as what you go through every day, and in no way do I mean to minimize your experience. What I’m saying, though, is that I do know what it’s like to be one of the 30% who has lost all hope, to dwell in the dark place.

 

A Lifeline

You don’t have to stay stuck in the dark place. Membership in the 30% Club doesn’t have to be the lifetime option.

Whether it’s to readers, audience members, or client families, I always make the same promise: I’ll never try to talk you out of your feelings. And I mean that. Feelings just are; there’s no right or wrong.

Some feelings suck. They suck the life out of you. They feel so far past awful that awful seems like it would be a leap in the right direction. So if you don’t want that anymore, if you have even the tiniest little glimmer of an idea, a smidge of a sliver of hope that maybe something in your situation could change for the better, just hit “reply” to this email, leave a comment, or email info@DementiaSherpa.com. I’ll follow up with you.

No matter what, know that you’re not alone. You’re not the only one who’s ever felt this way. You’re not the only one who’s ever been in this situation.

If where you are just isn’t serving you anymore, know that you don’t have to be part of the 30%. And know that, as always, I’m rooting for you and sending you loads of love.

 

Christy Turner is the founder of DementiaSherpa.com and has enjoyed the privilege of working with 1,123 people living with dementia and their families. Follow on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. Content varies across platforms.