You spend hours, days, weeks, months, years, becoming more and more isolated as caregiving takes over your life. Well intentioned friends and family who offered to help in the beginning drop out of your life as they tend to their own families and jobs. When they do come to visit they see Mom or Dad on their best behavior. Somehow he or she is able to connect with reality long enough to convince visitors they are so much better than they really are. They may even accuse you of abusing them or robbing them causing distrust and confusion within the family.
If only your visitors could see your parent beg to go home for hours or cower in fear because they no longer know who you are.
Fortunately there are now ways to make that happen and I encourage you to use them especially if your family members are too far away to visit often. They may not be able to come in and relieve you but they might be able to help in other ways once they see how much you are doing every day.
Don’t let distance keep family in the dark. The more they know the better chance you have that someone will step up to help.
Communication is key, no matter how you make it happen. Use any and all resources available to you including one or more of the ones listed below.
I urge you to take full advantage of video chatting to share your experiences and make it far more difficult for others to say, “I wish I had known how hard it was. I would have been there for you.”
Listed below are a number of resources to keep communication open.
Tango, etc.
Phone
If you are using, or have used, any of the resources listed above to reach out to family and friends please share your thoughts on how well it works or worked for you. I look forward to hearing from you.
The Imperfect Caregiver 
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