Continued from page 39 She helps her chair-bound 85-year-old mom,
goes to graduate school and teaches nursing, while going through a divorce. She says it’s a “dai- ly challenge to attend to everyone’s needs and still make time to find my own head space and attend to my needs.” She looks for the physical signs she needs to do so. “When I am stressed now, I pay attention to
my physical manifestations: lower back tighten- ing, scattered in my thoughts, and my jaw hurts from clenching it tightly. I stop and do something to deactivate the nervous system that controls fight or flight response. I try to slow my breath- ing, find a rocking chair or stretch. 15 minutes works best, but even five minutes helps.” Te stress of caretaking children with autism
or substance abuse can wreak havoc in the family, causing co-dependency issues. “It’s about caregiv- er fatigue, [because] parents are running interfer- ence for their child all the time,” says Patricia Em- brescia, a clinical social worker in Chagrin Falls. Caregivers to a parent with Alzheimer’s may feel the same. “Tese categories have similar symptoms: car-
rying the weight of the world on your shoulders, and the need for creating boundaries and getting help,” says Embrescia. Also important, says Kinsberg, is for women to
talk to other women, getting validation. “If you’re always thinking about what’s in your head, it be- comes bigger than what it is.” Lisa Cole-Weselek of Jackson Township tries
to balance it all. While her husband and her ex- husband are both deployed, she helps run a res- taurant and takes care of her three children. She mostly feels stress when the children are fighting and she worries about her 12-year- old. “Middle school is hard enough for young girls,
but she’s dealing with Dad in one war zone and her stepfather in the other,” Cole-Weselek says.
“Set reasonable goals to be ‘good enough.’ Women are always feeling ‘less than,’ but the model should be ‘good enough.’”
She combats stress by doing weights, cardio
and step aerobics. “Te YMCA of Northern Ohio is kind to military families. Tey offer a one year membership to families of deployed soldiers. Tey’ve recognized deployments add stress to the family nucleus.” She also keeps her sense of hu- mor, joking she should enlist in Afghanistan. “Perhaps the Taliban would actually be afraid
of a screaming, stressed out American mother,” she says. So how can women create this time for them-
selves? Schedule it. If the gym or a massage is on the calendar, you’re less likely to skip. “Set reasonable goals to be ‘good enough.’
Women are always feeling ‘less than,’ but the model should be ‘good enough,’” advises Kins- berg. “Set a reasonable pace, set a schedule you can maintain to take care of your loved ones, yourself, friends, your lover and career ambitions.
If you let them go too far down on the list instead of giving them attention, you can’t…maintain very long without negative consequences. You might lose a relationship, career or friend.” “A mother doesn’t consider her health when
her child is missing or in a mental hospital, or in jail,” says Kelly. “Sometimes it’s only when the body says ENOUGH that mothers do anything to help ourselves.” “We need an understanding we can’t do it all,”
says Embrescia. “We can’t provide 24/7 care with- out getting help, counseling and spiritual guid- ance….People don’t want a support group, they don’t think they’re like ‘them.’ But then they step through those doors and immediately relax and feel at home.” Such is the case with Kelly. While Kelly helped
her daughter — who is now sober, out of jail and taking medication — she helps herself by laugh- ing with Rosie O’Donnell’s radio show, exercising with a trainer and joining Al-Anon. “It was a small group of professional women.
Tey actually talked about their situations. I real- ized I wasn’t alone. Other people — good parents — had dealt with these issues too. Te therapy and the Al-anon group saved my life and my sanity…I had a couple of hours each week where I would totally relax.” Women coping with stress don’t have to go it
alone. Adds Embrescia, “We may come from a lot of stoicism, but there is help out there.”
Kristine Meldrum Denholm is a freelance journalist covering family issues and psychology, and a mother of three.
40 FAMILY MAGAZINE
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