Online therapy for disability & caregiving in AR
It’s not a question of if you can reclaim a meaningful life. It’s a question of how!
Counseling support for people adapting to disability or caregiving. Navigate the changes and reclaim a life of purpose and connection.
Disability can turn your world upside down.
Whether it happened slowly over time or suddenly, the presence of a disability in your life or the life of someone important to you can bring on so many changes and struggles. You might be experiencing effects related to dealing with change such as anxiety or depression. You may have trauma related to the events that led to the disability.
The resources that exist to help can be impossible to find or are an endless sea of red tape. It seems like no one is really listening to you. They make a lot of assumptions about your situation and give you a “one size fits all” response.
Hope seems like a luxury you don’t have anymore and learning to adapt seems pointless. Where to even begin?
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You're not only struggling to find hope in your situation but having to deal with learning to live with a new set of challenges and limitations. Disability can not only change how others view you, it can change how you see yourself.
Daily tasks that used to be so easy now seem so much more challenging and frustrating.
You get angry at yourself for struggling with things that used to be so simple or tell yourself that it’s not fair this happened to you.
You feel stuck, hoping for a miracle or wishing you could turn back time to avoid what happened.
You feel grief over the loss of life as it was before.
You blame yourself for the changes that others in your life are making as they learn to support you.
You may be struggling with a loss of independence, depending on the disability.
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You have your own unique challenges. You might be the partner, child, parent, or friend of the person and are trying your best to be supportive and helpful, but this is a time of change for you as well.
You sometimes get frustrated by the situation, which then turns into negative feelings about the person.
You then feel guilty for getting frustrated by or angry at the person.
You tell yourself you’ll have to do everything for them, which can lead to feelings of resentment.
You may have become overprotective and enable the person’s feelings of helplessness because you worry about their health and safety when they act independently.
You have no idea where to begin in supporting and encouraging them in reclaiming a life worth living.
You know self-care is important as a caregiver, but it feels like a luxury you don’t have.
Either way, you’re overwhelmed and lost, not knowing where to begin to acknowledge and adapt to the changes.
Accepting that this has happened feels like giving up, yet you can’t deny the reality that change has happened. Thinking about moving forward makes you feel anxious and confused. Thinking about not moving forward makes you feel depressed and stuck.
The world beyond your walls seems scary in a way you’ve never known before. You think about how people might stare at you or treat you differently now. You wonder how you’ll ever be able to move through the world, advocate for yourself, and feel and be seen as a capable adult. What kind of changes will you need to work and take care of general life, let alone do anything enjoyable?
You know there are ways to adapt out there. Other people do it.
But where to start?
There is hope. You can adapt. You can create a life worth living anew. Therapy can help.
Your life has changed. That part is undeniable, but there are still possibilities. There’s a path ahead in which you can understand your feelings are natural but also not be dominated by them. You will feel frustrated at times as you adapt to your situation. You’ll feel sad and you’ll get angry.
And that’s okay.
But you can also have those feelings and not get pulled into a pit of despair and hopelessness. You can learn to manage them in a way that doesn’t deny them but also doesn’t let them control you as you adapt.
You can figure out a path forward that helps bring meaning and richness back into life, even with the changes that have happened.
It’s not a question of if something can be done. It’s a question of how you can do it differently with the changes you’ve experienced.
How therapy for disability and caregiving helps.
Our work together will meet you where you’re at right now and start to think about the future when you’re ready. This is a big adjustment and there is no right or wrong way to proceed - only what is right for you at your pace. Often, however, there are some key areas of work.
Express
Dealing with the onset of a disability and adapting to it involve a lot of challenging thoughts and feelings. And all too often you don’t get a space to express these because the people around you, even supportive ones, are uncomfortable with the reality of your situation. So they offer sympathies and platitudes that aren’t really helpful.
We’ll give you the time and space to express all of your thoughts and feelings and with the understanding that they are valid. But we’ll work on untangling yourself from them so that you can start to move beyond where you’re at right now.
Explore
Once you feel ready to start adapting to your circumstances, we’ll explore practical solutions to help. This might include details like identifying support services in the community that can help you with adaptive training, acquiring special tools and equipment, and advocacy groups.
We’ll also brainstorm creative solutions that think outside the box that helping professionals may not think of. These are often small, day-to-day things that help you adapt to the life you need and want to live. They may even be unconventional things that involve a bit of thinking outside of the box.
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Finally, we can start to look ahead at restoring a sense of joy and purpose beyond the new challenges of daily living.
We’ll look at your core values and the things that are important to you. These are the things that bring meaning into your life such as your career, your hobbies, new things you’d like to try, and building your confidence in your ability to navigate the world with new challenges as well as advocate for yourself when needed.
It’s not easy, and you may not think it’s possible right now, but you can do it!
It seems impossible right now, but you can adapt. The presence of disability in your life has led to changes in how you live, but it has not changed who you are deep within. The part of you that exists at your core and serves as your guiding light is still there.
We can work through the things that have you feeling lost and stuck without denying those feelings. We can take the seemingly impossible and turn it into small, achievable steps. We can navigate the highs, lows, frustrations, and triumphs of the adaptation process.
We can rekindle your light and let it guide you.
You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Click the link below to schedule a free, 20-minute consultation call. Then, we’ll talk at that time to answer any questions you have about our work together so you can decide if it feels like a good fit. No pitches. No pressure.
FAQ for Counseling for Disability and Caregiving
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It's true, therapy won't make the situation go away. It won't improve your mobility, restore your sight, or take away chronic pain or illness. But it can change how you react and relate to your circumstances.
The presence of disability in your life or the life of someone you care about threatens to take away all hope for a life of meaning and joy. How will you work now? How will you pursue the hobbies and activities you enjoyed before your situation changed?
I won't blow a bunch of sunshine at you and tell you it won't suck at times or be challenging even when you learn to adapt. You'll have to deal with things that most people don't deal with or take for granted. But, I can tell you that you absolutely can create a life that gives you a sense of purpose - even with the challenges. -
Unfortunately, you’re right. We have no control over the world around us and how people react to us. Many people, unfortunately, are not aware of how to accommodate disabilities. Businesses are sometimes ignorant of what is required by them under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Even government offices are sometimes not properly equipped with required accommodations under the ADA.
As the partner of someone with a disability and a queer person, myself, I understand how tiring it is sometimes to move through a world that doesn’t understand you. Having to advocate for yourself gets exhausting. Choosing to let something go without advocating feels like you’re letting yourself down.
These thoughts and feelings can eat at you and pile up. While therapy can’t change the world around us, it can help in managing the feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety, and fatigue that comes with existing as someone who is different from what society calls “normal.” -
That’s completely natural. There’s a lot to figure out and it can be very confusing. That is where having someone to brainstorm with is helpful - especially someone who has been in a similar situation.
My partner and I struggled when she acquired a visual disability. Support services were of little help because she had her own aspirations and dreams that didn't fit their cookie-cutter programs. There was so much to learn and adapt to that we didn't know where to start.
Often, it's not a question of finding the right place to start but just starting somewhere. But that can be hard when you're overwhelmed. Therapy can help you sort things out and develop a plan that feels approachable to you and your individual situation. We can help you start small and work up from there. -
One of my favorite quotes about this comes from Jeffery Marsh who said, “There is no harder than. There is only hard.”
While it’s true that the person you see struggling has some very tough and unique challenges, the fact is life has changed for you as well. You have your own story in this and your own struggles. As the partner of a person with a disability, I know how tempting it is to put all of the focus on them - but you deserve support as well.
They have their own unique struggles, but you also have yours.