Ep. 152 Midlife Caregiving's Invisible Weight & Coping Skills to Ease the Burden & Anxiety

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Feeling mentally drained by caring for both your kids and aging parents?
You might be carrying an invisible load that’s fueling your anxiety—and it’s more common than you think.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1.    3 transformative coping skills to ease the mental weight of caregiving.

2.    How to identify what’s  your responsibility and what isn’t to decrease

       overwhelm.          

3.    Why updating your expectations is essential for emotional clarity and peace

Give yourself permission to breathe again—tune in now and lighten your invisible load.

****

About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

Episode Transcript

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW (00:00):
In this episode, you'll discover how to
lighten the invisible weight ofmidlife caregiving.
Welcome to Creating MidlifeCalm, a podcast dedicated to
empowering midlife minds toovercome anxiety, stop feeling
like crap and become morepresent with your family, all
while achieving greater successat work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensedclinical social worker with over

(00:23):
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
Welcome to the podcast.
Are you caught in the middlecaring for aging parents while
still supporting your kids orgrandkids?
If so, you're not alone.
You're part of the sandwichgeneration.
And today we're talking aboutone of the heaviest and least

(00:44):
discussed burdens, the invisiblemental load of caregiving.
This episode isn't about thetasks you check off each day.
It's about the emotional strainthat lingers in your thoughts.
The part no one else sees, butyou.
By the end of this episode,you'll understand what I mean by
the invisible load ofcaregiving.

(01:05):
And I'll walk you through threecoping skills to help you
dissolve that load and give youback energy time, and that, oh,
so precious midlife, commoditysleep.
The invisible load isn't justabout what you do.
It's about what you carry inyour head and heart.
If caregiving were just aboutfinding summer camps or picking

(01:26):
up your parents' prescriptions,you'd probably feel like a
champion.
But caregiving is relational,not just a list of errands.
And while the tasks are frontand center, what hits hardest
often comes out of nowhere.
When your mind finally quiets.
You stop at a red light, go fora walk without earbuds, climb,

(01:47):
into bed at the end of a longday, and then the thoughts creep
in.
My parent doesn't seem trulyhappy.
My teenager, seems uninterestedin life.
I have no energy from mypartner.
That's the invisible load, theemotional weight you carry about
how the people you love aredoing.
It shows up unexpectedly and itfeels so heavy that you reach

(02:09):
for distractions just to avoidit.
Music, podcasts, scrolling,food, a glass of wine, anything
but that quiet sense of worry.
But here's the thing, you arealready carrying this load.
I'm not asking you to add onemore thing.
I'm offering you a way to setpart of it down.

(02:31):
Let's begin with your firstcoping skill.
Coping skill number one, makethe invisible visible.
Take off your invisibility capeand write down your concerns,
not with the intention of fixinganything.
Just to name them.
Your brain is wired to focus onthe negative.

(02:51):
These invisible worries live inthe shadows and shining light on
them is a form of mentaldecluttering.
Ask yourself, what am Iinvisibly worried about when it
comes to the people I love?
Let me share a story.
One client had recently welcomedher mother, who's in her mid
eighties and relatively healthyto live nearby between her job,

(03:14):
kids schedules, and now hermom's needs, she came into
session completely overwhelmed.
I.
I don't think my mom is happy,she said.
She's not doing much socially.
She's not exercising.
I handed her a piece of paperand I asked her to complete this

sentence (03:30):
in order for my mom to be happy, I should, and in about

12 seconds she wrote (03:34):
visit her daily, have her over to dinner
twice a week.
Help her sign up for a class.
Get the kids to visit her onweekends.
Take her to the kids' sportingevents, help her find a church.
I read the list back to her.
She looked at me and she said,well, what's wrong with that?
I said, gently, you're actinglike your mom has no agency.

(03:56):
This is her eighties not yours.
Why are you feeling responsiblefor all of her happiness?
Now let's look at anotherclient.
This time.
A mom worried about her teen sonin session.
She said, I don't think he'sdepressed, but he just doesn't
seem engaged in life.
Same exercise.

(04:17):
In order for my son to be moreengaged, I should...
she quickly wrote, help him finda job, encourage him to try an
instrument, suggest he date,check his grades, and my
personal favorite, see if hewants to weed the neighbor's
flower beds.
In both cases, these caregiverswere outta their lanes, as I
like to say.

(04:37):
They were giving away time,energy, and head space to
someone else's emotional andphysical life, trying to control
something that isn't theirs tomanage.
These were normal lifetransitions.
An aging parent adjusting to anew city, a teen navigating life
after sports.
Yes, they felt heavy, but theyweren't crises.

(04:59):
Your job isn't to be your lovedone's life coach or activities
director.
It's to support them.
Not carry them.
Which leads us to coping skillNumber two, put the obvious into
words and clarify your role.
This skill is more for you thanfor them.
Saying your role out loud notonly helps you reclaim your

(05:21):
lane, but stay in it and itquiets the mental chaos.
Don't overthink it.
Just say something like, Heymom, this is a big transition.
New city, new apartment, newfriends.
I'm happy to help you find achurch or a class whenever
you're ready.
What was her mom's response?
Oh, honey, I found a church.
I've gone three times.

(05:42):
It's great.
The other client, who had saidto her teen, who was no longer
playing a sport, I see youtrying to figure out what's
next.
If you want my helpbrainstorming, let me know.
His response, oh, mom, at firstI was disappointed I got cut
from varsity, but you know, Ikind of like having nothing to
do.

(06:02):
I'm gonna rest for a bit, thenI'm gonna go find a job.
These two caregivers had beenlosing sleep trapped in worse
case thinking.
And the people they were worriedabout, they were so comfy sleep
in the night through, doing justfine.
They just needed space toadjust.
Which of course leads us tocoping skill Number three, keep

(06:25):
updating.
One of the hardest parts ofcaregiving is accepting that
your loved ones keep changingand so does your role.
You might still see your parentas a vibrant 60-year-old who
hiked on weekends, but nowthey're 85.
Or you remember your kid as asocial butterfly, and now during
a quiet season ofself-reflection, it's

(06:47):
emotionally exhausting to keepupdating your internal pictures,
but it's essential to lightenyour load.
Sometimes you need to step inmore.
Other times you need to stepback and knowing which one is
needed depends on who they areright now, not who they used to
be.
My mom, for example, stoppedplaying bridge.

(07:08):
I kept encouraging her.
Don't forget it's bridge night.
One day she said to me, mj, Idon't play bridge anymore.
My memory just isn't goodenough.
That hit me hard.
I knew she had memory lossconnected to aging, but I hadn't
really accepted it.
Then I said to her.
Well, do you miss playingBridge?

(07:29):
She replied, not really.
It's just part of getting old.
It hurt me more than it hurther.
I realized I was trying to fixsomething that wasn't broken.
It was just the reality ofaging.
Meanwhile, my client's son,after a month of disengagement,
asked her for help finding ajob.
And if you've ever raised ateen, you know, requests like

(07:50):
this come loaded with landmines.
But it was a sign of himstepping forward.
Updating who your loved ones areis tough because it always asks
you to let go of some part ofwhat was.
In this episode, we explored howthe invisible emotional weight
of caregiving shows up ineveryday moments.

(08:12):
How it impacts your thoughts,drains your energy, and quietly
builds anxiety by making yourconcerns visible, clarifying
your role, and updating yourexpectations of the people you
love.
You can begin to carry less andcreate more calm in the midst of
your caregiving journey.

(08:32):
Caring for others is really whathumans are wired to do.
It isn't always easy, but with alittle self-awareness, it can be
very, very helpful andfulfilling.
So here's your inner challengefor this week.
Take 10 minutes to make yourinvisible caregiving load
visible.

(08:53):
Find a quiet space, grab a pieceof paper or open a blank
document and finish thissentence.
Without editing or planning whatcomes next.
When it comes to the people Ilove, I worry.
Let yourself write freely forfive minutes.
Don't fix anything, just nameit.
Then take a deep breath andcircle one concern you know

(09:16):
isn't entirely yours to carry.
That moment of recognition isyour cue to begin letting go.
Because letting go might just bethe heaviest, invisible load of
all.
That's why I'll be back onThursday with a special
follow-up episode letting go ofteens and parents.
For everyone in midlife caughtbetween generations doing your

(09:40):
best to support your loved oneswithout losing yourself in the
process.
You're doing more than you thinkand your invisible load, it
deserves to be seen.
If you wanna give yourself areal treat and soak in some
wisdom about caregiving, listento episode 44.

(10:00):
Mental Wellness and FamilyCaregiving.
It is one of my favorites.
Thanks for listening to creatingMidlife Calm.