Discussing Family Discord
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BJ Miller, Mettle Health founder, palliative care and hospice physician, and Claritza Rios, MD, Mettle Health counselor co-host an informal and interactive conversation on navigating relationships as relates to serious illness and end of life.
As with the rest of life, navigating illness, from any angle, is so much about our relationships. How do you relate to the people on the care team, or how do you relate to the person living with the illness? Is your relationship positive or strained? What past dynamics might creep in during crisis modes? Join us for a discussion on aspects of relationships that might change for the better, or worse, when our emotions are up. How to keep the patient at the center, when there are multiple voices in the mix?
We discuss:
0:00 Introductions
4:44 It’s important to think about the history of your relationships - what is your history? How does it affect your present?
7:00 We may sink to our lowest selves when dealing with crisis and the stress of illness, it may not magically turn your relationships into good ones
8:05 One person - the sick person- has a different relationship with everyone they know, and each one is a world unto itself
12:05 Reminder that we may be entering someone’s story at the end of it, that there is a whole life that has happened before this illness became part of a life. Ask how you can show up for someone
17:12 There will be changes in roles in your existing relationships: we may move from sister to nurse, or friend to admin - when this shifts, there is a lot of discord that can come up
22:44 What is the effect of illness? Do we become numb? Do we go inward? Do we get stressed? And one person’s illness may have a completely different effect on the people in the care circle
26:04 You need to find ways to shift with the new reality, allow for changes in yourself as well as the person who is ill
29:07 Intention matters. Think about the intention behind what you’re doing, why all these emotions are coming up.
32:55 Intention is not sufficient, but it does matter - it translates somewhere in your gut
35:00 Action also matters! There’s so much that has to HAPPEN as well
36:00 How do you know what “success” looks like? Success is individual and ever changing - what makes for this person’s best quality of life? What is success for the sick person? For the family structure?
43:52 How to bring the patient perspective to the discussion of family discord?
48:32 Family members/friend did not cause the cancer/dementia/illness, and it is also true that the patient did not cause the cancer/dementia/illness, we need to remember that for our own sanity
51:17 What do you do when an estranged sibling wants to erase difficult history and be a happy family again after years of conflict
54:36 How do you deal with a sibling who questions all your care choices when you are your parent’s designated proxy?
57:59 What are the options when a sibling is trying to cut out other family members from care and decision making?
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