personality Archives - The Practical Caregiver Guides

Grant Wood — “American Gothic”
STOICISM IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

Is your loved one a concrete thinker or a romantic at heart? Is he or she competitive or cooperative? Type A or Type B? Meat and potatoes every night or a seeker of exotic foodie experiences?

You may not consciously think about your loved one’s personality when it comes to patient care, but maybe you should. When disease or illness takes center stage, your loved one’s coping skills will be affected by how he or she views the world and interacts with it.

I’ve known plenty of patients, especially those going through cancer treatments, who have specific emotional support needs.

For someone who is used to being proactive, a cancer diagnosis is often followed by a plan of attack. If Marissa is used to tackling tough situations with action, expect her to do the same when she is hit with a need for major surgery.

If Phillip is used to coming to grips with a problem by analyzing it from ten different directions before making up his mind, expect him to do the same when the oncologist sets his options in front of him. He is likely to weigh each option over and over again until he is certain he has chosen wisely.

If Robin finds herself at a crossroads in the cancer situation and she usually takes things to heart, expect that she will be caught up in the emotional quagmire and help her to do what she needs to do to get through this challenge. Her emotions are likely to prevent her from moving forward. No amount of nagging is likely to help. She needs to regain her belief that life can again be good before she can actively participate in recovering her health.

And if Tom’s usual reaction to bad news is to get on his high horse and wave his sword into the air as he rides off to slay the dragon and protect his castle, be prepared for that. There will be lots of noise as he psyches himself up to attack the beast that has invaded his body and disrupted the sanctity of his kingdom. If this is what Tom needs to find the courage to fight, that’s just his personality gearing up to succeed.

Mary Cassatt — “Young Mother Sewing”
THE “DETERMINED TO STAY BUSY”
STRATEGY

We all have our personalities and our quirks, even when we are healthy. But when a loved one is ill, that’s often the time we see personality come to the forefront.

Sometimes romantics have a hard time dealing with all of the facts of disease and disease progression. They need to keep an emotional distance from reality in order to maintain as much hope as possible.

Those folks who are very grounded in reality actually tend to resent any effort to paint a rosy picture. They want the cold, hard facts, so they can beat back the threat.

Can you see now why it is so important to understand your loved one’s personality in order to provide the best kind of physical, mental, and emotional support?

For people who are used to driving directly from Point A to Point B, they will react to any obstacles in the road with their usual persistence. For people who like to wander on the road of life, they will mourn their inability to continue their adventures. How do you, as a caregiver, cope with that?

You may notice that your dad, the experienced businessman, insists on doing as much work as he can while he’s going through chemotherapy, even when the medication causes side effects. As a caregiver, it’s your job to help him through the process in a way that doesn’t raise his hackles. It’s important to help him maintain as much of his quality of life as is possible. So, while you may be tempted to call him a control freak, he is using his personality to cope with the fact that he’s been sidelined and he’s doing what he can to get back into the game.

Edvard Munch — “The Scream”
THE EMOTIONAL MELT-DOWNERS

Or you may notice that your dearest friend, Anna, is absolutely devastated by her breast cancer diagnosis and just wants to hide away at home. How can you, as her caregiver, help her to locate her “motivation button” when she’s blown away by the reality she now faces and is ready to surrender?

Motivation is an important component in fighting a serious illness. Patients who believe that the fight is worth the effort are far more likely to take their medications appropriately and consistently, but only as long as it seems to have a reward attached to it.

For people diagnosed with diseases like cancer, there are often times when it is nearly impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. When a patient loses his or her appetite, the weight loss can pose a serious risk. And when a patient thinks there is no point in even trying to fight the disease, that’s likely to result in a poor outcome.

When patients are at their most vulnerable, how we interact with them can make all the difference. Do we want to trigger neurotic behavior by heightening fears and planting seeds of doubt? Do we want to protect our loved ones’ sense of mastery, of optimism, by recognizing that each patient has inner strengths to call upon in times of crisis? If you know your loved one has faced difficult times in the past and has survived them by determination and resolve, isn’t that something you want to bolster now? Remind him or her of previous challenges that seemed impossible, but were won.

Too often when a loved one is challenged by the stress and pressure of healing, or dealing with medications or physical issues (like brain tumors), the sense of loss of self is tremendously impacted by a lack of coherence about the illness. It’s difficult to cope with so much uncertainty. By keeping things on an even keel, family caregivers offer their loved ones a semblance of sanctuary. Who doesn’t want to feel that there is a “safe place” to go to escape the constant reminders of illness?

Leonardo Da Vinci — “Mona Lisa”
THE “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON”
APPROACH

That raises an important point for people who like to vent. Not everyone else does. If you feel like raging against the beast your loved one is facing, but your loved one just wants to put it aside and do something constructive, you may not be helping when you insist your loved one gets in touch with his or her emotions. Some people actually need to step away from their emotions in order to get through difficult challenges. By accomplishing tasks that have intrinsic meaning for them, they build self-confidence and self-esteem that help them get through the tough times.

On the other hand, if your loved one needs to vent, you can be helpful to him or her by engaging in conversations that respect and appreciate the insights offered. It can be cathartic to spill those scary emotions. It doesn’t always require that caregivers put Band-Aids on the emotional wounds. Sometimes when we become good listeners, we give our loved ones the opportunity to sort out their emotions and to make decisions about how they want to live their lives in the “new normal” world.

We caregivers are the wind beneath the wings of our loved ones. It’s not our job to tell the people who are going through such health challenges what they should or shouldn’t do. But we can help them by understanding how to engage their personal strengths through understanding what makes them tick. By recognizing how they see the challenges they face, we can often help to point them in a positive direction and give them the right kind of support, the kind of support that restores as much of their personal power as possible.

And at the same time, we should also consider our own personality types. If you’re a romantic and you’re overwhelmed by your husband’s Parkinson’s diagnosis, you’re going to have to find a way to come to terms with his situation in a way that makes good sense to you. You will have to understand that your love and your kindness will have the biggest impact when you take your cues from your husband. If he says he’s is coping, accept that answer and find out what he wants from you. If you feel emotionally overwhelmed, find a relative, friend, or wise counselor who is capable of acting as your sounding board, especially if your husband doesn’t have the strength to be your rock at the moment.

If you’re a busy bee, constantly fussing over your mother when she’s recovering from surgery, you’ll probably be on the receiving end of a lecture that makes you feel like you’re six years old once more. Once you understand that you’re driving her bananas with your constant activity, you’ll be able to step back a bit and stop stressing her out. Mothers can sometimes feel incredibly guilty when their children have to take care of them. When we make it seem like less of a chore and more of a pleasure for us, by sharing conversation, companionship, and comfort, we make everything more copacetic.

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Is cancer a case of mind over matter? Can we engage one to more positively affect the other? And if so, what roles do personality and perception play in cancer treatment?

Here I am in sunny Goodyear, Arizona, at a Bloggers’ Summit sponsored by Cancer Treatment Centers of America. The weather is fabulous, especially given all the chilly winds and white snow I left behind. Last night I sat out under the stars with the group of fellow bloggers, almost all of them cancer survivors. We laughed for hours, sharing stories. There wasn’t a Shrinking Violet or Vinny among them. Each has his or her own story about cancer, and in coming together, it was an engaging banquet of food for thought.

Which makes me wonder about the power of personality and perception in fighting cancer. We can’t really change personality. People are who and what they are. Each of us sees the world in unique ways, and once you understand where we’re coming from, you can adjust your message to be better heard. But it’s never one-size-fits-all. Men and women tend to process information differently,but within that construct, individuals are sometimes stronger in some areas than others. When I say the word “cancer”, your perception of the disease is based on your own personal experiences with people you know who have battled it, but also on what you know about the public information that’s out there. What pieces of the puzzle are you missing? What you don’t know can and will hurt you and your loved one, especially if you’re wrong in your perceptions.

As a cancer caregiver, you can’t change the personality of your loved one, nor should you, but will an understanding of him or her help you provide the right kind of support? It makes me wonder if there should be a different approach to cancer for a Type A personality than for a Type B personality. Maybe people who are go-getters will do better if they are armed with information they can use to motivate themselves — statistics, goals, and your basic business plan. That’s just how they roll in real life and we should respect that. Maybe people who are go-with-the-flow-ers will do better if they are allowed to function in the way that enables them to do what works for them — forget about the details and the Devil, and just live in the moment. That’s how they do things and there’s nothing wrong with that. To each his own.

Over and over again last night, I heard a similar theme. Cancer patients and survivors get treated differently than people without. Right there, you know that’s going to have an impact on life. We aren’t at the point where we ignore cancer once it’s happened. It’s like stink on a skunk, trailing behind the cancer patient. One whiff and folks disappear. The last thing anyone wants is to feel people pulling away emotionally, mentally, and sometimes even physically. That’s a lot of stress to live with when you’re already trying to get back to the new “normal”.

What does it take to rise above that and engage the mind in the healing process? If you think about the role the brain plays for the human body, it’s really a head game in many ways. The head operates the rest of the body systems, so tapping into that energy and directing it in positive ways should make a difference, shouldn’t it? If it’s the head making the decisions about what happens, how does the brain move through the decision-making process to the best advantage?

We sometimes seem to forget the brain is divided into two hemispheres, right and left. Concrete and creative. That’s where perception comes into play. Perception is information-based. And when there’s a lack of information, the creative brain will fill in the blanks. That’s sometimes dangerous, because we can begin to believe things that just aren’t true. The body will act on the misperception. If you input more information and expand the knowledge of a subject, the brain will adapt to accommodate the change, but only when there is recognition things have changed. The mind has to send a signal — “Hey, guys! We’ve got new intelligence on this thing. Look it over and make adjustments.” The more you know that is evidenced-based, the more rational the decision-making. You can actually change a person’s emotions by changing his or her perception of the subject. All the more reason to make a positive effort. So, what does happen when you have strong personalities that can weather the storm and see beyond it? That’s when your mind works with your body to overcome the challenge that is cancer. You have to believe that what you’re facing is “doable”, and even more importantly, worth doing.

The people I sat with last night are the living proof the battle is worth it. Vibrant and alive are two words that describe them. But their cancer experiences surely played a role in awakening the personality to take on the fight. For several people, it seemed that cancer put a focus on their lives they didn’t have before. They no longer waste time on people who waste life. They take more chances because they want the chances they take to mean something. They live a far more intense experience because of cancer, not in spite of it. Maybe they would have done the same if their lives had been challenged by some other life-transforming moments, because it would have given the personality a chance to strut its stuff. In that sense, it’s the challenges, not the cancer, that benefited the individuals.

Maybe the more we understand how cancer works, the better we can teach cancer management. We can begin to understand that cancer didn’t just appear over night. It took it’s time setting up shop in the body, hiding out, lurking. When the concrete mind begins to pay attention to new symptoms, when the creative mind begins to believe it’s possible to change the outcome, won’t the mind be better able to direct the body to focus on what’s important at each moment in time, whether it’s taking the difficult cancer treatment that will make a difference or learning to relax and not let the fear fill your head?

A house divided can’t stand. The structure, the foundation, will eventually fall. A cancer patient at war with his creative and concrete minds will be struggling to understand what the immediate picture is and what the future picture can be. What you believe about cancer is every bit as important as the scans, blood tests, and other measures of the disease within the body. If your perception is based on a fantasy, that cancer can be wished away magically, the concrete mind isn’t likely to buy that claim. If it’s based on evidence that what is done can and will have a more positive outcome, the creative mind can begin to look for ways to work with the concrete mind to get the body what it really needs. Does the personality help to determine how that perception plays inside the head?

As cancer treatments have evolved, our understanding of the types of effective medications, radiology, and surgery have also expanded. We know cancer isn’t one disease — there are hundreds of types of cancer. The more we hone how well specific treatments work on specific cancers, the better the outcome. I believe the same is true for the cancer survivor’s mind. The more we understand individual differences in human beings and how their brains process information on cancer, the better we can help and support our loved ones to fully engage according to their ability to perceive the disease. Some people are always going to want to know every little detail, others are not. When we respect our loved ones’ comfort zones and apply our care to fit their real needs, we’re giving them the real support that will help them face this foe.