The Person Behind the Caregiver: Identity Shifts
- Stacey Smith
- May 3
- 6 min read
Updated: May 4
Have you ever struggled to find yourself outside of caregiving? Me too.
I thought the birth of my daughter would enhance my identity. Instead, it became the catalyst for breaking my core to find the real one. I felt pure joy when my husband announced through tears, "It's a girl!" She had ten beautiful fingers and the same number of toes. I felt both joy and relief in delivering a healthy baby.
The next day, everything changed. The hospital staff looked uneasy, instructing us not to let anyone into our house due to a new virus. A couple of days later, the governor announced a shutdown because of COVID-19. We reluctantly locked down with our infant.
I was terrified. It took us ten years to get pregnant.
Thank goodness for technology – at least my mom could see her beautiful grandchild via FaceTime. But I grieved at the start of my daughter's life. The warm circle of family and friends I had imagined gathering around us had vanished overnight.
After staying home for three months, I tried returning to my career, but the CEO threatened to make me come back to the office when pandemic infant childcare was impossible to find. I was forced to resign.
The gravity of that decision hit me weeks later, settling into my skin like a cold fog. I'm not a career mom. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I felt ashamed because the life I expected wasn't lining up in the tidy straight line I had imagined. My husband went back to work and wasn't home much. It wasn't his fault. He needed to run his company to support our newly one income household, but I resented his life going back to normal. During lockdowns, I had no help, and sometimes... I just cried and cried and cried some more. My sobs echoing off the nursery walls became a familiar companion.
On the other hand, I literally jumped for joy the moment she rolled over. Just imagine the delight I experienced the day she walked. Being a stay-at-home mom was both a pleasure and a pain. Pain wasn't real, but I didn't understand that at the time. Pain was a mismatch of the future I imagined and reality.
I missed my family, friends, and co-workers, as well as the satisfaction of analyzing complex problems that didn't involve diaper contents or feeding schedules. The slowing of our schedule felt glorious sometimes. Stretchy pants, baby cuddles and coos, with nowhere to rush, sounds lovely these days.
From 18 months to three and a half years old, our daughter's journey forced more career stops and starts than I would have liked. An in-home daycare that made me scratch my head – why was my tiny daughter always looking out the front door like a dog when I picked her up? An official daycare that landed her in an arm cast not once, but twice, forced my second resignation.
Then, the most significant moment of all: a stage four cancer diagnosis at three and a half years old. I was three weeks into a new job that finally matched my skills and experience.
I didn't even think about staying. I quit nearly immediately, against the advice of the hospital's social work team. My baby needed me more than any company ever would.
I'm terrified of looking for a job. Each time I returned to work, it triggered a new, unbelievably hard challenge. I experienced FOMO as I sat in the hospital for the third month in a row, watching the complaint texts from friends about their jobs scroll by on my phone.
I secretly love to work, which hasn't been in the cards for me for five years. Later in the journey, I realized I didn't love the jobs as much as the ability to challenge myself to learn something new and connect with fantastic people every weekday.
It took about a year and a half inside the walls of a children's hospital – the beeping of monitors becoming as familiar as birdsong – to slowly unwind my programming about career aligning with my identity.
I felt guilty for not forging close connections with other parents on the oncology floor. Don’t get me wrong, I managed to make friendly small talk. My daughter always required someone to be with her, or she would call the nurse’s station asking for a companion.
My heart broke for my child, and I wondered if I could manage anyone else’s pain. Sometimes I couldn’t help but let the sadness in the air seep into our lives. Other times, we benefited from the joy of hearing children ring the end-of-treatment bell. One of the most beautiful sounds I never knew I needed to hear. One of the seasoned nurses observed my decision to focus on our daughter, and she gave me the equivalent of a gold star for putting my focus where it needed to be. It’s what I needed to hear to let go of this guilt. Her eyes held the weight and wisdom of someone who understood completely.
At the end of treatment, we connected with parents who went through a similar struggle. The mom and I bonded over being thrust into caretaker roles without warning. Neither of us regrets this decision. Life forces detours that require us to love someone suffering up close and in a way that abandons the life we thought we wanted.
I don't believe the lie about life being this beautiful, upward, always joyful climb to the top of the mountain. It's weird. Instead of FOMO, I'm starting to feel sorry that people don't get to rebuild their soul during a quest they never asked to endure. However, I will always prefer not to watch our daughter suffer. Ever.
I still feel a little bit sad for myself, too. I've missed so much traditional life. I feel even sorrier for my daughter, who missed two years of preschool and just got the opportunity to start school again. I feel bad for my mom, who missed many fun grandparent spoiling moments.
Perhaps we've gained something too?
There's wisdom that comes from struggling on this deep level. Many lessons we learned rapidly while life slowed down for smaller, more satisfying moments. I remember the feel of my daughter's small, warm hand in mine as we walked laps around the oncology floor—when she let me hold her hand, of course. Ancient Celtic saints described "thin places" where heaven and earth meet—cuddling a peaceful child sleeping, the quiet moments of hand-holding—these become our "thin places."
There's a quest to strip away the façade society places on what it looks like to be a good, productive human. I'm not ashamed of being a caretaker now. It's the most incredible honor of my life thus far.
I'm very thankful for the opportunity to look in my daughter's eyes nearly every moment of this journey. I watched her sky blue eyes become even brighter as she lost her hair. I got to see her dimples all the time, tiny crescents appearing with each brave smile. She showed me it's possible to keep feeling joy and pain, have fun and feel sad, run and rest. These paradoxes must be felt or experienced together according to the ancient (circa 8th century BCE) Taoist concept of yin-yang found in "The Book of Changes" and the "Tao Te Ching." Our caregiving teaches us to hold both light and shadow and to trust that by holding them both, we can find greater harmony.
Life isn't one upward emotional or financial climb. It's okay to struggle. It's OK to feel joy while you struggle. It's OK if you don't. Many things happen together.
I used to deny my feelings and pretend. But the truth is, I can laugh and cry simultaneously. I can also be kind, thoughtful, and intelligent. I can feel agony and be okay. In our darkest caregiving moments, we sometimes find illumination we never sought but desperately need.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
―Rumi
I've cried through meetings with oncologists and asked my questions anyway.
I've seen the most intelligent, compassionate people I've ever met have high and low point moments, too. I accept hugs more readily now, and I accept help. I'm different in so many ways, yet I'm the same.
The career piece of life may never define my identity again, and that's okay. This gave me time to explore my core. I'm not an analyst, a manager, or a leader of people. I am love. I am resilient. I am okay. Love is the only thing any of us can offer. We have less control over life than we think.
I love learning, joking, creating, playing, connecting, and praying. I love sunrises and sunsets and watching nature go dormant, bloom, stay steady, and display awe-inspiring colors before hibernating again. Life feels much more seasonal than I originally imagined.
It's okay if your life isn't what you imagined. It's OK to grieve the loss of what you expected. It's also OK to discover unexpected beauty in what is.
If you're reading this and feeling the weight of caregiving pressing down on your shoulders, know this: you are not alone. Your identity is not lost – it's transforming. The Buddhist teaching from the Lotus Sutra says, "The flower blooms out of the mud." Our struggles as caregivers are that mud that transforms us into something more beautiful and resilient, like the Lotus flower. Your caregiving isn't diminishing you -- it's revealing your truest self. Have you recognized the warrior, the healer, the love embodied that you've become?
What part of yourself have you discovered through this journey that you never knew existed?
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