In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

18. Facing and Overcoming The Worst Case Scenario in Caregiving

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 18

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As a caregiver, the worst-case scenarios can haunt you, often lurking in the back of your mind. Today, I want to share why confronting these fears head-on can actually lessen their power and help you recognize your strengths. During my husband’s cancer battle, my worst fear was losing him. This fear was a constant, shadowy presence, always threatening to overwhelm me, especially in the quiet hours of the night.

We often respond to fears in one of two ways: avoiding them or obsessing over them. Avoidance gives temporary relief but keeps the fear lurking, ready to resurface in the middle of the night. On the other hand, dwelling on fears leads to a spiral of "what ifs" that only magnifies anxiety. Neither approach helps us address the root cause of our fear.

Instead, I suggest bringing your worst-case scenario into the light. Think of it as a cluttered closet. Until you open the door and start sorting through the mess, it remains an overwhelming, undefined blob. Once you take a closer look, it becomes manageable. Similarly, by defining and examining your fears, you can start to see them clearly and find ways to cope.

Tune in and discover how to face your fears, feel more prepared, and reduce anxiety. You’re stronger than you think, and this episode will show you why.

Resources:
Facing The Worst Case Scenario When You Are Caregiving

Asking Good Questions

As a Resiliency Coach for people who are caregiving for their partner, I'm here to support YOU, the caregiver. Learn more about my work at www.coachmarika.com.

Marika Humphreys:

Hey caregivers and care partners out there, how are you? I'm doing well. I recently came back from a conference for cancer survivors and I'm part of a committee and we put this conference on every year and this year I was one of the co-chairs, so a lot of the responsibility fell on my shoulders, along with my partner, and we just had the conference. It went really well and I will tell you, it's always so inspiring hearing people's stories. Human beings are amazingly resilient and this year was no different. Some of the speakers we had told incredible stories and I just come back always so really kind of amazed at the human capacity for resilience and strength. And anyways, it was really a very successful event and feeling very good about that.

Marika Humphreys:

All right, today we're going to talk about the worst case scenario. No matter what your situation is, if you're caring for your partner, no matter what their health situation is, there is probably a scenario or two in your head that you pray to God never happens. We call these the worst case scenario, right, one or two things that you just hope never happens. You dread, you don't even want to think about. A lot of times, most of us don't even like to think about it, but today I'm going to make a case for why you should think about the worst case scenario, and by doing so you can actually take some of the fear away and figure out the ways that you're already strong enough to handle it if it were ever to happen. So first let's dive in and talk about fear, how we handle fear, or what most of us respond to our fears, what we do.

Marika Humphreys:

I think there's two common ways that people tend to respond to fears, and neither are particularly helpful. One way is we just avoid thinking about them altogether. We don't like to think about the things that we're afraid of. They scare the crap out of us, right. So we push our fears to the back of our mind, and that can work in the short term. But when we're busy during the day and our mind is occupied, it can be easier to push a fear or a worry to the back of your mind, push it away and sort of ignore it. But the problem with that approach is fear doesn't really go away. It just hides for a while and it usually comes back up when things are quiet, which for most people is sometime in the middle of the night or maybe at the end of the day I like to think about our biggest fear, like a big blob in a closet that we don't want to open. So we know it's there and we continually feel anxious and fearful but we just don't want to face it. These are the things that keep us up at night or that we wake up thinking about, because our mind will just wander back there. It'll have that awareness of that sort of big blob in the back of your mind. No matter how you try to push it away, it will come back right. You can't just mask it over with positivity.

Marika Humphreys:

For me during my husband's battle with cancer, I would say the worst case scenario kind of changed from time to time, but it was always some version of the thought he's not going to get through this. And I never consciously thought it and I never talked about it, but it was always there in my mind and it would wake me up at 3am, which is never a good time to have any dark thoughts right In the middle of the night. Everything seems so much worse. So for the longest time I just never even acknowledged that fear. I never talked about it with anybody, I just pushed it away. But it was always there and it was just a constant presence and it just wore me down emotionally and physically.

Marika Humphreys:

Another way that people tend to deal with fears is kind of the opposite of that Instead of pushing them away and ignoring them, they dwell on them. So you start thinking about something might happen, and then you think, oh gosh, if that happens, I don't know what I'll do. And then what if this happens? And I don't know how I'll respond to that, and it can become like a fear spiral. One fear spirals into another fear and we just start asking these what if? Questions.

Marika Humphreys:

And even if the logical part of our brain knows that some of those fears are irrational, we can't help but sort of get stuck in by the fear. Our brain gets stuck and it gets focused on possible scenarios that we're afraid of and often those thoughts. They will just plague us or we can't get our brain out of it. We can't stop thinking about it, and of course you will still think about it in the middle of the night. I think everything just becomes worse in the middle of the night, but we never actually deal with it. So in both of those cases it's just not helpful. Neither response is helpful Avoiding our fear or doing the opposite and hyper-focusing on our fear.

Marika Humphreys:

It isn't helpful because it doesn't actually address the thought we're having. That causes the fear. So the reason pushing away our fear and kind of pushing it to the back of our mind and just hoping that we don't have to deal with it the reason that doesn't work is because our brain likes to focus on the threats and the problems that it perceives in our life, and so our brain will keep bringing it to the forefront. What about this, what about this? Our brain likes to think about these things over and over again. So when we don't deal openly with it, instead we'll just wake up in the middle of the night thinking about all of those what ifs over and over again, and that constant anxiety just adds a tremendous amount of stress to what is probably an already stressful life. And then, of course, if it impacts your sleep repeatedly, life. And then, of course, if it impacts your sleep repeatedly, that doesn't help you cope the next day, and it can just be this whole cascade of negative consequences. Right, and when we're hyper-focused on a fear, essentially we get stuck focused on the problem and we never get to the point of actually thinking about solutions. So, while it is tempting to want to hide from our worst case scenario and just hope that it doesn't happen. That doesn't give you any peace. It will keep you in an anxious state and, similarly, dwelling on the problem without thinking about solutions also keeps you feeling anxious and worried, and those are emotions that will exhaust you. So instead, and those are emotions that will exhaust you. So instead, what I'm suggesting is that you actually want to bring the worst case scenario to the light, define it, take a look at it so that you can address it, and I'm going to give you an analogy for this strategy so it's just a little easier to understand what I'm talking about.

Marika Humphreys:

Imagine cluttered closet like jam-packed full of random stuff in your house that you've been shoving things into for years and years and it's been nagging at you for ages. But tackling it feels like an insurmountable task. So you just keep the door shut and you just avoid it at all costs. But every time you walk by the closet, you think about it and it bothers you. It has been so long that you even open the door that you're not even sure what's inside anymore. It's just a looming, chaotic mess that you just don't want to face. It's kind of like this big, ominous blob of stress in your mind and it feels overwhelming. But then one day, let's say that you get the courage to open the door and you just start pulling things out piece by piece and you bring them into the light and then you see what's really in there, and it might still be a lot of stuff and you might not know what to do with all of it. But it's no longer this amorphous big blob, it's just stuff, it's manageable, it's sortable Stuff right. It's no longer as frightening.

Marika Humphreys:

So, while that may not be the exact best scenario, you get the idea in that our worst case scenario, the thing that we fear the most, is like this big dark blob in the closet of our mind and it will be scary and keep us up at night until we take it out into the light and look at it and just by looking at our fear and naming it and defining it sometimes that is the really scary part it can really feel like it would just be easier not to look at it, not to think about it and just hope it doesn't happen. But when we avoid it, we keep that big blob undefined and we keep it in the closet, it will stay scary and overwhelming. So it's only scary in part because we haven't really clarified and defined it and our brain will tend to make things so much worse than they really are, sort of over exaggerates. So when you take your worst fear out into the light and you identify it, you give shape to that blob. Now you know what it is, now you know how big it is, now you know what it's made up of, you can start to see clearly what was this unrecognizable pile of things? And now it actually has a defined shape. So just by giving voice to that fear and identifying it, maybe saying it out loud sometimes, that alone can be super helpful, because at least you have something to look at, something concrete and definable, not scary and undefined.

Marika Humphreys:

When we actually do this, when we take a look at our fears the worst ones, they are actually just made up of possible scenarios that might happen and our thoughts about those scenarios. So at their core, our worst fears are just thoughts that we are afraid to think Really. Think about that for a minute. It's just thoughts. It's not the actual scenario itself that we're afraid of. And I know you might want to argue with me there, but give me a minute and let me just explain it. What I mean? It's what we think that scenario will mean to us. It's how we think about that thing happening that will cause us anxiety and stress. It's not the actual thing that happens. It's how we think about it and often what we think are super disempowering thoughts like I won't be able to handle it, I'll be stuck, I'll be alone, we'll go broke, they'll be in pain, they'll be suffering. We just tend to think these terrible, disempowering thoughts.

Marika Humphreys:

So just recognize and entertain for a minute that your fears, your worst fears, are just thoughts about a possible scenario. They're just thoughts and we have control when we become aware of them, over our thoughts. We have the option to think something different. I hope that alone, just thinking about that concept for a minute, can take some of the scariness away. All of our fears are just thoughts in our head and when we are so used to just accepting our thoughts at face value and not questioning them, we just will think that they're true, we'll believe in our fears. But when you recognize and you start to pull it out and pull your fears apart and see, okay, this is the scenario I'm afraid of and this is my thought about it. You can start to then take a look and start questioning those thoughts, start asking yourself better questions. So let me just give you some examples of what I mean by scenarios and then your thought about it.

Marika Humphreys:

So maybe the scenario is your partner has an illness like cancer, like my husband did. The scenario is the scenario in your mind that the treatment stops working. That's what you're afraid of, and you're afraid because of the thought you think about it. If that happens, the thought you have is they might not make it. That was mine, that was my fear. They might not make it. It could be other thoughts for you. It could be I'll be alone. I'm going to be a single parent. They'll be in pain. I won't know what to do.

Marika Humphreys:

We can all have different thoughts about the same exact scenario. That's why we know those thoughts are optional. Right, we can decide to think something different. I'm not saying that's easy, but it is possible. So that's one possible scenario. And then your fear is your thought about it.

Marika Humphreys:

Another possible scenario is my partner's health declines or gets worse. And then what are your thoughts about it? Perhaps your thought is I won't be able to take care of them, or maybe it's the opposite I'm going to be stuck as a caregiver for the rest of my life, or some other thought you have about their health declining. Another possible scenario is the insurance won't cover all of our bills. What are your thoughts about that? We're going to go broke, I'm going to go in debt, I'm going to have to work three jobs. What are the thoughts? Right, the thoughts are what make up our fears. So those are some examples of what I mean by a scenario and then your thought about it.

Marika Humphreys:

And, as I said before, we can all have different thoughts about the same exact scenario. So that means that we can choose to think differently, because often our default thinking will be something very disempowering. But until you take that out of the closet and bring it into the light, you will continue to think it, until you examine it, until you question it right. So you want to know what those thoughts are. What is it you're thinking? That is so scary, and I will say here identifying the thought doesn't necessarily make the scariness go away, but that's where asking yourself really good questions can come in. So one of the strategies I like to use is questions.

Marika Humphreys:

In coaching, we use questions all the time. It is one of our superpower. We ask good questions. We ask our clients good questions and therefore we learn to ask good questions of ourselves. Asking good questions is literally like the easiest thing you can do. Anybody can do it but you do have to know what some good questions are and what bad questions are.

Marika Humphreys:

So when you have identified the thoughts that make up your worst fears, you want to ask yourself some good questions. One of my favorite questions is what are my natural strengths that would help me handle this If this were to happen? How am I strong enough already to handle it? That's a great question, because immediately your brain is going to start thinking about your strengths and likely you have used those very same strengths to get through all sorts of challenges in your life in the past, so you would do the same with any new challenge that presents itself.

Marika Humphreys:

We don't always think about that when we have fears right, that's usually the last thing we think of, but I want you to think about that. You already have strengths that you will use to face the challenges that lie ahead, no matter what they are. So think about that. Ask yourself what are those that would help me handle this? Another good question to ask is what support do I have that I know I could rely on, so that's good to remember. Okay, I have this support. Maybe it's financial support, maybe it's support from great friends or great family, support of a church or a community. What support do you have that will help you?

Marika Humphreys:

Because, again, we tend to think of facing our fears alone but none of us are alone and sort of a variation on the first question is what have I gotten through already that I didn't think I could? So this will bring your mind to recognizing that you've already faced challenges that you've gotten through, probably some of those that you didn't know how you were going to get through. I want you to think back to your past successes, and maybe some of them were hard, but you got through it. That's the part you want to focus on. You already are resilient. You already are strong. Those are the things to call in mind when we're looking at something we're afraid of, when we're looking at a possible scenario that might happen. We want to think about how we've already gotten through difficult things before. So when you ask good questions and truly look at your fears, you will take some of their power away. They no longer are undefined, you get clarity on them, you know what you're facing. Then you've shifted your mind. Focus on how you're already strong and the support that you have to handle it. So one thing I want to say here is that you do want to avoid asking how questions like how will I cope, how will I get through this?

Marika Humphreys:

A lot of times, those how questions like when we're wanting to know the actual things we'll do or the actual steps we don't always have answers for and therefore that can just create more worry and anxiety because we don't have an answer for that. When my husband passed away, I remember coming home one day, pulling into the driveway after work and realizing, for some reason it just sort of dawned on me the weight of being a single parent and I had a 10-year-old and the idea of raising this 10-year-old all by myself felt overwhelming and I kept thinking how am I going to do this? How questions are not good questions because we don't often have the answer. That's why a better question is what are my strengths? That will help me figure it out. Had I asked myself that question, I would have said I am determined, I'm smart, I'm good at figuring things out. I will ask for help, like I would have started thinking about what my strengths were that have just helped me through all sorts of challenges. So when we don't know the steps, it's not useful to try and figure them out. Instead, it's more useful to think about what we already have, what we're already bringing to the table or what we've done before, because usually that is what we will do again. What we've done before to get us through tough times is what we will rely on.

Marika Humphreys:

I recently just went through this process with a client who is caregiving for her husband who has brainstem tumor and his health has declined pretty dramatically and he's essentially bed bound and he needs a lot of care. And the tumor has affected his ability to speak clearly. So it's gotten to the point where she is the only one who can understand them. And they have some people helping with caregiving duties, but she is the only one that can understand them and even that takes a lot of work for her to understand what he's trying to say, but she has been a huge advocate for his independence and quality of life and being able to communicate his needs and what he's thinking and feeling is super important for her to maintain as much as possible.

Marika Humphreys:

So when I was asking her what she was worried about, she said her biggest fear is that she will get to the point where she can't understand him at all, and we talked about that, why that scares her so much. And just her voicing that fear alone, I think was helpful. It brought it out of the back of her mind to the forefront and just shed some light on it. We just defined the problem and then I asked her what strengths does she have now that would help her cope if that were to happen? She is an incredibly strong and resilient and smart and capable person, so helping her to just focus on those strengths just eases some of the anxiety and fear. We don't know, because reality is none of us know what is going to happen. So when we have these fears about possible scenarios, we just get ourselves worked up in something that may or may not happen. And the way to bring it back is to focus on your strengths already and how you've gotten through tough challenges in the past.

Marika Humphreys:

Just bringing the fear to light and then talking about it helped to lessen the grip it had on her and also got her thinking more in a solution focused manner as opposed to a problem focused manner. She started thinking about what would I do and how would I handle that, and that is a different type of thinking than just focusing on the problem. All right. So this is a process. It doesn't happen easily, without a little effort, because some of our fears are deep-seated thoughts and they don't go away easily, which is why you want to take them out and bring them into the open, shine some light on them. That is the first step to loosen the power that they have over you. Don't try to push them away or just stay focused in kind of a what if? Dwelling on the problem. Right, we want to get to solution focused thinking. I want you to remember you are all stronger than you realize. I will see you next.