Sibling Caregivers with Tamra Stokes

In this heartfelt episode of the Ask Dr. Mia podcast, Dr. Mia sits down with Tamra Stokes, a transformational life coach, author, speaker, and founder of Reimagining Life Coaching. Known as The Authentic Caregiver Coach, Tamra empowers overwhelmed family caregivers to heal emotionally, rediscover themselves, and find fulfillment amid the demands of caregiving. Drawing from over 20 years as an educator and 4.5 years as the primary caregiver for her mother, Tamra brings wisdom, empathy, and lived experience to her work. Her coaching blends mindset shifts, emotional release, breathwork, nature-based grounding practices, and journaling to guide clients through emotional discord and into purposeful transformation. Together, they explore the dynamics of sibling relationships in caregiving, highlighting the importance of understanding personal strengths and maintaining open communication. Tamra also discusses valuable resources like the Caregiver College and Wake Forest Memory Counseling Program that provided her with essential tools and community support. Additionally, listeners can find support through the Alzheimer's Association support group search. Tune in to discover insights on family bonds, caregiving challenges, and the power of shared experiences.

To book a discovery call with Tamra, visit: link.coachgrowthsolutions.com/widget/bookings/talkwithtamra. Follow Tamra on social media: Facebook: The Authentic Caregiver Coach, Instagram: @tamistokes422, YouTube: @ReimaginingLifeCoaching, TikTok: @siasees. #SiblingSupport #CaregivingJourney #FamilyFirst

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Transcript

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Welcome back to season six of Ask Dr. Mia. This podcast, I am really excited to bring you the conversation with Tamara Stokes today. She is a life coach and she was an educator for a long time. And today our conversation really talked about how she processed her emotions while caring for her mother with vascular dementia. And we talked a lot about her relationship with her sister and how to navigate conflicts and hurt feelings during that. So if you're listening and you've ever felt resentful toward family members who are not helping in the same way that you would like them to, please, I hope you enjoyed this episode because I think Tamra really shared insights and mindset shifts. that allowed her to accept her sister for who she is while being on the same team and take great care of her mother. So enjoy. Welcome to Ask Dr. Mia podcast. Today I am uh excited to talk with Ms. Tamara Stokes and welcome back to season six of Ask Dr. Mia podcast and hope you all had a great summer. Tamara is a transformational life coach, author, speaker and founder of the Reimagining Life Coaching. She draws her experience from over 20 years as an educator and was the primary caregiver for her mother, Carrie, for four and a half years. I'm really excited for Tamara's conversation with me today to talk specifically about sibling relationships. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Tamara. So let's get started. And if you can tell me in the audience a little bit about who your mom was, and I know you was your sister. How are they as people? Oh, wow. Okay, so my mom, Carrie Stokes, was widowed when she was uh about 10 years, well, she was married not quite 10 years. So they were about to celebrate their 10th anniversary when my father passed. And there's two of us, my sister and myself, and I am the youngest. My mother was a wonderful person. She was a great provider. She was a community mother, if you will. Everyone came around and came to our house for like solace and just the peace. We didn't have a lot of arguing in our house growing up. As a matter of fact, when my sister and I didn't see eye to eye, my mom would sit us down and tell us, look, this is all you have, your sister and you. So make the most of it, get beyond your behaviors of being argumentative. She was one to always solve a problem. If you had a problem, you had to solve the problem. You don't just acknowledge the problem and leave it. You actually had to solve the problem. So in that, I've, when I look back, she's taught us a whole bunch of things, but she was that diplomatic person. And she always had a solution to any kind of a problem that you had. um So my sister, being the oldest, she was the one who wanted to um focus on the, she always had a job. She always um wanted things to look a certain way. And um as a matter of fact, she never really talked about my dad's death. She's three years older than I am, but I was five when my dad passed. So she was about seven or eight, paying on a year. And uh she never wanted to talk about the passing of my father. She felt that that was morbid and for whatever reason. So she was the one who was the adventurer, meaning she went out into the business world. I was the stick by my mom person and I was always there. I was my mom's buddy. So um my sister is very, do it this particular way, which is great. I mean, and I love her for that. ah But when we moved into that caregiving role, I saw some shifts in the way in which she approached things. Gotcha, that's really helpful just to know their personality. It sounds like your mom was the peacemaker, the mother for not just you, but for a lot of people. And your sister sounds like a go-getter, maybe a little bit particular about how things are done, but works well for her and her role in the business world. And you have been kind of maybe closer to your mom. to stay physically closer to her even as you guys. And my sister was very shy growing up. She did not talk for a long time when she was a little girl. didn't, they wondered, can she talk? I, on the other hand, have no problem talking to people. So I appreciate you sharing your mom as a person and your sister as a person. It sounds like even uh with your dad's passing, your sister was not someone who wanted to talk about your father. And it sounds like your mom was the solo parent for a long time because her husband passed. Yeah, she gotcha. Okay. So um tell us about how did your mom get diagnosed? What did she get diagnosed with? And how did that change your relationship uh either with her or with your sister? Yeah, so funny thing, mom moved down here about five years ago from Ohio. That was my childhood home. That was the home that she and my dad had selected. That was their dream home. And she didn't want to leave, but I was noticing in my conversations with her from North Carolina, she started repeating the same story. Now, prior to that, was teaching and a friend of mine had gone through the same thing with her father. and she was telling me some things and I didn't, I heard her, but I didn't think that that's gonna happen to me, right? You never think it's gonna happen to us. And so when I started to see the similar stories over and over, I was concerned. So I drove up to Ohio to attend a doctor's appointment with her and I asked them to do some testing because I was concerned of her memory loss. and they both laughed at me. And that irritated me and it also left me feeling just lost because I'm like, see and I hear these things that are happening with my mom, but no one is acknowledging that what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing is real. ah And then some incident unfortunately happened where she got scammed by the whole senior. And that was the, yes, the straw that broke the camel's back and plus the phone call from the police, the city police to tell me to come and get my mother. um So when she came down here, I attended a memory oh support group for my mother and myself. And at that meeting, I did not know what her diagnosis was. I just knew that's mom. she's repeating some things, she's not remembering things, but I didn't have a diagnosis. And it wasn't until I was at that meeting and people were going around introducing themselves and saying these letters for lack of a better term. And I was like, what is that? What is that? So that opened my mind into that, the whole world of a diagnosis with the memory loss. Unfortunately, she had to suffer a stroke. in order for us to get all of the testing because all of the testing that I learned that could help you come to a diagnosis, we were like six months out on the waiting list. And so when she had her stroke and in the hospital, they ran all of that, all those tests to be able to come up with a diagnosis of, she had had a frontal, a stroke in the frontal part, proportion of the brain. And she had the frontal, vascular dementia. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I think your experience unfortunately is very common for a lot of families that I hear that they notice memory changes or thinking and judgment changes before the person with the memory loss. know, primary care doctors are taking care of a lot of different things. And I think our patients, especially, you know, bright folks who... do really well if you just spend five or 10 minutes with them, which sometimes is only the amount of time that a PCP sees them. I um think just validating the fact that, you know, I know a lot of our listeners probably resonate with your experience and that's something that really needs to change within the healthcare system. um And I also wanted to validate the fact that it is common to... have a long delay in terms of getting a diagnosis, getting seen. ah There are very few memory specialists like myself. And I think part of the reason why I'm even doing this podcast is so that people can get this information no matter where they are and that they don't have to wait for an appointment that's eight months away. All right. um So your mom suffered a stroke. I guess shortly after she got here and then was diagnosed with vascular dementia and had a stroke in her frontal lobe. How did that stroke change things? I know it got the diagnosis, but did it change her memory further? That particular, because she had another one later ah in her life, but uh I didn't really notice any major changes outside of it. She still was physically uh able to get around. She was very independent. She would still go out for walks, but the memory of uh what starting I could see was shortening in the sense of, I eat breakfast? Did I have this or telling me a story? But she was she knew that she was telling the story over and over, because she would say, did I tell you that story already? So she was aware of it, but she still went into that, I call it the spiral. And I did notice um that the asking questions peaked. So we're gonna go, we're getting prepared to go out. Where are we going? Okay, we're gonna go such and such and such. Okay, a couple of minutes later, where are we going? So I noticed that trend happened more after the stroke than before the stroke. So yeah, and that took some getting used to. I had to do some searching. It tested my patience. Yes, and I'm sure we'll get into that later, but those are the things that I was noticing and what do I do with that? Right? That's still my mother. how did you navigate that at the time? Fortunately, I was taking a course online because we were just coming off of COVID and everything, and it was a coaching course. And I learned so much about myself. And I could see as I was doing the life work, if you will, how I could implement those uh strategies and use the technologies that I was learning through this coaching program to help me in my caregiving role. And a lot of that was looking at my beliefs, looking at what I thought caregiving was, which I realized I had not a clue until I stepped in it. And... I became more aware of my triggers, right? So the asking of the questions, it was a problem at first, but then once I realized and finished the coaching sessions and started living those strategies, the repetition of the questions didn't bother me as much because I realized that that's not her, that's a symptom of the disease and she can't help it. So when you say coaching, for those who may not quite understand what that means, can you tell us a little bit about what is coaching and how did that help change your mindset to focus on the fact that that is not your mother, but the disease? Yeah, so uh coaching basically is um first of all, not giving up on those dreams that you have, but you go inside to see what are your stops? What are your fears? What are you uh holding onto that is not serving you? Because when you release that, then you have more room for the creativity, for the expansion. And so, um I realized that I had a lot of fear around what was happening to me. Even though that's my mom and I'm stepping up and I'm doing what I can do for her to the best of my ability, I realized I didn't have the adequate tools to deal with what I was presented with. And so by doing the self-work on myself, then I had more to pour into her and to give to her. um and again, do the best that I can do. So coaching basically is having someone realize where they are, looking at where they want to go and then helping them build that bridge to get to where they want to be in their life. And your mom was living with you at the time? Okay. I moved her down here. I had to tell a little fib because she would not leave her home. So I told her we were going to visit some of her relatives because she was getting older and we just want to make sure we see them. And so I said, we're going to go to Alabama. So pack a bag. And we sort of took a detour to North Carolina. How did she respond to that once she got here? She was not liking that I tricked her, but she understood that it was for her well-being. Yes. And what did your sister think of all this happening at the time? So amazingly, we grew up very, even though we were at that difference in our ages as far as schooling, she had her set of friends, I had my set of friends, but we still got along wonderfully for the most part. Every once in a while we have one of those arguments about the phone or something silly, but we knew that that was not something that Carrie was gonna allow in her household. And so my sister and I grew up very, together sisterly, we played sports together. And so that whole teamwork team uh attitude was a part of our being. And we, in the beginning, as I was trying to get mom's resources, switch over her medical things, I would always call my sister up. As a matter of fact, she was still working, but I would call her and put her on a speakerphone to... be a part of the conversations when I was making decisions about everything, her healthcare, her doctors, her whatever. And it was funny, I remember one incident, I was talking with an insurance agent and she, after we get off the phone, she just looked at me and she's like, wow. I was like, what? She goes, I've never had any clients who like work together like you and your sister just did. And she said, I'm like shocked. I took that as a compliment and I said, that's just who we are. We work well together. As mom's disease progressed, I noticed that I was getting into sticky territory with my sister. It was taking her out of her comfort zone. initially I felt some kind of way because I felt like she was leaving me isolated and abandoning me to do this work, even though I loved doing the work. But it was hard and I felt sometimes, well, could you call me and just say, hey, can mom come down and stay for a week or whatever and nothing. And so even though I was thinking that, she wasn't thinking that. And I got a little frustrated with the situation, but then um at some point, I can't remember when it was, I realized, look, we all have our strengths. My strengths, are talking and working with people. My sister's strength is handling the paperwork, doing the, the bills, making sure everything is up to date. And so once I accepted that, it made that relationship that much easier to work through because it was as if I was taking her too far out of her comfort zone and I noticed that we had a drifting apart. Hmm. Yeah. And when you say you noticed that you were taking her out of her comfort zone, that is so insightful because I feel like a lot of times siblings who may or may not have the growing up experience of being a team, having that team-like relationship with their sibling, I oftentimes hear, you know, the primary caregiver. feeling very resentful of their siblings who are not pitching in or not calling or not checking in. And I just wanted to validate the fact that what you were feeling at the time, definitely it's very common and I will probably feel the same if I were in that situation. I have one younger, I have one younger brother and we did do some tag teaming when it came to my mother's cancer illness. Yeah, I think that was really interesting and insightful that you picked that up and knew that it wasn't necessarily her strength. So I'm curious, did you ever communicate with your sister about what you wanted or wanted her to do in terms of helping with you caring for your mom? did, I did, and I was like shocked at the, what you call it, she wanted to help, and she would try to help. For instance, um when I asked her to, if I wanted to attend, I think it was my high school reunion up in Ohio, and so I said, I can't really navigate this. Can you um come and get mom, or can I bring mom down there? And at the time, the time limit of me doing all of this was really crunched. And so we ended up meeting halfway in South Carolina. But I was a little irritated. I'm like, I've been doing like, you know, the victim, all this work and you can't come and get her, you know, like I have to pack her up and get everything together. Like, really? But, you know. I follow along my mom as the peacemaker. I don't like turmoil. I don't like uh conflict. It just is a unnecessary use of my energy. I would hold things in. I've learned since to express it in a very tactful way how I'm feeling. And so we did settle on that. still didn't quite sit well with me, but I'm like, she's trying. She's trying. And I need it. I needed your assistance. Yeah. So she lives in Georgia, Atlanta. Okay. So she was like five hours away. Okay. So you can, you know, it's not like she can just hop over for the weekend to help you out. You were quite far, quite far away. Okay. That's, that's helpful. So what's something that you wish you had known earlier in that caregiving journey? Whoo! I wish that I had the resources because I spent a lot of time just seeking resources. And of course, the whole world was going through something when she first initially came under my, know, me stepping into that role because we were just coming out of the pandemic. And so a lot of things that were there, when I was making my phone calls had not come back up to speed. And so it was a lot of incubator, like we were learning here. And I do love spending time with my mother. We did a lot of things together. We went swimming together, we go walking together. And so, and a lot of my friends got to know her and called her mama Stokes, you know, because they just loved being around her. But If I could, if I had to say what is something that I really wish that I had known before was the expectations and how the disease moves through, you know, and being able to. did you think the disease was gonna be like versus what it actually was like for you? You know, thankfully we did not move stages very quickly. So we could always have a conversation. Sometimes it was a repeating conversation, but we had a conversation. I could ask her certain things and she would respond appropriately. um She went to school, she found a boyfriend. So, you know, I got to know that family. But um sometimes she would be a little uh upset because I was trying to monitor her other uh issues that she had. She was hypertensive, which was maintained, but her diabetes was not really maintained. And that was really the crux and the source of all of my stress was to make sure that her uh Diabetes was stabilized and she didn't want to eat the way that I would have liked her to eat. They called me the Gestapo. Right. Better choices. Yeah. Yeah. OK. OK. All right. So what what did you. uh So coming back to what you expected or what you wish you had known earlier about the disease. Can you tell us an example of what that what that might be. um When I learned the physical structure of what's happening in the brain, that like was a light come on for me because no matter what I felt she should say and be and do, she did not have the capability to do that. And so once I understood, I had a uh strong science background in college and actually applied to medical school. But um so I had that level of understanding. So all I had to have was the resource. And once I had that research and knew the brain is breaking down, there's nothing there. The links are gone. It made so much more sense. And I was more understanding. I was able to lean in more, be more compassionate with, she's doing the best she can with where she is. Yeah, yeah. And I think that is so, again, very insightful. ah And a lot of times, I think it's difficult for family members and people who are doing the caregiving to change their perception of their loved one from the person that they've always been to this new person with the disease, and particularly with vascular dementia and just you know, knowing where the stroke was. So the frontal lobe is the front of the brain and that controls kind of what, what I call our executive functioning. So our ability to process and sequence or to do something complicated, like managing your finances or your medications, our inhibition. So doing the things that's good for you, but it's hard to do. uh when you're disinhibited, we just do whatever we want to do, including eating lots of sugar, because that's what we want to do. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And where did you end up looking for resources? Where did you go? Online or? Two things I found out about um through the Wake Forest School of Medicine and the Maya Angelou um Health Equity, see, Health Equity, I believe it was Center, that's the word, Center for Health Equity. They put on a program um called the Caregiver College and I thought, it's for a week and you know, we'll go. And once you learn all the information, they just overwhelm you with information in a very good way because you have resources beyond what you could, you know, use. They make the connections, they bring in speakers, they bring in people who can tell you about programs in the local area. And um that was very helpful for me. because I'm an egghead, you know, so I need to see the facts and then I can make a decision. And so the Caregiver College was extremely helpful. And then from there, I believe I learned about the memory counseling support group where we both would go, my mom would go to one, I guess, coach or caregiver. uh Facilitator. Yeah. I would go with another group of caregivers and that was like a warm hug to walk in the room because you built relationships even though we didn't hang out afterwards we didn't have time but a relationship of similarity because we were all going through our own woes if you will ah but it was a place where you could just exhale And that was very helpful for me and my mom. yeah, having that community so that you don't feel like you're doing it by yourself. Yeah. Those two, I think, were the most uh instrumental in helping me make it through. That's wonderful. And I'll link the websites to those programs in the show notes, as well as, um you know, the Alzheimer's Association also has support groups, depending on where people are listening in. But I agree with you, Tamara, that having some sort of joining some sort of support group and, and having some connection with other people who are going through similar things is incredibly helpful. There's nothing like having a peer tell you something, it just hits differently than a doctor telling you something or a healthcare professional tell you something. Absolutely. Yeah. So coming back to your sister, how do you think she reacted to your mom's dementia and changes that you were seeing? Well, as I said, she never wanted to talk about it, but when we called hospice for mom and she was in the house and I was with her 24 seven at that point, I remember a phone call actually prior to mom going into hospice, but she was, her health was declining because she had that second stroke and it was right before Thanksgiving and we were supposed to, it was that Sunday before Thanksgiving. Now my sister was going to be a new grandmother and she ended up being a grandmother on the day that my mom had her stroke, right? So, right. And so there was a lot of mixed, yes, loss in translation, things going on. But up until that time, you know, I can remember a phone call where I talked to my sister and I had her on speakerphone and my mom could respond then. And whatever it was my sister said or I said to her, she said, well, we have a lot of stuff going on here too. And I thought that wasn't really the response I was expecting, nor was my mom. And so we ended the call, because again, we don't do the yelling and screaming thing. I just, it was like a knife to my heart, like, wow, okay. And so later on, I think that was, in retrospect, I think that was her way of trying to shield herself and protect herself from, mom is about to pass, right? I went downstairs and I called her back and I said, you know, I said, That's still our mother. She is not the same person that she was, but that's still our mother. And I said, I am here doing the best I can with what I have. And I just need to know that you have my back, you know? That I can call you and not feel like I'm doing something wrong or I didn't do something. Mm-hmm. think that's what it was. I think I called her to ask about something and she said, well, did you do such and such? And I'm like, I'm a little busy here. And her response was, I'm busy too. And I'm thinking, wow. But I told her, said, you know what? I said, mom's not going to be here much longer. And I said, we got to get our stuff together. We've got to get back on board of doing this. together because you know mom did not tolerate any kind of bickering. And do you know, Dr. Mia, when I went back upstairs, I think that was probably on like a Monday, my mom ended up passing on a Wednesday because I went back upstairs and I told her, said, you know, mom, Terry and I are fine. We're good. And when I, It was as if I gave my sister that opportunity to release the angst that she had been holding onto when I said, it's okay, I have problems. I have days where I just go in my room and cry, but that's not gonna help me deal with what I have to do with mom. And I said, I have to go in and put on my happy face and make it seem like it's okay, you know, for mom. so, I asked her how she felt. and I could hear the quiver in the voice. And I said, it's okay. I feel the same way, but we still have to be as strong as we can, you know, for mom. Yes, together, it'll make it a lot easier. So yeah, that brought things back to where they used to be. So yeah, I'm glad. I realized that we all have our strengths and her strength was not dealing with what I was dealing with. Yeah, yeah. And based on what you had shared about your sister not wanting to talk about your father's passing, it seems like this is kind of a similar pattern. I mean, people deal with grief differently. know, some people just kind of want to put it aside and not touch it, and other people are in it and accept it and go through it. I mean, there is just so much grief. in a dementia journey as a family and uh that grief comes out in different ways. I'm just so proud of you for speaking up and talking to your sister at a time when you both were emotional and it's still emotional even when you recalled the story, how much those words hurt your feelings when you were really trying to do your best by yourself. for your mom. And I think what would you suggest to uh listeners who might be in that similar situation where they're the only one of the siblings doing that caregiving? What advice would you give to them in terms of how they should respond or think about their other family members who are not pitching in right now and not in the same way that the primary person is? Well, you know, uh we know our siblings, right? uh Until an incident comes up, people show you a different side of themselves. And I think putting it on the table and just having that hard, hard, hard conversation is the best way. Now, I know that can't happen in all families because you have a lot of different things. secrets, skeletons, and things like that. But when you come together for the care of that person, if that is the primary reason that you are coming together to make sure that they have a life and their end of life with dignity, you know, it's not about me. It's not about me anymore. It's responsible for me to make sure my cup is filled so that I can give to the loved one, the person I'm caring for. I need to let my siblings, my family, extended family know what I'm going through in that moment. And if you have it in you, if you can help me, even a phone call, because that's acknowledging me. Whereas when you don't and you disappear or you only wanna tell me what I'm doing wrong or how I should do things from afar, for me, that did not work. You know, so right, right. To have that conversation and put those feelings on the table in a very constructive way. I think that for me was and for what I would suggest to other people is to have those hard conversations because when you get that out of the way, then you can care for your loved one. you can remain present with the people in your life because when that person is gone, and this was one thing that I really um strove for was no regrets. I'm giving my all right now. I'm being present. I'm enjoying this moment in this moment because I can't ever recapture this again. Yeah, yeah. And that's so hard, having holding that tension of gratitude and presence while also trying to plan for the future and the logistics of the day to day life. Yes. I would do it all over again, though. I would do it all over again. I'm sure you were a wonderful daughter and caregiver for your mom and Mama Stokes definitely raised you right. Well, thank you so much for our conversation today, Tamra. I appreciate you being so vulnerable and sharing such, you know, deeply feeling things within your family and your experience. I really hope that people who are listening are taking a lot out of this conversation. If you have enjoyed this episode, please hit the follow button uh in your podcast player. That way you will get new episodes coming into your feed once they're released and as other seasons, uh new episodes will come out every two weeks. All right, talk to you all next time.