Therapy for Young Adult Caregivers in Texas and Massachusetts

Therapy for Young Adult Caregivers in Austin, Texas and Virtually Across Texas and Massachusetts

Are you in your 20s or 30s caring for someone in your life who is ill while trying to keep up with your own? Maybe you're the one your family turns to to help with scheduling doctors visits, translating medical documents/treatment plans, and figure out health insurance. Maybe you're trying to stay strong and not show your own worry and grief while witnessing someone you love's capacity and physical abilities change. At Sin Miedo Counseling, we offer therapy for young adult caregivers in Austin, Texas and online across Texas and Massachusetts who are navigating all the things that come with caregiving at an age where many of your friends and others around you may not understand.

You didn't sign up for this, and it's still really hard

Caregiving when you're a young adult looks different than most people imagine when they picture a caregiver. All of the caregiver groups and resources online seem to be tailored to people who are much older, going through a different stage in life. You might not even use that word to describe yourself. But if you're coordinating care, managing medications, translating at doctor's appointments, fielding calls from family, or simply being the person who holds everything together when someone you love is sick, you might very well be a caregiver. 

Caregiving is hard. While your peers are focused on building careers, dating, traveling, or figuring out who they are, you may be navigating grief, exhaustion, and feeling like your life is on pause while you tend to your loved one's medical needs. But you don't have to do it all alone. You deserve a space to vent, cry, and find ways to find yourself again even while caregiving.

What young adult caregivers often experience

Some of what we commonly see and work through together includes:

• Chronic stress, exhaustion, and feeling like you're running on empty

• Grief  - both for the person you're caring for and for the version of your life you thought you'd be living right now

• Guilt about wanting your own life, needing a break, or feeling resentful sometimes

• Anxiety about the future, your loved one's health, and what comes next and maybe even your own health

• Loss of identity while caregiving

• Difficulty setting limits with family, especially in cultures where caregiving is expected without question

• Putting your own physical and mental health last for so long it's become the norm

A culturally affirming approach to caregiver support

In many BIPOC and immigrant families, caregiving is often more of an expectation than a choice. Especially if you are the eldest, the daughter, or if you've been the person that your family usually turns to for help. There can be real tension between honoring your family and culture while also acknowledging that your well-being matters in this too. It can be difficult to allow space for the frustration, overwhelm, and even resentment because bringing it up can sometimes come hand-in-hand with guilt or shame.

We understand that complexity. We're not here to tell you that your family's values are wrong or that you need to prioritize yourself above everything else. Therapy can be a way to figure out how to care for your family and yourself at the same time.

Working with Natalia Alas Durán, LCSW-S, LICSW

Natalia Alas Durán, LCSW-S, LICSW is a Salvadoran-American therapist with nearly a decade of experience working with BIPOC and immigrant communities in medical and cancer care settings. She brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to this work. Natalia has her own lived experience as a young adult caregiver when she was in her teens and 20s which shapes the way she shows up for her clients and led to wanting to work with young adult caregivers.

She has worked with young adults caring for a parent who is ill, as well as those navigating what it means to live with a spouse, parent, or grandparent with cancer, chronic medical conditions, and family members nearing end of life. She has also presented on culturally inclusive practices for working with young adult caregivers at large medical institutions, and is deeply committed to making sure young adult caregivers receive support that actually reflects their experience since they are often invisible in caregiving spaces.

Natalia brings a warm, culturally grounded approach to working with young adult caregivers. She draws from a range of approaches tailored to where you are, including:

• Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help you clarify your own values and needs, not just the needs of the people around you

• Somatic interventions to help you reconnect with your own body, which often gets neglected when you're so focused on someone else's

• Trauma-informed care for those who have experienced secondary trauma from witnessing a loved one's illness or medical crisis

• Grief work to process the many layers of loss that come with caregiving including the loss of the relationship as it was, loss of your own plans/identity, and anticipatory grief about what may still come

• Mindfulness practices to help regulate your nervous system and find moments of steadiness amid ongoing stress

This is your space

You're already doing so much. Therapy is one of the few places that is entirely yours, where you can show up just as you are and you don't need to be in crisis or have it all figured out before reaching out. You can come in and together, we'll give you a space for you to be seen, heard, and find ways for you to begin feeling like yourself again.