Support for caregivers running low on energy

Caregiver burnout is the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that builds when most of your energy goes to caring for someone else.

What is caregiver burnout?

It is what happens when caregiving demands outlast your reserves. It shows up as fatigue that rest does not fix, irritability, guilt, and a quiet sense that you have disappeared into the role.

Caregivers often notice they have stopped doing their own basics. The doctor’s appointment gets pushed. The friend stops calling. Sleep becomes something you get between alarms. The National Institute of Mental Health notes that sustained stress of this kind raises the risk of anxiety and depression, which is why caregiver burnout is worth treating rather than absorbing.

Why do I feel guilty and resentful at the same time?

Because both are honest. You can love someone deeply and still resent what caring for them has cost you. Those feelings coexist in most caregivers, and the guilt about the resentment is usually heavier than the resentment itself.

Naming it out loud, to someone who is not in your family, tends to reduce its weight. Nothing you feel here will shock your therapist. It is one of the most common things caregivers bring in.

What does therapy for caregiver burnout involve?

We use cognitive behavioral therapy, and the structure is the same for everyone.

The first session is an intake, where you rate the exhaustion, guilt, and resentment on a 0 to 10 scale. The second is a psychosocial assessment across your life stages, which often surfaces why the role landed on you and why asking for help feels impossible. In the third session you and your therapist build a treatment plan with goals tied to the caregiving strain, plus one personal goal of your own.

Weekly sessions then start with what is most urgent. That is usually sleep, the moments that overwhelm you, and the guilt loop. Then you look at the practical structure: what can be delegated, what can be scheduled, what can be said no to without harm to the person you care for. Most caregivers are carrying tasks that someone else could carry.

The rest of the work is coping tools you can use in real conditions, including the ones you can do in five minutes with someone in the next room. Once a month you and your therapist review standardized measures together, and the plan is adjusted based on what they show.

Am I supposed to just accept this?

No. Acceptance is not the same as endurance. Some parts of caregiving cannot change, and therapy helps you carry those without breaking.

But plenty of what is crushing you is not fixed. Support you have not asked for, help you have refused out of guilt, boundaries you have never set with other family members. Those are the parts we work on directly.

What about grief?

Caregiving often involves grieving someone who is still here: the parent who no longer recognizes you, the partner whose illness changed the relationship. That is real loss, and it deserves space.

Therapy makes room for that grief instead of asking you to postpone it. You do not have to wait until it is over to have feelings about it.

What if no one else will help?

Sometimes that is true, and sometimes it only looks true. Many caregivers stop asking after a few refusals, or never ask at all because asking feels like admitting failure.

Your therapist will go through it with you specifically. Who could take one task, one hour, one weekend? What has actually been offered that you turned down? What paid or community support exists that you have not looked into? Some of the load is genuinely immovable. A surprising amount is not.

How do I keep my own health from disappearing?

By putting it on the calendar like everything else. Caregivers schedule other people’s appointments with precision and leave their own to chance.

The work here is small and specific: one medical appointment you have been postponing, one recurring hour that belongs to you, one friendship you keep alive. These sound trivial next to the scale of what you are carrying. They are what keeps you able to carry it.

Support does not have to be a break from caregiving to be real. For many caregivers, the most useful thing is one hour a week where someone asks how they are and means it.

How do I get started?

You can book online at any time, or call (646) 493-4007 if you would rather talk first. We are in-network with most major plans, and you can confirm your coverage before your first appointment.

Telehealth is available at every location, which for many caregivers is the only workable option. We also see clients in Jamaica, Queens, in Buffalo, and in Carmel, Indiana. Care is collaborative and paced to you.