“How are you doing, Sharon?” asked her cousin Tina.

“I’m holding on,” Sharon said.

“Holding on? Holding on? That’s not great. I think you’ve got to speak to a therapist, Sharon. You can’t just stay in a mode where you are barely surviving.’

Sharon relayed this conversation to me when she explained what brought her to therapy. The reason for her dire answer to her cousin, she explained, was that she had just returned from two weeks in Arizona, where she had been caring for her aging mother, who has dementia. She told me that she was exhausted, physically and emotionally. Her mom’s memory loss and combativeness, along with fighting with her siblings about decisions regarding her mom’s care, had left her drained.

While previously, Sharon and her husband Steve enjoyed a pretty idyllic suburban life, now, at age 56, they were struggling to care for needy, vulnerable, widowed parents. Both Sharon and Steve had been laid off from their jobs and were fearing for their financial future. Meanwhile, their 20-something children were struggling to find footing in their careers.

“I feel guilty if I’m not there for my mom and responsible for trying to help my kids get settled into adulthood,” Sharon told me. “I think I need medication to survive.”

As Sharon experienced, the demands of

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