The Plan You Hope You Never Need

Most caregivers never make a safety plan — because making one feels like an accusation. Like you're saying something out loud about your parent, or your family, that you're not ready to say. So instead you improvise. You read the room. You get very, very good at hoping today is a good day.

In this episode, Esther and Laurie talk about the two kinds of safety every caregiver needs to plan for — the physical and the emotional — and why the second one gets ignored almost every single time. They talk about the difference between a parent whose behavior has changed and a parent who has always been this way, why understanding the reason for someone's behavior doesn't obligate you to absorb it, how to recognize your own body's early warning signals, and what it actually looks like to build a plan before the day you need it.

Because a plan isn't a prediction. It's the thing that keeps the love from costing you everything.