<font color="green">One way I learned to step back and take another view resulted from my volunteer days at nursing homes, and psychiatric wards. These people were not my relatives, I could walk away. I was there to help them feel better, and if that involved NOT feeling like family or not acting like family, I did that easily.

Now, my mother is 87. If I get too close to the situation I begin to feel all the frustration -and love- and need to do everything perfectly 'right.' But, if I step back and view her as though she was a person in a nursing home needing someone to talk with, do little things for, I am a much better helper. I can always step into the loving daughter realm, but distancing myself sometimes helps me see what is only humanly possible.