When someone asks, "What's for dinner?" or, "Did you pick up my shirts up from the cleaner?" do you ever get the urge to pound nails into the drywall with your forehead?

Do you stop on the way home from work to do your parent's food shopping, pick up her prescriptions, and stop in for five minutes which stretches into an hour, which makes dinner late, which pushes homework supervision into the evening, which means you'll either be folding laundry until midnight or washing it again to get the wrinkles out, which means you'll be packing lunches at 5:30 in the morning...again?

Just what color is your Super Caregiver Cape, anyway? And why in the world are you wearing one?

Many caregivers feel guilty if they treat themselves as well as the sorriest race horse. Yet, if they don't, they're going to break down just as surely as any exhausted old nag.

Professional athletes rest between games. Race horses get time in the barn between sprints. Trainers know that their assets won't be worth a plugged nickel if they don't. They'll simply keel over if they don't give their bodies and brains time to heal and rebuild.

Unless you're a fanatic about setting reasonable limits, just keeping a roof over your head and raising a family can be a full time job. Adding the needs of an aging parent or ailing spouse can push even the most dedicated super-caregiver over the brink. Little wonder that anger, depression, and exhaustion often plague caregivers.

Good parents intuitively know that it's important to set limits for children. Why, then, do we have such a hard time setting the same kind of limits with our needy older family members?

Probably because deep down inside we'll always be our parents' children. We learned as kids that saying "No" to a parent wasn't such a good idea. Instinctively, most of us still want to avoid the "Wrath of Dad" (or Mom).

That's why it's so important that as caregivers we bite that bullet and set limits as early as possible. The longer we wait, the more we'll dread it and the harder it will get.

As soon as you discover that you're an elder caregiver (it takes many by surprise), it's important to take some time to do an objective review of your daily work responsibilities, the needs of your immediate family, your own personal needs, and the needs of the senior you're caring for.

On a pad of paper make two lists: "Things I Want To or Must Do Myself," and "Things I Could Delegate If My Parent or Spouse Wouldn't Have Hysterics And If I Didn't Feel So Guilty." Write everything you can think of on one list or the other.

Once you have made your two lists, go back to your second column and scratch out the words, "If My Parent or Spouse Wouldn't Have Hysterics And If I Didn't Feel So Guilty."

Now you know what caregiving tasks you could delegate if you had the nerve, and what you can't or won't.

This is the time to locate resources that can help (other family members, volunteers, or paid services) that can help with your "I Could Delegate This" list. Add these helpers to your caregiving team early, and you won't be in a panic later when you reach your limit and are desperate for help.

Dread your elder's reaction? Of course. Feel guilty? You undoubtedly will. Feel anxious about bringing in someone who might not do things as well as you would? Surely, but in most cases good enough is almost always good enough.

Just try to remember that, if you have done nothing wrong, then there is nothing to feel guilty about. That "guilty" feeling is probably really a combination of anxiety about setting limits and frustration that you weren't born superhuman.

If you feel so much guilt and anxiety that you can't bring yourself to delegate some caregiving responsibilities, visit a caregiver's support group. You'll find compassionate people who are walking the same path you are. They can help you find the strength to do what you have to to stay emotionally and physically healthy for the long and winding elder care road you may have ahead.