PITTSFIELD -- If you provide care for a loved one on a regular basis, Leslie Bray wants you to know there is a support group for you.

Bray, who serves as vice president of community services for Spectrum Generations, helps lead a support group for family caregivers that meets in the Sebasticook Valley Hospital Cianchette Conference Room from 1-2 p.m. the first Friday of each month.

Roughly one-quarter of the population regularly provides care to loved ones or neighbors, yet many caregivers don't self-identify, and also don't realize that they themselves need support as well, Bray said.

"We teach that if they don't take care of themselves, they won't be able to take care of anyone else," she said. "It's a hard concept for some people."

Bray said many caregivers ignore their own welfare and fail to eat well or sleep often enough as they try to care for someone else. As they take on the responsibilities for a disabled person, often caregivers lose their own identity and purpose. These issues lead to depression so regularly that more than half of all caregivers suffer from depression, Bray said. But that's not to say that people should stop giving care.

"When you get out to rural areas like Pittsfield, there are a lot of people who couldn't continue to stay at home if it weren't for the help from a neighbor or family member," Bray said.

To help bolster the ranks of caregivers, Bray and other workers with Spectrum Generations lead a network of support groups throughout the communities served by the organization.

Spectrum Generations operates in Kennebec, Somerset, Waldo, Knox, Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties.

Besides Pittsfield, support groups meet in Hallowell, Rockland, Waterville, Skowhegan in the Damariscotta Generations Coastal Center and at Waldo County General Hospital.

For more information, call (800) 282-0764 extension 106 or tty (800) 464-8703.

The groups seek to support both those who currently provide care and also those who had cared for a person who is now in a nursing home.

"It's about how to get enough sleep; to understand what respite is," Bray said. "It's not necessarily healthy for a caregiver to run to the pharmacy and have to hurry back because they know that that person probably shouldn't be left home alone."