Tag: mental health

What if?

Sep 9th, 2024

Grandma has started wanting to go to bed at 9 pm, breaking a habit of a lifetime of 10 pm being bedtime. You’d think this earlier release from my duties would be good for me, I’d have a little extra time to myself after putting her to bed. Perhaps more time to choose which Netflix documentary to fall asleep in front of.

Instead, this new development has triggered a particularly strong batch of anxiety. This earlier bedtime means grandma is slowly getting more and more tired, which means she’s progressively getting to the end. And what if she dies tomorrow? I have no idea what I’m going to do! That’s the gist of the spiral. Welcome to my brain, everyone. I believe this type of anxiety is called anticipatory anxiety.

This new type of overthinking has been keeping me awake for the past week. It doesn’t have space to raise its overthinking head during the day as that is reserved for my daily potent mix of generalised anxiety about literally anything (from a random fear of the house falling down to worrying about how I’m going to cook lunch when I’m supposed to be on two work calls) and work stress; if you saw the emails I get, I think you’d agree with my theory that some of my colleagues run a how-to-make-Laura’s-life-difficult committee.

Back to this newest form of anxiety. To clarify, I’m not worrying about how I’m going to grieve as I have already gone through that; most carers have also experienced anticipatory grief. I’m not even that worried about the post-death admin. My anxiety circle of doom is focused on what am *I* going to do when I don’t have to care for grandma anymore? Where will I go? What do I want to do when I can start living my life again? The simple answer is that I have no idea. Not a clue.

I have not thought of myself for so long that I don’t know what I want, what I like, or what my life ambitions are. Whenever I ask myself these questions, my mind goes blank. I can’t even summon what a dream life would be like for me. The fact I have no idea is what triggers the anticipatory anxiety and I sink into darker darker thoughts as I try to make myself sleep. Sadly, my brain is a world-class overthinking machine and I will work myself up into a complete panic. When I do eventually fall asleep, I wake up with a jolt a few hours later, covered in sweat from a horrible anxiety dream. I have those most nights, but these newer ones are very intense.

Anxiety is also not productive, I don’t come out of these cycles with fully formed plans of what I could do. I’m usually exhausted and a little freaked out, so I get on with my very busy day that distracts me until grandma’s bedtime.

I’m writing this down as an attempt to get it out of my head so I can go back to my baseline generalised anxiety and stress. A baseline which would probably send most non-carers to the doctors but I have learnt to live with it.

P.S: Just a small thing, stress and anxiety aren’t the same thing. Stress is linked to an outcome (a work deadline for example). Anxiety is a general sense of impending doom that you experience for no apparent reason. I clarify because I hear the terms used interchangeably and it annoys me and my hyperactive brain.
Same, but different

Jul 22nd, 2024

Last week was exciting for me, I was invited to take part in a panel discussion on the impact of caring on mental health in London. Spoiler alert – it is not great. If you want to understand how caring affects me mentally, you can read some of my more miserable blogs here, here and here.

I gladly accepted, happy for the excuse to escape for a few days despite the logistics challenge that entails. Plus, as a former Londoner, I was curious to see if I still had my get-out-of-the-way-London-walk and my luck in getting a free coffee from Pret A Manger (both powers are still intact, I’m happy to report).

The panel line up was interesting, it featured two working mums and me and looked to tackle caring more broadly as it relates to mental health. I must admit, as I prepared for the session, that I was a bit sceptical about equating being a working parent to an unpaid carer. As every carer who read the preceding sentence will be thinking: BEING A PARENT AND AN UNPAID CARER ARE NOT THE SAME THING.

I know.

I was ready to gently point this out at the panel – that even thinking that being a parent was similar to being a carer was a sign of how much not-yet-carers don’t ‘get it’. As the discussion progressed, however, I listened to other panellists’ experiences and was struck by some similarities in our lives. Yes, I could tell that my day-to-day life was completely unfathomable to the audience politely listening to me, but I felt that some of my experiences were at least vaguely recognisable to the panellists. One of them said my life reminded her of being in the newborn phase of bringing a baby home: getting no sleep, being completely consumed by keeping another human being alive with no idea how to do it. I often say that living with and looking after a 99 year old is like having a toddler who drinks and talks back. I’m joking when I say that but unpaid carers can relate to the sleep deprivation and the anxieties of caring for loved ones with no training, help, or information.

The panellists had also experienced the lack of medical and social care, in a different capacity, but those feelings are essentially the same. They also understood the depersonalisation that comes with being an unpaid carer, becoming a parent can also provoke that feeling of losing yourself and your identity. We were also three women talking about the burden of care, in any sense, unfairly and all too often falling on us. We were all doing the best we could fuelled by love (plus caffeine and slight rage in my case).

As I listened to their stories, I thought that maybe finding our common ground was the way to get through to people when it comes to explaining the inexplicable life of an unpaid carer. I don’t know what it is like to be a mum, mums don’t understand what being an unpaid carer is like but we both can relate to our similar experiences and maybe develop a better understanding of each other through our common ground.

To all the unpaid carers reading this, bear with me on this. I know it is natural to vent and forcefully tell everyone how difficult, draining, and exhausting our lives are. I get it. I want to vent and let my frustration out just as much as you do. However, to get real change, we need everyone to have a sense of what our lives are like, they need to relate on some level to pay attention and take it seriously enough to want to help and support us.

I think we need to change the way we talk about unpaid care to make it relatable, to shock people into wanting to help – not just call us heroes and move on. That will require a change in how we describe our experiences, perhaps even to sanitise them a bit to make them more palatable to a non-carer audience. That’s where the difficulty lies and where I lose some unpaid carers. How do we retain the authenticity of our experience while trying to make it widely relatable? How do we engage with a non-carer audience in a relatable way to warn them about something dramatic they will likely experience when they don’t want to believe or hear it?

This is where my grandmother comes in – who doesn’t love a cute old lady? In these blogs, I purposefully mix in lighter, funnier, grandma stories that non-carers can find amusing and hopefully start to engage with the less retable content if they choose to read more posts.

Speaking of grandma, the first thing she said when I came home was: ‘So you didn’t get stabbed then? It shows lots of that happening on the news.’ I do really live with a toddler who drinks, talks back, but is hilarious.

P.S: If you have any thoughts on the questions in the blog, please leave me a comment.
No choice, high cost

Jun 17th, 2024
Tea or coffee? Cats or dogs? Seaside or mountain? Early mornings or late nights? Comedy or drama?

Life is full of choices, or preferences as referenced above. It is for most people anyway. For carers, the reality is very different. We haven’t chosen to be in the situation we’re in and have little control over our lives, as they become an add-on to the person we’re caring for.

62% of carers say they have no choice but to care according to recent research- which sound obvious but it is an important point to make. The current government narrative is that we volunteer our time to care for our loved ones. This is not true. We are not volunteers, we are hostages of a failing system. We don’t want to give up our lives to care, we have no choice. As every French foreign language teacher says several times a day: ‘repeat after me’: CARERS HAVE NO CHOICE. Go on, say it out loud: CARERS HAVE NO CHOICE.

Let’s look at the cost of having no choice according to the latest Carers Week report:
- Mental health: 63% of current and former unpaid carers saying that
  caring had a negative impact on their mental health. I’m willing to bet that percentage is much higher. Caring is brutal and, personally, the isolation and loneliness I feel is the worst part. I’m a high functioning anxious and depressive mess, well… I was until about 2 weeks ago. I haven’t been functioning so well of late which means daily bouts of sobbing, uncontrollable anxiety, no appetite, and the exhausting work of hiding it in front of grandma and my work colleagues. Can I take time off, or have a break ‘to focus on myself’? No. Because I don’t have a choice.
- Physical health: 53% of carers said that caring had a negative impact on
  their physical health. I’m sure the real figure is 100% but the remaining 47% haven’t been able to see a doctor. I fall in that category. I have lots of muscle pain around my shoulders specifically, it is probably stress. I can’t see or speak to a doctor about it so I just struggle through it and Google stretches that don’t work. I don’t have time to look after myself and the constant battle for any medical attention equates to no choice but to carry on caring.
- Job and ability to work: 48% of carers said caring negatively affected their ability to work. For me this is slightly different, caring affects my employability and my career. The fact that I have to work remotely will mean a much harder job search when that time comes. Is it fair? No. Do I have a choice? No.
- Finances and savings: 47% of carers said that caring negatively impacted their finances. As the help provided by the social care and health services is inadequate and insufficient at best, most carers will have to pay for their loved ones to get the care they need. It gets expensive quickly. Can unpaid carers supplement their income to survive? Yes and no, if they claim the Carers Allowance, they can’t earn more than £151 per week or they will have to pay back their whole benefit payment. They really have no choice in the matter, as the Department for Work and Pensions will threaten them and take them to court if they have exceeded the limit by just £1.
- Relationships: 37% of carers said caring had negatively impacted their relationships. That is certainly the case for me. When the need for care arises in families, it will show you who your relatives really are. I suggest you believe them the first time and don’t bother to try to get anything from them. I unfortunately discovered that my father is pathologically selfish and is willing to wash his hands completely of his mother’s care. He’s absolutely fine with his daughter crumbling physically and mentally so his golfing schedule remains uninterrupted. Caring has cost me a dad and many friends. I can’t really blame my former friends, I can never see them and I’m always miserable. On a positive note, caring will also reveal who your real friends are and that it is, in fact, a choice to stay in touch or not.
It may sound extreme to not-yet-carer ears but most carers can’t decide when they have a shower, go to the loo or eat. We have very little control over our lives and that means our own dreams and aspirations have to die so our loved ones can live. That is the true cost of having no choice but to care.

P.S: Tea/ Dogs/ Mountains/Early mornings/ Neither – Documentaries.
Carer conservation

May 27th, 2024

There is a lot going on, isn’t there?! I’ve not had time to do anything other than the essentials – I’ve been working and caring. That’s it. Nothing else. I’ve been really tired, overloaded, generally very low, and struggling to engage with what has been happening in the news. That feeling is unusual for me as it is my job to know what is going on and I like to be informed. A lot has also been going on in the world of unpaid carer news but I haven’t had the emotional bandwidth to read about the latest in the carer overpayment scandal. I have also been neglecting this blog, not having the time or energy to write.

Usually, I’m a do-er and love a deadline. I say ‘yes’ to most extra work (be it for my job or in my caring capacity) as it is a welcome distraction to the stress, and tedium of my day-to-day existence. It also keeps my brain engaged and focused on something more productive than self-pity. I’ve not been able to do that these last few days so I’ve had to use an essential skill the majority of carers develop – ruthless prioritisation and self-preservation.

I’m good at prioritisation but the self-preservation bit is very hard for me. Had my self-preservation instinct been stronger, I might never have become an unpaid carer in the first place. To clarify, I’m not talking about booking a spa day because I’m feeling run down – I mean carers having to shut down or stop any non-essential activities for a period of time until they feel they can surface again. For me, non-essential activities include: texting people back, paying attention to the outside world, doing Pilates, looking at social media, emailing non-colleagues back, watching TV or listening to podcasts, writing this blog, going outside etc. basically anything that is not work or caring for grandma related.

This intentional shrinking of my already-small world is not pleasant as I feel guilt intermingled with my constant sense of being overwhelmed so I try to keep my carer conservation time to a minimum. My week or so of forced shutdown ended recently when I finally found time to wash my hair. It had the effect of kickstarting a need to get back outside and moving again with my usual 20 minute post-work Pilates workout. I have been reincorporating my other non-essential activities and feel like I can cope with looking at the news again and dealing with my other projects. I try to pace myself, slowly adding more activities to my already-full days and getting the gratification of feeling productive and involved again.

Carer conservation is hard but essential for someone like me, and it looks like I have plenty of things to catch up on!
Carers run the world

Mar 8th, 2024

If I was called Laurent things would be very different for me. I’d be a man, and therefore, almost certainly would not be an unpaid carer to my grandmother. I wouldn’t even have been asked to come up and help her in the first place four years ago.

Why? I’m not really sure how to answer that, I think because of the bias that exists in society. Women help. They care. And that’s their job. We’re ‘built’ that way. That is, to some extent, the conscious (and unconscious) bias that we all exhibit. Maybe that is true, maybe women do care more and offer help more readily than men. I don’t think that distinction, if it exists, should punish women and diminish their chances of living the lives they want.

But punish us, it does. Women are significantly more likely to provide unpaid care compared to men and, depending on what research you read, around 60% of unpaid carers in the UK are women. This means they are more likely to work part time or stop working altogether, Carers UK estimates that 600 people a day quit their jobs in the UK to provide unpaid care.

What happens if women stopped caring? Think about it. What would we do if the women in our lives stopped doing all the extra things they do for their family, friends, and community? The world would be a much harsher place, with less support and generally less love.

According to Beyoncé’s immortal words, girls run the world. I agree and I would argue that unpaid carers do a lot of that too. We run our loved one’s world. We do it with love, attention, fun, and *very* efficiently. Today is International Women’s Day and I will have a special thought for all the women in my life, and an extra special rage-tinged thought for all the women unpaid carers. These women who are constantly caring, at the expense of their own lives, who are ignored by society, and often driven into poverty. These women who are pillars of strength and support for their families, and hold up the UK’s crumbling social care and health service.

Today will be the same as every other day for us unpaid carers, but I will be grateful that we exist.

And, yes, I know a lot of men are also unpaid carers and they too provide care. In our society, everyday is International Men’s Day, let us have this one.

Sources:

https://www.health.org.uk/publications/long-reads/understanding-unpaid-carers-and-their-access-to-support#:~:text=Most%20people%20will%20have%20caring,60%25%20of%20carers%20were%20women.

https://www.employersforcarers.org/resources/facts-and-figures/#:~:text=The%20gender%20ratio%20has%20remained,women%20and%2042%25%20are%20men.

https://www.carersuk.org/press-releases/research-more-than-600-people-quit-work-to-look-after-older-and-disabled-relatives-every-day
Bored bubble

Feb 22nd, 2024

I’m bored. I’m so bored. As bored as bored can be. Yes, I’m stressed, busy, and my shoulder still hurts but after weeks of solid groundhog day-ing I’m thoroughly tired of everything.

Can you be bored and stressed? Maybe I mean I’m uninspired? The drudgery of my everyday life is getting to me and I’m not interested in anything. This is rare for me as I usually find most things spark my interest. I will watch a documentary on anything and love learning new facts. But this week, I simply can’t be bothered. I do what I have to do with no enthusiasm.

I don’t even want to eat, I cook for grandma but barely eat for myself. I have no appetite and every recipe idea I usually enjoy sounds dull to me. It is like I live in a numb bubble. A bored bubble if you will. Constant caring sucks the life out of you, and you become a shell of your former self. Things that used to matter to me don’t as much anymore, or things that would make me angry don’t trigger me. Even writing the overused-by-social-media-influencers word ‘trigger’ has no effect on me. (Apologies for using it dear reader, I’ll do better in the next blog ).

The thing about being busy and having an endless caring and working to-do list is that you don’t have time to think, that time is usually when I get an idea or will think of something to look up, read or listen to when I grandma is having her post-lunch wine nap at the weekend. Time to think is crucial for me, as an anxious over-thinker, but it is also my (very small) super power. I can usually come up with an idea a minute or a creative story angle for work, which is handy as that’s a big part of my job. It is that creativity that keeps me inspired and interested in making an effort to stay engaged with life outside of my job and caring, even though I’m exhausted.

Being a carer means you can’t do what you love. A hobby or something you find fun. That’s important to stay inspired. That something is horse riding for me but I have no time to do it. I do walk by a field of horses on my early morning pre-work walks, perhaps a chat and a cuddle with a friendly pony will help me get my mojo back. Horses are great listeners.
I got nothing

Dec 7th, 2023
I don’t know what to write about this week. Usually, I think about what I could write for the blog as I’m doing the laundry or cooking and ideas start fizzing. But this week, I got nothing. Zero, zilch, rien – as we say in French. My brain is empty, like a dark screen that I just stare at blankly, with no thoughts filtering up.

My creative brain is decidedly uninspired at the moment. It could be due to a number of factors: my constant tiredness, my anxiety, my depression, overworking, 24/7 caring for grandma who is still ill, or the fact that it is dark and miserable all the time where I live. I can usually muster up an idea despite all those things so I’m not sure why I can’t this week.

I have to find a way to get myself inspired again. Being creative, be it at work with story ideas or writing this blog is an important outlet for me. It gets me excited and my brain loves to focus on a problem or a project I can get immersed in to find a creative answer to it.

I’ll have to go back to basics to get my creativity back. I have a few a tricks up my sleeve:
- Music: I listen to everything from gospel (I’m not religious, I just love the voices and the hope they sing about) to the sharp-witted Australian songwriter and comedian Tim Minchin. I listen to music while I work, it helps me focus and I marvel at the beauty of my favourite singers’ voices.
- Podcasts: I listen to a wide range of them while I’m walking, from silly shows like Hamish & Andy to more serious ones like The Rest Is Politics, I’m really enjoying The Rest is History show at the moment. They all make me think (or laugh) and that is usually good to get my inspiration juices flowing.
- Documentaries: When grandma is having her post lunch nap on a Sunday afternoon and I’ve done all the housework, I like to put on a documentary. Something that sparks my interest, I’m lucky that I’m naturally curious so I find most things interesting. Maybe that’s what I’m missing this week, I’ve not had time to get curious about something.
- Hiking: Getting out on the moors has become a must for me at weekends. It is beautiful up there and a brisk hike helps me reset my brain.
- A good chat: As a carer, it is more difficult for me to find the time to have those. I always leave re-energised after I’ve a spoken to a friend.
None of those things are groundbreaking, they’re just more difficult to do when you’re a carer. It is so easy to forgo all the things I listed in favour of the endless list of tasks I have to do, to completely drain myself of any inspiration and totally surrender to the darkness . That’s why it is so important to get back into some of those habits.

I think I’ll listen to some gospel while I answer my many work emails, try to find some joy and inspiration for the next blog.
The C word

Nov 16th, 2023

Last week, I was invited to speak at Carers UK’s State of Caring Conference. I took part in a panel discussion with two other carers to share what our daily lives are like and what help we need the most. I was a bit nervous logging on to the call as I was having a busy day at work and there is no such thing as a lunch break in my company. I wasn’t worried about grandma’s potential interruptions, I had already made her lunch so she was having her post wine-with-lunch snooze.

I was concerned about what I would be saying and if it would resonate with anyone on the panel. I needn’t have been anxious. Our discussion was expertly guided, and I felt comfortable sharing my experiences. My favourite part of the panel was that I could relate to the others’ experiences and they could relate to mine. It was great to feel understood and remind myself that others are going through the same things I am. The loneliness of mine and most carers’ situations means we often don’t feel part of conversations because we’re removed from what most would consider ‘normal’ life. I can rarely relate to my friends’ conversations anymore, I can understand them intellectually and empathise, but because we don’t have the same shared experiences, I can’t truly relate to what they’re going through.

On the panel, I found myself nodding my head vigorously in agreement to what was being said and felt I was part of a community. I felt comforted and understood after the call, something that is so important on a human level, that we often forget and that we take for granted.

Community, and the need to invest in and value it, could also be part of the solution to the caring issues we face as a society. In Emily Kenway’s (excellent) book ‘Who Cares‘ she explores the concept of ‘commons care’ or ‘commoning’ which is essentially the act of caring and looking out for each in our communities, more or less formally. It sounds simple and something we all do, but in our individualistic society, that values freedom and independence above all, this concept in practice is harder to achieve. If we all looked out for each other and checked in on each other a bit more, the care burden could be shared and, crucially, understood by everyone to create a better way forward. We’re all likely to need care at some point in our lives, so this approach would benefit us all.

P.S: The C word I reference in the title is ‘Community’ – to be *crystal* clear 🙂
Not for sissies

Nov 6th, 2023

There is a French expression that is particularly apt to describe the age-related events of last week: ‘un coup de vieux‘. It means to age noticeably, literally a ‘hit of old age’.

Ageing is a gradual process peppered with moments that are more discernible. When it comes to advanced old age, I’m not sure what category being 98 falls under, the ‘senior moments’ become more frequent and can have serious consequences. As a carer, they are also hard to watch.

Grandma had a tough week. She had several ageing ‘hits’ as the French would say.

The first old age ‘hit’ happened on Tuesday in dramatic fashion, just like grandma likes it. I had a work call from 12 to 12.30 so I told her I would make her lunch after I’d finished my meeting. The call overran by about 20 minutes, I knew grandma would be getting impatient but there was nothing I could do about the lateness. As soon as the call ended, I quickly went downstairs and into the kitchen to start cooking, I was met with a strong smell of smoke and burning. I rushed over to the stove, inexplicably, grandma had poured a large quantity of oil in a pan and left it on a high heat. It was smoking and spitting. I immediately turned the heat off and removed the pan.

‘What on earth did you do? That could have badly burned us both!‘

Panting, grandma came into the kitchen confused and maintained she had no idea how that happened. I’m not buying the sudden amnesia, but the fact she left a pan full of oil on a high heat for no apparent reason does worry me. Her impatience at me making her lunch is usually manifested in loudly getting her tray out of the pantry and banging it on the kitchen counter. Patience and subtlety are not her strong suits.

Thursday brought more another ageing ‘hit’, this time in the form of the dreaded bank statement review she insists on doing. We set up her special strong light, her two magnifying glasses, and me, her seeing-eye granddaughter helpfully pointing out each entry for her to read out so I can find the corresponding receipt. Due to her macular degeneration, this is always a tough task but, with some effort, she can usually where I’m pointing to and slowly adjusts her magnifying glass to read out the numbers and the reference. This time, no matter what we tried, she could not see what line I was pointing to, nor see well enough to read out any entry. This upset her greatly and the whole thing ended in tears with me reassuring her it was just a bad day and it would be better next time. I felt so sad and helpless watching her struggle and cry.

The week’s final ‘hit’ has ignited a battle that I feel will be longer than the one I won over her drinking more water, that one took 2 years. Very early on Friday morning, as I was doing the laundry, I noticed grandma’s underwear was more soiled than usual, I also saw stains on her skirts. I decided to broach the sore topic of grandma needing to wear her incontinence pads, by gently pointing out some of the stains. She immediately said I was talking ‘rubbish’ and she couldn’t see anything. That may or may not be true- the one benefit of having macular degeneration is that displays of visual bad faith are difficult to prove. I said that she was going to have to wear her pads daily, nobody would know and we would have less stains. The response was a firm NO.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to insist. I will lay one out for you. It is not a big deal and it’s normal at your age. Everyone wears them!’ I said, trying to keep my tone light.

‘Not they don’t. I’m not wearing them.’

As a type this, we’re in the middle of a standoff. I won the pad battle on Saturday- grandma was very rude to me and kept up her sulking all day. I lost the Sunday fight and have insisted again today (Monday). I will win the war but I feel this will be a long slog. I understand it may feel embarrassing but I don’t really understand the fuss she is making about it.

The American actress, Bette Davis apparently said ‘Old age is not for sissies‘. I think she was spot on. Neither is living with old people!
So much for being a hero

Jul 17th, 2023

Sometimes, I can’t stand my grandmother. Yes, you read that right. Be warned, I’m about to get very honest. Read on if you dare and make your judgement of me at the end of this post.

There are days when the sound of my grandmother’s voice makes me grit my teeth and mutter a swear word. Days when everything drives me mad, where my frustration boils over. Mornings when I hate that my grandmother reminds me of things I have to do at 6am when I know full well what my list of tasks for the day are. Lunchtimes when she asks me the same question every time I cook salmon (‘Why don’t you use butter?‘), and afternoons when her TV quiz shows are too loud. Evenings when she makes the same remarks about the same old TV shows she watches. I hate that everything takes longer, that she never hears things the first time and that she refuses to try new things that I know she’ll like.

I can hear you thinking that I’m being very harsh and that she’s 98 for goodness sake! And that I’m not a very nice person.

I do feel guilty for those feelings and for the times I’ve lost my temper and snapped at her. She gives as good as she gets on that front, and I’m sure there are days when she hates me too.

Emotional exhaustion

That’s apparently what I’m suffering from, extreme frustration and zero patience are two common symptoms. I’ve learnt to recognise when I’m close to that state and try to calm myself down or go for a long walk if I can. I don’t know that it helps but the cure seems to be ‘self care’ which is pretty impossible if you’re a carer so getting out of the house before I scream, cry or both feels like a good option.

I’ve also come to realise that being a carer changes the relationship you have with the person you care for. I’m ‘more’ than my grandmother’s grandchild, I live with her, I do everything for her and in such close proximity tensions are bound to arise. My relationship with my grandmother is now very different to the one my sister has with her, they only see each other sporadically, have a nice time and then, crucially, my sister leaves. It is that distance that keeps my sister’s relationship safely in the grandmother/ grand-daughter sphere.

I’d say my relationship with her is now ‘grittier’, I’ve seen her at her worst, comforted her, saved her life, and yes – get the giggles with her, cook her favourite meals and introduced her to podcasts.

I love my grandmother but it’s a struggle sometimes, I admit I’m sometimes too harsh. But I’m also exhausted, have a stressful job, and trapped in a situation I could never have foreseen. So I don’t know about you, but I’m going to cut myself some slack….

So much for carers being ‘heroes’. We’re really all trying to survive the day and doing the best we can.

Tag: mental health

Emotional exhaustion