Tag: relationships

Unhelpful help

Jan 8th, 2025
‘I think these radiators need bleeding.’ Said my father early one morning last week.

‘Please don’t.’ I sighed ‘It is freezing and going to snow. I don’t want you to mess up the heating system.’ I said, as I looked back at my work laptop. It was the 2nd of January so I was back at work and dealing with whatever fresh stress my inbox was about to throw at me (it isn’t all bad, sometimes it is funny *and* stressful).

Dad didn’t listen and by mid-morning we had no heating or hot water. I was furious. Given he was visiting to allegedly help, this was decidedly un-fucking-helpful. Once I’d abandoned plotting his murder (who would look after grandma if I go to prison?), I thought compiling a list of what is actually helpful to unpaid carers was a more productive thing to do.

Before I begin, to all the friends-of-carers reading this, please don’t be offended by this blog. We appreciate your efforts to be part of our lives and your friendship, these are meant to be gentle suggestions. It takes a special person to remain close friends with a carer, one that doesn’t subscribe to the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality. Given our situation, and our near-constant stress or exhaustion, we need a few adjustments to the more traditional friendship conventions. You’ll understand when it is your turn to become a carer.

Tips of providing helpful help:
- Ask us. It seems obvious but ask us what we need help with. We have a lot of tasks to get through everyday so we’ll always have something for you to do.
- Think practically. This is linked to the above but helping us with the grocery shopping, or with laundry for example is truly appreciated. I will never say no to someone who pops round with baked goods either.
- Be our break enablers. Giving us the luxury of an hour or two to take a shower, have a nap, or go out while you look after our loved one will guarantee a carer’s gratitude.
- Be adaptable. Planning can be tricky when you’re a carer, we might have to cancel plans at the last minute. On the plus side, we also make very understanding friends because of this.
- Tell us about your life. Please chat to us as you would a non-carer friend. We want to know about what’s going on in your life, your work drama, the really great holiday you’ve been on, or your take on current events. Anything other than caring or our situation. For that moment, it makes us feel like we’re part of the world and we can live vicariously through you.
- Stay in touch. We’re all busy, I get it. That’s why staying in touch even just over text is much appreciated. I have friends I haven’t seen for years but text regularly, knowing that when I get my life back and can leave the house, we’re having an in-person reunion.
Have I missed anything, my fellow unpaid carers? Would you send this to your non-carer friends? And yes, dad is still alive… for now.
Party pooper

Nov 8th, 2024

Grandma is turning 100 next February. Pretty cool, right?

Thoughts have naturally turned to having a birthday party to celebrate. I’m too tired and busy to add another project to my never-ending list so I have delegated this task to her only son, my father. I told him he needed to organise it, I wouldn’t be getting involved – my role being to keep his mother alive until then.

He said he would sort it out and I (naively) believed him. I thought preparations were being made in the background until I came down one evening to find grandma crying, holding the phone.

‘What’s wrong, grandma?‘

‘Your father has asked me to call the venue for my birthday to book it. And I can’t see the number.’ She said sniffling.

‘What?! Give me the phone, I’ll sort it out.‘ I said angrily.

He had one job. To make a phone call or send an email and book the local pub/cricket club down the road that grandma wanted. I fired off an angry text to tell him he was not to ask his blind 99-year-old mother to do any organising. He sent me a weak excuse and said he would be handling it from now on.

I didn’t believe that – I might be naive but not stupid – I decided to not get involved and see how seriously he took this (tiny) responsibility. He came over a few weeks ago to visit (thereby giving me even more work to do- his version of ‘help’ is extremely unhelpful) and to plan the party. He made a huge deal about going to the venue to make the reservation, triumphantly returning an hour later and announcing he’d paid the deposit and that the matter was now ‘sorted‘. No- I wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.

‘Great, what are the food options like?’ I asked.

‘They have some.’ He answered, confidently.

‘I imagine they do. But we need to choose it. What are the menu options? And what about alcohol?’

‘We can bring our own I think.’ He said, sounding less confident.

‘Do they have a licence for that? I don’t think they’ll let you do that. And we can’t have a dry birthday party when wine is what grandma says has got her to this age. What is the seating like? What about music? What’s the capacity of the room? Have you started on a guest list? What about the cake?’ I asked rapidly.
He looked at me wide-eyed: ‘ Well … you’d better come with me next time to ask all these questions’.

There it was. The trap. The same one he set that got me in this situation in the first place. The ‘let it fail’ dilemma. Do I let this party be a disaster and grandma have a terrible 100th birthday or do I do what I said I wouldn’t and get involved? The same situation I wrestled with when it came to caring from grandma; do I leave and let her die, or do I stay? She’s clearly not her son’s problem, so what do I do? What would you have done? The answer is that you can’t possibly know until confronted with the situation. You can rationalise it all you like, but the reality is very different.

In the end, I did get involved and met the venue manager to ask all the questions that needed to be asked. I have now firmly left it with my father to fuck up or not. I will not be getting involved past this point. He has all the information he needs to do this one thing for his mother, while I do the rest.

I’m glad I went as my (French) mother provided much needed unintended comic relief by asking the bewildered venue manager about ‘ze traitor’ and when said traitor would be arriving on the day. In between fits of giggling, I quickly explained to him that ‘caterer’ in French is ‘traiteur’.

P.S: Is my boiling rage I feel towards my father coming through? Good. More on that here, if you’re interested.
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.
Ignorance is bliss

Feb 12th, 2024
A favourite colleague said something unbelievably stupid to me last week. She called me to discuss a story angle and, as we always have a little chat, she asked me what weekend plans I had. As a carer, I never usually have any except more caring so I always avoid answering it, but last weekend, I had organised a birthday lunch for grandma at a local restaurant. Happy I actually had a real answer for once, I answered the question. Her response was something along the lines of: ‘grandmothers are great but you should find yourself a man‘.

I was stunned into silence and the following thoughts ran through my head:
- WTF?!
- Have I accidentally conferenced in my mother?
- How is this any of her business?
- Is she working for mother?
- WTF?!
- She wouldn’t have said that to a man.
- So much for women supporting women.
- Isn’t she divorced?
- God! Everyone thinks I’m a loser.
I quickly recovered and professionally ended the call giving her more work to do than strictly necessary because I might be a loser but I’m technically her boss. I had 10 minutes before my next call so I went downstairs to check on grandma and overthink about how much of a loser I am while making a cup of tea.

Yes, I know it was a stupid thing to say and yes, I also know she means well and was just clumsy in her wording. She’s right that I am as single as it is possible to be. I don’t need reminding. I went on a date with every dickhead in London before I became a carer, and have currently retired from the dickhead dating scene because I have enough to worry about without wondering why some guy I don’t know hasn’t texted me back and how he will react when he finds out I don’t drink. Incidentally, dear reader, do let me know in the comments if you want a date story or two, I have stories for DAYS. All bad and mostly funny.

This incident got me thinking that ignorance really is bliss, this colleague knows my situation but clearly has no idea of what it actually involves and how much your life is whittled down to a mere existence. She clearly thinks I have a choice in my situation and have the freedom to ‘go find a man’. My colleague, like most of the soon-to-be-carer population, thinks being an unpaid carer is like having children. Your life gets a bit more stressful and you have less free time but overall, it is manageable. They could not be more wrong… they will find out in due course how wrong they are, of course, and they should pay more attention to what being a parent carer is like for example.

I wish those people felt gratitude, they should feel grateful that they can’t even imagine what being an unpaid carer is like. They should enjoy it while it lasts. The one thing they should not do, is judge or offer ‘advice’. It is unhelpful, insulting and usually makes an already depressed carer feel worse. I was probably one of those people before I became a carer. I’m now a much more empathetic person, I know I can’t imagine what other people are going through so I try not to judge and catch myself when I do.

To everyone who knows an unpaid carer: first of all, thank you for sticking around. Please hear this- we know you mean well, but we don’t need your judgement. Please stop telling us what we *should* be doing. Instead, you can do one of two things: listen. Let us vent, cry, chat… just be there in person or on the phone. That’s enough. Or offer concrete help, offer to cook, to do laundry, to take over the caring for a bit etc. that is truly valuable.

I suppose I should be grateful to my colleague, I know she would be horrified that her comment hurt me. She also gave me something timely to write about with Valentine’s Day happening this week! I might do a bonus blog this week for the occasion as, spoiler alert, I have no hot date planned…

Tag: relationships

Unhelpful help

Party pooper

No choice, high cost

Ignorance is bliss