Hi guys
I am someone else, not me. Everything I do is centred around another. I didn'tn sign up for this, there is no pension scheme, and there is very little in the way of promotion prospects. I won't get a reference, and certainly no pay rise. Future employers will only see a gap in my employment history and hold it against me. I have become invisible.
I think many of us understand EXACTLY what you mean. No holiday pay or sick pay either and not always much appreciation.
But, we keep on caring because it's what we do.
Keep posting on here, it's good to talk about your feelings.
I care for my husband who has brain problems no help to get him to appointments or anyone to watch him if I need to go out life is so hard I need to appreciate more that he is with me but I keep thinking how it used to be which off course doesn't help
Have you spoken to Care for the Carers? They might be able to help with someone to sit with your husband sometimes to let you get out.
Hi exhausted wife. I believe that this is the only platform that carers get listened to, but once again, we are left to find it on our own!
Hold onto the concept that you are not just a carer, but the same person you were as a teenager viewing the future and the adult in the working world. Read all you can about how you can honestly describe gaps in your employment history and assure prospective employers that you have the right attitude and skills to offer them. I know your situation is not an easy one.
hi jaykay. I can do these things, my point was that only those that deal with caring for someone we love is not seen by others as worthwhile in some way? And in this we are alone most of the time (I would say 'I', but there are so many of us), we are not a part of the functional system therefore we have no value? It's easy to intellectualise the position of a carer, but not so easy to really see it.
Hi lel1. It's a horrible feeling, isn't it? All I can comfort you with, having trodden that path before you, is that there is eventually a light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately reaching it often means your losing someone you love very much in the process, but that is where your real reward is.
And it comes from having cared. Not cared for, but just cared. The reward doesn't bring you happiness, money, a new job, status in the community, but the feeling, a very strong one, of having completed what you had to do. And you can double that feeling if this is someone beloved you have cared for.
It's true that no-one much cares that you have had to put your life on hold. Life's a busy place, but whilst all of us have challenges, only some of us manage to rise to meet them, as you are doing.
I can't stop you feeling invisible, or undervalued and overworked, but I can tell you that you are doing a wonderful and necessary job. Focus on now as patiently as you can, and when there's time, visualize a different future, because nothing stays the same for ever.
Hi Callendersgal. Thank you so much for your words! They have brought tears to my eyes, but at the same time I feel that someone understands me...at last! You're right, at the moment I daren't look past today for the fear of what is inevitable in the future, and the fear that I won't be able to cope. But I will do what I need to do, for both of us. it's all I can do. Later on, I hope that I won't look back and see that I didn't do all that I could. That will be my reward. Thankyou again for your support.
After the Caring's done
End of life : Caring at home
Helping someone who's paranoid.
Caring for 90 year old mother