There have been many occasions in the last six years when I have felt overwhelmed. I did not envisage in my wildest dreams, that after graduating from University as a mature student, I would be putting my career on hold to become a full-time carer. Of course it’s not Melanie’s fault, she didn’t ask to develop her mental illness, it’s one of those unfortunate things in life that just happens. Nonetheless, the person I knew before the illness is not the person I know now. I didn’t have time to adapt to my new role and I felt very resentful that I had absolutely no ‘me’ time to do the things I so wanted to do after graduating, both professionally and socially, and certainly my relationship with my partner, Colin, took a real bashing. He neither understood nor realised the enormity of what I was dealing with and resented the fact that I had either no time for him or the energy to go out and do things together.
I remember going to a carers meeting within the first year of Melanie becoming ill with her schizophrenia, and I didn’t go back the following month. I was so disillusioned by the reaction of all the carers at the meeting. I can relate to them now (six years on) but then I wasn’t ready to hear all their negative comments, but then most of them had been carers for between 15 and 20 years, and were vastly experienced but also extremely angry at the lack of support they were receiving from the ‘professionals’ involved in their loved ones care.
I remember so clearly a gentleman who was so angry, and kept repeating, “But what about me, what about me, nobody listens to me. I’m not well, and I need help, and nobody is listening, why wont they listen.” He could not be appeased no matter how hard the Re-Think Advisor tried to assist him and give him different avenues to go down. “I have tried all that,” he would reply, “nobody is listening.”
Hearing his comments after only being a ‘fresher’ at caring, was too much to bare, but quite frankly, several years later I could really relate to his plight. Saying it’s completely and utterly exasperating is putting it mildly.
There is never going to be a miracle answer or solution to every carer’s problems. Every one of us is going to experience a slightly different problem, depending on the disability of the person we are caring for, but we have one common theme, we work under appalling conditions and rarely give up on our loved one, until of course, we are at the end of our tether and it has got too much. What we need to do is work on ‘me’ time and help each other. And never, never, say no, to even the smallest bit of help offered by a friend, neighbour or relative.