Hello 
My name is Laura. I’m 40 from Oxford with two daughters.
As the title suggests, in autumn I’ll be leaving my job to focus on caring for both my daughters. My eldest is 21 and has autism. She does not work as she cannot travel by herself and has difficulties with comprehension so I’m going to be working with her to help her be able to travel and start some volunteer work.
Then we have my 16 year old… poor girl. 18 months ago she started developing chronic conditions- significant stomach pains- which meant she missed half of year 10. Then she developed CFS which she has had for a year now. And of course her anxiety went through the absolute roof and she could no longer be around her peers and stopped attending school in year 11 in November last year. She was under our local hospital school for this year but could only do one GCSE- English language- and a couple of functional skill exams.
I’ve applied her for a small- very small- college and really this is more to just try and get her back to some normalcy. She’s on medication, she’s having therapy, she has a paediatrician, she has a CAMHs MH professional (who I’m not keen on) but really she needs someone available to her to physically help her daily get out the house, wake up, try and concur her fear of being around her peers etc. She’s also on the autism/ adhd assessment waiting list (I suspect ADHD) but let’s be honest she’ll probably be in her 20s before she gets an assessment for either.
Luckily for both my daughters I have both autism and adhd and I have learned a lot in my 40s about coping with certain things so we have that on our side! Never did I think I’d be grateful to have autism and adhd!
I don’t know how I’ve coped the last 18 months with working and coping with all this. My boss has been amazing, so supportive despite all the time I’ve work I’ve had to have off.
I know now is the right time to take a year or two out of work to fully concentrate on helping these young ladies find their feet.
I don’t know how I’ve coped up til now!!
I think we must all think that on a daily basis, right??
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The biggest regret of my life is not being able to work and use the qualifications I studied so hard for. Have you considered working part time? I had a wonderful life until my son was brain damaged at birth. In the next 16 years I didn’t have one child free day, apart from 3 in hospital having a hysterectomy! Once fit as a flea, able to run a mile without being out of breath, I’m now permanently disabled, 73.
Be sure to have someone else involved with your household, even if it’s a cleaner for a few hours, funded as part of a Carers Assessment.
I am currently working part time, it’s too hard for me to balance with both my daughters needing me and being neurodivergent myself.
That is such a shame you felt like you couldn’t put your qualification to use 
I didn’t have anything like that as I had my first daughter at 19, didn’t go to uni or anything so I didn’t really have any expectations or plan career wise. Buy my best friend had to give up her career due to ill health and it was really devastating for her.
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I left school with 3 A levels, but met the man I would later marry when I was 16, married at 19, Too fed up with reading to do a degree, in fact I stayed working in Switzerland until it was too late to find me a course! My husband to be came back from Australia the following year, engaged within 2 months, bought a house 3 months later and married 2 months after that! We worked in Australia for 3 years. I did a special mature students one day a week degree when the children were about 8 and 10.
Hi Laura.
Do make sure you get all the benefits to which you and the girls are entitled. There’s a benefits checker on the main CarersUK website which can help. No one tells you what’s available, you have to find out! If you check to see if there’s a local Carer’s Support Centre, do get in touch with them as they can help with that and lots of other advice and support FOR YOU as well as for the girls.
Please also make sure YOUR GP as well as the girls GP(s) know you are their carer. It can open other avenues of support and help for you and the surgery should ‘keep an eye’ on your health as well. I’ve found that invaluable even though I have LPA for Graham and they always deal directly with me. Recently it was funny as he got a text offering him an appointment at a “Well Man Clinic”. With his myriad of health problems it did make me laugh. I asked if I could go to it instead of him as I’ve not been offered that!
Thanks so much! I believe I do get everything we are entitled to but I’ll use that checker just incase!
Yep that’s what I always, you have to find out yourself because they don’t actually want people claiming these things!
Yeah GP knows I’m their carer. Always looking for extra bits of advice I might not have thought of/ known about so any thing else you think of so let me know thank you! 
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I am sure others will have thoughts to add as well. A wealth of experience and knowledge on here
Hope you and yours are coping with the heat.