Hi, I am a carer to my 24 year old son. I am 53 and cannot work due to being a full time carer. Sometimes it can feel really lonely and also you feel as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders.
I’m not looking for sympathy it’s just very hard sometimes to be positive.
This year I have had to cope with my daughter and 3 grandchildren living with us due to leaving an abusive relationship, my son is awaiting an operation and due to his disabilities is extremely challenging as well, I am also in the middle of transferring him over from Indefinate DLA to PIP which means we could lose our transport and all sorts of other problems.
On top of this my husband has a lot of health problems from kidney lung and blood cancer as well as diabetes and other problems, I also have arthritis of the knees , but I put my health to the end of my list as it seems all I deal with every day is everyone else’s problems , I have to help look after my grandchildren so I get very little time . It would be nice to chat to other people that understand as I feel that I’m overloaded sometimes with it all.
We don’t go out very often and have very little family so anyone wants a chat would be great
Thank you for reading .
Hi Sharon, welcome to the forum.
You have a houseful, and it’s all getting too much. Time for you to change your attitude, stop trying to soldier on, it IS too much and you DO need help. Now is the time to start yelling HELP, HELP and keep yelling until Social Services listen to you.
Your role is NOT that of slave, you are a person in your own right, who needs to put her health first.
I know how all this feels, for different reasons.
What would you like to happen in the next year?
I suspect daughter moving out would make life a lot easier. They need their own space again.
Why wasn’t her husband made to move out, leaving the home to the children?
When is she going to be rehoused?
Your son is now 24, what are your long term plans for him. My own son has SLD, brain damaged at birth. He now lives in Supported Living. When did he last have a Needs Assessment, and you a Carers Assessment, from Social Services? It should be updated at least once a year.
Does your NHS LD Team support you? Ours has just introduced a Challenging Behaviour Team. Is it any surprise that his behaviour is bad with so many more people in the house?!
What sort of operation is he facing?
Don’t worry too much about changing from DLA to PIP, my son’s transfer was very straightforward.
Long term he needs to find a new home somewhere else, that you can help him make, so that others are providing the care some of the time, to give you a break. Do you ever get any respite at all?!
Use your husband’s illness and your knees to push this forward. My son now comes home regularly, we have a nice time gether, then he goes back and has various day services during the weenk.
The same questions with regard to your husband - when did he last have an assessment? Is he getting any support for his health issues.
Your knees - I have two knee replacements - I know the pain you are in only too well, having hobbled around on two sticks until I just couldn’t bear it any more, although still in my 50’s. Do you need replacements too?