This is my last month as an official carer for our daughter. I become a pensioner on the 2nd of Jan. I received my official letter informing me the same day our payrolling agency paid our daughters carers just 10% of their wages which took 43hrs and an official complaint request to put right. Today our new carer had an email scrap with the agency God knows why she could have just admitted her fault and the Hornets nest has erupted. I am tired, old, I ache every where . I have no one to listen and I don’t want to do this anymore. I just want the angst to stop. I love our child , I would give my life for her but the system is broken and so am I. I do t want to fight anymore.
Oh Colleen,
I feel your frustration and exhaustion. Not helped by the timing of the carers allowance kick in the teeth.
Melly1
Hi Colleen, I share your frustration with Social Services and all that goes with it.
For 25 years SSD have known that my health isn’t good enough to care for my son with LD.
He went to boarding school, residential college, then supported living, now in a flat of his own, with carers support. He was brain damaged at birth, keeps his flat like a show home, unlike mine, but can’t read, write, do any maths, or cross the road safely. On the other hand he can drive a 10 ton steam roller without any problems. No kidding!
I won’t go into my work background, but I really should be the easiest person to satisfy. I know the rules, the policy, the Care Act Regulations. I just want them to do their jobs properly.
I’ve dealt with over 20 social workers in the last five years, the latest one says she doesn’t have time to read the file. I go over, and over and over the same ground with different staff.
Yesterday I realised that until the New Year, I had to put all the paperwork in a box and leave it there until after Christmas.
Staff don’t do anything towards Christmas at all.
If he didn’t come here he’d be left alone in his flat for 19 hours a day.
So of course he’s coming here to me. No Carers Allowance as I’m a pensioner.
He has a care package of around £900 a week.
In theory he can have direct payments, I can have the money for the hours care I provide, instead of the agency. I don’t get a penny, although the regulations say it’s up to my son to choose who cares for him, “including friends and family” Hampshire don’t seem to have read that bit!!!
Hello Colleen - I think many of us have been where you are now. It’s b****y awful but it will pass. Social services are a joke. I have never in all my years dealing with them, found a good one that I can get on with. I swear they train them to be as vague and unhelpful as possible! 
In the last few years I just know that they will turn up with tattoos, piercings, nose rings etc. God knows how they get these jobs,
I also get my pension now and was really shocked when my Carers Allowance ended as I still do loads for my daughter. Caring for her is totally unchanged yet I don’t get paid.
I would have a good cry and then give yourself a rest from thinking about all this and carry on when you’re ready.
I have cried all morning on and off because. My Mum died on Wednesday. One minute I am OK and the next I am in tears. Even though I didn’t want my Mum to go on as she was for any longer I still feel desperately sad.
You take care of yourself. Xx
Penny, I decided it was better to cry than bottle it all up inside.
The year my husband died, I cried every night for a long time, but managed to keep it together during the day.
Coleen
Life is very difficult for you and I really want to acknowledge that. Keep posting even if to vent. Loads of us have and do.
Penny, my husband died 19 months ago. I miss him dreadfully, but he was so poorly and the dementia was declining quite rapidly, it would have been selfish of me to want him to stay. I cry on my own at certain times, but now can find the happier memories too. We are allowed to cry, and it’s so very raw for you at the moment.