I’m
interested to know how other carers deal with overwhelm. The sense that it’s
all too big for anyone to handle, let alone you. That it’s all coming at you
like a meteor storm and you’re so tired you just want to lie down in the midst
of it, sucking your thumb.
Seeing
other people get on with their lives while yours is stopped in its tracks,
taken over by the needs of a needy person.
Hi-jacked
by your love for someone who isn’t ever going to get better. Trying so hard to
make it right for them, but getting into fights along the way like a mediaeval
knight trying to protect his princess from dragons.
There is so
much coming at me at the moment that it’s almost laughable. Where do I start?
Nick’s
neighbour is still on the rampage and as well as the smashed door incident
there have been three occasions in the last month that I’ve had to call the
police. The crazy thing is, there is no noise coming from Nick’s TV or radio
anymore as the hearing loop is working and we took his bedside CD player away
weeks ago. What exactly is he hearing to upset him so much? Now there is talk
of re-housing and an Anti Social Behaviour Order – at the moment just talk
though. While the police have been brilliant, the council are dragging their
feet.
And Nick’s
bathroom door handle is coming off again. Last time this happened, I phoned the
council repair team who told me they didn’t class it as a risk, resulting in Nick
getting stuck in the bathroom and having to be rescued by emergency
services. Need to call them in again, when I can summon up the strength to wait on the phone for forty minutes.
The carers
have taken on Nick’s nutritional needs but the ABC of no-brainer risk
assessment seems beyond them. Yesterday I arrived ten minutes after they had
left, to find water all over the kitchen floor. It looked as if someone had put
the washing machine on the wrong cycle again. Did they not notice, or have any
concerns about Nick coming in to get his wine (which he does at very regular
intervals) and slipping?
In the
bathroom, meanwhile, the bottle of bleach was sitting beside the loo with its
top off. Words absolutely fail me. These are adults, supposedly trained in
health and safety and the care of vulnerable persons. Paid to do this job. Not
very well paid, but paid more than I am to be on their case like this day in,
day out.
Our
landline is not working. I don’t know why.
And a
relative I’ve never met from New Zealand is coming to stay with us for three
days. I’m picking him up in an hour. I want to meet him – his dad, my cousin,
was a very good friend of mine back in the day and we have a shared gene pool,
thankfully on my dad’s side so HD free. But I have no idea how to even begin to
entertain him, let alone explain how things are for us. Though I suppose if he
is here for even a few hours he might understand the crack, and also why our
house is so unkempt and grimy.
And there’s
more, so much more, going on, but enough already.
The only
reason I have time to write this is that I’m waiting at Nick’s for a delivery.
Anyway –
worse things happen at sea, I tell myself. I have recently gone back to an old
love and started doing an I Ching reading every day. It always calms me down
and every time the message is absolutely spot on. Today it more or less told me
to stop mithering and get on with it, basically “keep calm and carry on” in
Chinese script. Someone somewhere probably has that as a tattoo.
It also
told me that I can’t do any more than I can actually do, and to step back a bit
and let other people do some of the work.
Once again,
this is the hardest one for me, and if you too are caring for someone, I bet it
is for you. As I’ve said before, I would love to delegate more to other people
but so much of the stuff I have to deal with for Nick is up to me as the legal
deputy and next of kin.
However, I’m
just gently flagging up the possibility that the world won’t end if I leave our
visitor to his own devices for a couple of hours tomorrow and go for a swim, or
ask a friend with a car if she could take Nick to the dentist.
Perhaps
this is the only way to deal with overwhelm – just go really carefully, one small
step at a time, and keep on walking bravely through the storm.
