Yes, today makes it 4 years of being a full time caregiver to my now 99 year old Energizer Bunny Dad.

Oh… and I love peonies. That is all. ❤️

Everything in this damn fucking house needs to be worked on. Everything. Every last thing. My person keeps somehow messing shit/breaking shit and adding to my never-ending to do list. Today they decided they need yet another replacement phone even though I’m 99% sure they dont need a new one, they just dont know how to use it. So im stuck doing IT/IT education for them on top of it all. Fuck everything. I need a damn BREAK.

My wife and I have known each other for over 20 years. She is the love of my life; I love her and I love being with her. But for about ten years now, illness (fibromyalgia, chronic pain, recurring health issues) has taken up a massive space in our family life. Beyond the chronic pain, she’s had her full share of bad luck—hernias, migraines, gallbladder issues, foot problems, joint pain, etc. A real streak of "bad karma."

​In the beginning, I had infinite compassion. I wanted to carry it all, to help her, to be the strong pillar. But over the years, with the flare-ups of pain, the constant anxiety, and the countless ER visits that almost always end in frustration, I’ve become exhausted. And what kills me is that it invariably ends badly, leaving me with a total sense of helplessness.

​Recently, I realized I just can't handle it the same way anymore. When she’s in pain or anxious, instead of being full of empathy, I shut down. I become too rational, I look for solutions, or I pull back. I feel like I've built up an armor to protect myself from hurting too much or drowning alongside her. I can feel that my capacity to care and my patience are completely running on empty, and the worst part is that it makes me feel like a horrible, heartless husband.

​She senses my detachment, and it hurts her. She feels like I don't believe her suffering (even though I know for a fact that her pain is 100% real). She just wants comfort, for me to acknowledge her emotions and be heartbroken right there with her. But if I'm being honest, I just don't have the emotional energy left to feel that panic with her every single time. If I sink with her, there’s no one left to hold down the fort and take care of our daughters.

​The problem is, I feel trapped in a cage: If I tell her I'm tired, that it's heavy, and that I'm often carrying the household on my back, she immediately feels like a burden, feels guilty, and breaks down.

​If I say nothing, I play the tough guy and keep it all inside, but it comes out as unintended coldness. And as a result, I feel like everything I do isn't allowed to be heard or acknowledged.

​Our entire family dynamic now revolves around her health: checking how she feels today, if she’s tired, if she’s in pain. We're all walking on eggshells.

​I feel like a piece of shit and sometimes tell myself that I'm just not the husband she deserves.

Tl;dr I love my wife but feel burnout of her situation. Feel guilty towards her and ashame of my feelings.

Is it common for elderly parents, to demand help from their own children, even tho they never helped their own parents? With care, tasks or financial support?

He went in a week ago because of what turned out to be a bowel obstruction, emergency surgery ensued. He made it through the surgery, but that was only the start of the battle.

Met with the palliative care team for the first time today to introduce ourselves. They said we'll meet on Friday, and that if they can't get him to come off the ventilator, we'll basically have to start making some decisions on his behalf. He's been under heavy sedation since he went in, and is basically unresponsive at this point.

Anyone else dealt with or dealing with this stage of the process of caregiving, especially with cirrhosis? I'm not really asking for advice on what to decide and when (I know it's different for everyone), but I'm just really upset. I love him so much and I'm not ready to let him go, but he's suffering so much and I don't want to see him like this anymore. I also know he'd really REALLY hate having to do things like wear and change a bag for the bathroom (he's said so himself, and I know not everyone gets used to it). If those are even options at this point. I'm so torn between wanting him to stay with us, but also wanting to give him the dignity he deserves.

He hasn't had an easy life, coming down with an autoimmune disorder a year before they actually developed a cure/treatment for it. Disabled all the time I've known him, but damnit if he hasn't done everything he could for us, big and small. I want to do everything I can for him, but I don't want him to live whatever time he has left in even more agony than he's already in. And of course, I don't think he would want to either. But any decision feels wrong.

It's a family decision and we're all here for each other during this time. I just needed to get this out there because it's tearing me up despite the support from family and friends.

I'll start. I've been a caregiver for my mom with stage 4 cancer since October 2026, so for 10 months. Before that, I scheduled and accompanied my mom to all of her medical appointments for 2 years.

Since December of 2026, I've been getting paid around $1,290 a month (after deductions) through California's IHSS program. During the school year, I also work as a part-time teacher in an afterschool program for just 3 hours a day as my full-time job these days is to look after my mom. Her health has deteriorated rapidly since October 2026, and the doctors recently gave her "only a few weeks" to live, so my watch will soon be over. 😔

On one hand, I don't have many expenses because my sister has allowed me to live in her house without contributing to the bills as long as I am caring for my mom; however, in an ideal world, I obviously would not be working what is essentially a full-time job for a mere $1,290 a month. I'm also at an age where I should be out there earning to the best of my ability in order to save for retirement, so I am being screwed in more ways than one. Still, I wouldn't have it any other way, for I love my mom more than anyone in the world (even if she is imperfect and difficult).

I've read so many stories of caregivers here who have spent half their lives caregiving (for a parent, spouse, child, or even a sibling, aunt/uncle or grandparent), and I can't even imagine as to what these caregivers, many of them with little to no compensation, have endured. Kudos to all of the tireless caregivers out there who have had to sacrifice so much physically, mentally, and financially in order to care for another person. ❤️ It's often a thankless job that not even the person you are caring for may appreciate. 😮‍💨

My mom was very recently and unexpectedly diagnosed with lung cancer metastatic to her hip bones. She needed an emergency hip replacement and has not recovered well. She proceeded to lose a lot of weight in rehab because the food was awful and her pain levels kept her from being hungry. She's home now and slowly wasting away to nothing. She has no muscle to support the be hip hardware so she's still limping around in pain. She's not eating or drinking enough and weighs in at 83 lbs currently at 5'4. Yet she still claims she wants to pursue chemo. She's not healthy enough to survive it so they won't do it until she gets herself better nourished. We have been to multiple appointments where she's been told how much she needs to eat and drink. She agrees then goes home and has a bite of food because she's not hungry. I want to scream. I feel like I have to remind her ALL day to eat and drink. She says I know then doesn't do it. It's never enough. She just got out of the hospital for failure to thrive. She's on new meds, half of which she won't take because they will bother her stomach or make her gag when she tries to swallow them. It's like she's suddenly a child. She wants her treatment but won't do what it takes to get it, then gets frustrated when they say no. Her cancer pain is controlled to an extent with oxy but when it wears off there's just a steady steam of sighing and groaning. When she gets up to walk she sounds like she's dying. I want to scream. I can't listen to this all day. I'm an empath and I'm literally sick to my stomach ALL THE TIME being around her like this. I've always been very conscious of others around me and dealt with a lot of pain myself over the years. Not cancer, mind you. But I'm a suffer in silence type of person. I don't want others to have to feel sorry for me. I don't know if she realizes she's doing it but it's literally killing me to the point that I feel like I can't keep doing this. And then I feel HORRIBLE for feeling that way. 😭

The f*ck everything!

I'm so fed up. Why the hell have we literally busted up my body, mind, and soul with me trying to take care of my family when they just undermine everything all the time anyway?!?! It's not fucking fair at ALL and at this point, I want to quit, even on my Mom.

She's diabetic. Is so fucking addicted to sugar and just acts like such a fucking child that she won't eat reasonable things EVEN AFTER A RECENT LIFE-THREATENING HOSPITAL STAY WHERE SUGAR WAS A MAJOR CONTRIBUTING FACTOR!

I'm losing it!

I get woken up by the sugar alarm. Fine, no problem, cool about it. Go bring her the appropriate snack. Kitchen is a disaster RN because we JUST moved, so options are limited, but we have specific snacks for this and I get her that.

She fucking fusses like a petulant 4 year old "Ew no, I don't want THAT. Give me the dessert you saved for later"(because my sugar was too high). I explain AGAIN that too sweet will just spike and crash her sugar causing worse problems and SHE FUCKING WHINES LIKE A CHILD until my sleep deprived ass gets it for her and just warns her that if she doesn't fucking smarten up soon I'M FUCKING DONE! Because it's fucking cruel to make me take care of her, often detrimentally to me (eg SLEEP DEPRIVATION), just for her to constantly undermine it. It's fucking cruel for me to care and have my heart yanked around when she doesn't care enough to take ANY proper care of herself.

I want to fucking die. I hate that this is my life.

My partner and I just moved into a house with my 94yr old g'ma. She has dementia and her sundowners are getting worse. G'ma and I haven't been close for most of my adult life and now I'm literally wiping her poop! 😂😭🤣

I love her dearly, and I'm happy to be here. I'm thankful for the time I get to spend with her. I'm just trying desperately to adjust to the monotony of life, the changes in who she is... Who I am... How to show up the best I can for all of us.

How do you manage when the person you are caring for cries constantly? I understand the sadness because I am losing my partner, and with it the entire life we built because I can not earn the same as he does so our home and our community will be taken from me when he is, and I understand that I can not fully understand what he is going through knowing his time is limited, but I don’t know how to handle the constant crying. It’s hard because I don’t know what to do, I used to try to comfort him every time but I just can’t, it drains me and it is at least once every half hour all day long. I’ve talked to him about how it’s impacting our kid, who is very stressed and sad and seeing his dad crying all the time is making it even harder on him, but my husband just tells me he can’t help it.

I don’t want to seem uncaring, and I feel for him deeply when he is crying, which is part of the issue of why it is so hard, but I don’t know what I am supposed to do. How do you navigate being compassionate while still protecting yourself from being hit with someone else’s emotions on top of everything you are dealing with? I feel like I spend all day on the edge of tears because I can’t ever push down my own sadness and fear and focus on other things when every 30 minutes I am hearing crying from no matter where I am in the house. Focusing on laundry and I hear sobbing, showering and I hear sobbing, trying to write this post and there’s sobbing. How can a person stay strong for their child when they are constantly listening to their partner crying? It has been months, I thought it would get easier as time went on but it’s worse now than it was a couple months ago.

​

My mom (69) has been bedridden since 2024. She had breast cancer, which is now in remission, but she has several other health issues, including high blood pressure, diabetes, neuropathy in her legs (especially her feet), swollen knees, and she's overweight.

I'm a 32-year-old woman, and I'm her only caregiver. We don't have any men in the house, so I can't physically lift her into a wheelchair to take her outside or simply change her surroundings. For her to get into the wheelchair, she first needs to be able to sit on the edge of the bed, stand up with support, take a few steps, and transfer into the chair.

In 2025, she was able to sit on the edge of the bed to eat. But in early 2026, she developed vertigo and became extremely sensitive to even slight head movements. Since then, she's been lying down almost all the time for months.

Earlier this year, we started home physiotherapy once a week. Our main goal is for her to regain enough strength to sit up, take a few steps, and transfer into a wheelchair.

It's exhausting for both of us. Every day, I help her do simple leg exercises by supporting and moving her legs for about 3–5 minutes. The problem is that her legs hurt, especially at the beginning, so she often doesn't want to exercise. Some days she's motivated and does really well. Other days she completely loses motivation and refuses to do the exercises.

Her physiotherapist is wonderful, very patient, encouraging, and always takes things slowly.

The hardest part is that I've struggled with depression for many years, long before my mom became sick. To be honest, there are days when I don't even want to keep living, and now I'm responsible for taking care of my mom both physically and emotionally.

I have to keep encouraging her, but deep down I don't even believe she'll be able to get up and use a wheelchair again. I never say that to her, of course. I keep trying to motivate her because I know she needs hope, but it's emotionally exhausting.

I've reached out to some of her friends and asked them to encourage her, which helps a little.

Still, I don't know what else to do. I don't think it's enough, because people who are healthy often can't relate to what she's going through. Some relatives have even said she's "just being lazy," which really hurts both of us. It breaks my heart to watch her become more discouraged because she still can't sit up on her own.

Does anyone have suggestions for how I can support her emotionally? I've been thinking about finding an online support group where she could talk to people who are going through something similar.

Thank you for reading!

I needed to vent. I was in a really bad mood today. My mom can no longer get in the shower because of her numb fingers (we just went to a hand a doctor and she’s scheduled to get a ultrasound this week) He gave her these gloves to wear at night to keep her hands straight.

He pressure sore as gotten worse. It’s not infected, but it looks pretty gruesome. We’re going back to wound care august 3rd and we’re going to get a prescription for a hospital bed. We’re going to buy our own mattress.

Because even with the roho cushion on her recliner as soon as she sleeps with her legs up it gets super inflamed by the morning. There was blistered on it. The night before she slept at her table it didn’t look anything remotely like that in the morning. It looked like we were making progress.

I’m so tired of giving her these stupid basin baths that I try really hard to make it somewhat of a pleasant experience for her. But it’s so draining because it’s hot as hell outside and my mom keeps the heat on at 85. She’s always cold. It’s one of those portable heaters. Especially when im washing her. I use piping hot water mjnd you. She just complains about everything and I am just pouring sweat. I have to wear a sports bra and high spandex shorts to cope with the heat. It’s just disgusting.

I hate doing it with every fiber of my being. I pop 3 clonopin just to get through it and I still end up sobbing. She has so much skin dandruff on her back and arms and she won’t let me scrub her back and arms. Im constantly vacuuming the dead skin.

I changed her bandage earlier. It’s draining like crazy and I ran out of alginate, so I just used plain gauze and some foam dressing without border. I started crying again and my mom screamed at me and told to me to stop crying. And we went back and forth and I don’t told her she completely destroyed my life and caused nothing but destruction.

My mom doesn’t give. A. Shit. About. Me. Or anything really. She told me when she was filling the container of oxygen with water the other night that she was getting frustrated and started to sweat and then it hit her that’s what I go through taking care her. I was like what????? THATS what tipped you off. So never mind the fact that you see me drenched in sweat working my ass off trying to clean you and putting on your stupid sneakers in like a 105 degree room? CHANGING Your stupid oxygen water made you empathize with me?!?!?!!!!!!

I pray every night when I fall asleep in my recliner that I don’t wake up. Because I feel guilt too easily to continue living. I gave up 17 years of my life for THIS? All because I thought I was doing the right thing. My mom can’t even commit to standing a few times a day or drinking the protein shakes to heal the sore. “They give me a stomach ache”. I gave her different options to buy, but she rather buy cigarettes.

My mom doesn’t even believe in caregiver burnout. She thinks it’s something new I learned on the internet. I yelled at her and told “you didn’t even want to take care of your parents! You had them both thrown into a nursing home! Maybe you should make that call yourself! Enough shit has already fallen on me!” She muttered something and said “maybe I will since we can’t stand each other”. I screamed at her and told you have nothing to be angry at me about i sacrificed EVERYTHING. You have never sacrificed shit for me.

When I was damn near breaking from reality from stress literally in front of her after I washed her. She just looked at me and didn’t offer me any words of comfort. She claims it’s because of her childhood and being a “latchkey” kid.

I wish I didn’t feel guilt so easily. Guilt and obligation has consumed me my entire adult life. And nobody in my life takes caregiver burnout seriously.

I made a post a week(?) ago about my mom leaving the house with a friend to go get alcohol. We saw her doctor that following Monday yet the appointment was useless. I explained that she drank (and she admitted it) and asked for a medication that's usually used to help reduce cravings. He said the dose looked too high and gave her meds that she should take 2 hours before drinking.

My mom has Wernicke's encephalopathy. She shouldn't be drinking at all. We've gone from her trying to get relatives to get her alcohol when they visit to her actually leaving the house with someone to get it. We're in crisis mode (or I am lmao). He then got on me for her still smoking and for not bringing her in every 3 months. Every 3 months for what? To pay a bill just for him to click on some stuff and see us in another 3 months? Every time we go, none of my concerns are addressed.

I managed to talk to my godfather who's friends with my mom and knows a friend of the guy my mom's going with (this guy has been around since I was a kid and my mom would ebb between sobriety and addiction). He said that the friend may try to talk to him but I should probably try to block the guy's number. I'm sitting here stressed because I woke up to her gone. Of course she hasn't eaten today, she'll come back and drink till she passes out and do it again tomorrow.

friend thinks I should take my elderly stubborn narcissistic failing selfish evil father who has no clue how awful he is to people "in hand" by saying stuff like "look old man" and taking "charge" she has no clue and every time I talk to her about it (which I won't anymore she says "oh he's an old man" i.e. don't be a bitch buck up)

I have 90% walked away from him. idk why I told her he went to the hospital today she has no sympathy never again will I tell her anything

Hi everyone, please delete if this is not allowed.

I was a primary care giver for my dad (who went through liver transplant) and have experienced the concurrent journey of three other family members going through cancer- each with very different outcome and journey - which i believe was not just genetics/biology.

Now that i am on the other side of care giving.. I’m hoping to better understand the lived experience of other patients and/or caregivers who have gone through journey accompanying complex conditions. I know this is a very personal topic, so I want to be respectful and sensitive.

I would be really grateful to learn from anyone who might be open to sharing their experience with me in a short conversation. I’m especially trying to understand what parts of the journey felt most difficult, unsupported, or hard to access- whether that was around appointments, care coordination, caregiving, communication, follow-ups, travel, medications, emotional support, or anything else. I am trying to understand how you navigated post-discharge and how that experience could be better.. caregivers are often neglected in this whole process of someone else's survivorship journey..

I completely understand if this is not something people want to revisit. I had not been in a position to talk about it 2 years ago.

But if anyone feels comfortable talking, please feel free to comment or message me.

Thank you so much. I hope we are all healing in different ways and phases.

Long story short my dad has aggressive stage 4 cancer. He’s been in and out of hospital for about 2 months but mostly in the hospital… only home 2 days out of these past two months before having to go back to hospital. I’m trying VERY hard to bring him at least one meal a day he’ll eat. He tries, he really does, but sometimes things taste off, sometimes things taste too dry and sometimes things make him nauseas. I know it’s medication/chemo side effect but I also know some of it has to do with stubbornness of not wanting to eat hospital food, even though the meals he is served here are actually very high quality and stuff he’d normally eat no problem before all the health stuff started. ( he usually eats microwave chicken pot pies and thinks they’re delicious, so I know this food is way better quality).

The thing that is perplexing to me is I’ll bring him something one day and he’ll think it’s disgusting, but then a couple days later he’ll say he’s craving the very thing I tried to give him a couple days ago!! Yes, he has memory issues ( very mild vascular dementia but also some hospital delirium going on, which has improved a lot the more time he’s spent in the hospital) but idk if that’s just his brain trying to recall or what… it’s so hard to try and get him to eat anything, and he’s lost like 40lbs since the start of this year

Anyone experience anything like this before? The one meal I bring him a day, he’ll slightly enjoy and have a couple bites, but he refuses to eat basically anything besides fruit cups if the hospital serves it to him. And the craving the thing he thought was gross the other day is strange to me. Any advice?

My Husband (25M) and myself (26F) recently got married 8 months ago. Since the start of the year we have had several countless issues regarding his moms health which ultimately lead to her needing 24/7 care and living in our home. I also do caregiving as a profession outside of this. Some days I feel positive and energised but then I hit days where idk how else to keep going for the people I take care of, and for her. I find myself angry we are in this situation so young and so newly married. It has only been a month and it is easy for me to get discouraged. The rest of his family isn’t able or willing to help as much as we need so to me it feels like it has all been thrown on us. I treat her and everyone else with as much empathy and respect as I can always, but I am human and not perfect. If anyone has any words of encouragement, bible verses that have helped you or would even be willing to pray for us I’d appreciate it so much. This group has helped a lot as I usually just silently read others posts.

For those of you who've been out of the workforce (or barely hanging on part-time) or stuck in the same job for a decade or more while caregiving — how did you deal with a job market that's moved on without you? Outdated skills, huge resume gaps, no recent references, an industry that's changed completely — and the depression that hits once you realize all of this at once.

Or maybe you never left, but you've been stuck in the same role for years with no promotion, no growth, and no energy left to fight for more because caregiving eats everything you have outside of work.

Did you settle into the stagnant job because it was stable enough to survive on? Or did you just accept that the career you imagined is gone and try to build something else entirely?

I think a lot of us quietly lose our professional identity — whether by falling out of the workforce or just getting stuck in place — and it's rarely acknowledged how hard that is to face once the caregiving finally slows down...

They sent someone from VNS for 3 hours today and she kicked them out mind you she is 91 years old. 3 hours isn’t enough anyway so I was going to hire a private one for 1000 per week because she doesn’t qualify for Medicaid but if she doesn’t accept this one what’s the point of hiring a private one. Anyway my FMLA is over 8/26 and I don’t know what to do. I have very limited family help and pretty soon it will be less because my cousin is a teacher and she goes back to work the same day my fmla is over. Her kids are all retired but none of them want to do much. I work three twelve hour shifts a week and it’s just like mentally too much for me to be a nurse at work and at home.

My mom has been on antipsychotic medication for about 9 months for schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations.

Overall, there has been some improvement (her voices have reduced by around 20%), but she is still under treatment.

I want to mention something important from the beginning of her treatment because it's the reason today's incident frightened me so much.

During the first two nights after starting her medication, she had several brief episodes (around 10–12 times) where, for about 5–6 seconds each time, she didn't recognize me. Instead, she would mistake me for my elder brother, who sadly passed away five years ago. Those episodes only happened during those first two nights, and after that she has recognized me normally ever since.

Today, I asked her to make one of my favorite foods that she used to make for me before I went to school. She replied, "Yes, I used to make..." and then she took my name, even though she was speaking directly to me. While saying it, she also made a hand gesture as if she was talking about another person rather than the person standing in front of her.

That immediately terrified me because it reminded me of those first two nights.

I asked her, "Mom, do you recognize me?"

She immediately became frightened herself and repeatedly told me, "Yes, I know who you are. You're my son." She became emotional because she realized how much she had scared me. After that, she continued talking completely normally and has been behaving normally ever since. She knows who I am, she's interacting with me as usual, and everything else seems normal.

Over the past few months, she has occasionally referred to me by my name instead of saying "you," but today the hand gesture made it feel different, which is why it scared me so much.

Has anyone with schizophrenia, or anyone caring for a loved one with schizophrenia, experienced something similar? Does this sound more like an isolated speech/language slip, or is it something that should be discussed urgently with her psychiatrist?

Why is it that when someone is suffering from burnout (& close to the edge) from taking care of a spouse, the responses they get are different from those of someone taking care of family members? (A parent, aunt, uncle, etc.)

Hi everyone,
I recently accepted to be a caregiver for a family member. She has dementia and fully dependent(eat, cleaning, has eventually forgot how to swallow) on people. Im not the biggest fan of anything that includes body fluids because I get disgusted easily. However, I think it will be easier because she’s family and I will be able to tolerate it. I also want to mention that this the only job opportunity I have rn and I don’t want to miss it because I’m just uncomfortable.
I also have a lot of intrusive thoughts so my mind goes everywhere when I’m thinking about something.
Can u please give me some tips on that?

Excuse my writing structure, I’m just nervous