Working While Caring.

Hello Everyone, I thought today I would look at what it’s like caring for someone while keeping a job.

Earlier this year I posted an article from the BBC about how more and more people are having to give up work to take care of someone they love. So as part of carer’s week I thought I would talk about the struggles of working while caring for somebody.

In our family my mum stayed at home as his main carer. However, when we finished work we would help take over. I did not have a normal 9 – 5 job. Sometimes I would have to be at work at 6.30am and work till 6. Other times I’d be working 2 – 10. And sometimes my day would start at 6.30am and I wouldn’t get home till 11pm. Then after a long day I would be helping with dad.

Working while you’re a carer is hard work, as no matter how you tried to get on with what your doing, your mind still also goes on what is happening at home. There where many times that I would arrive to work physically and emotionally drained and then having to somehow get through the day. There where times when dad would call out all through the night. No matter how you begged and pleaded with him to let us sleep he would forget and ten minuets latter he would be calling again. Sometimes he would have hallucinations. On one occasion he was screaming all through the night as he thought he was giving birth. Then after a night of no sleep it would be off to work acting like everything was fine.

My dad would often get frustrated. Frustrated that he couldn’t go out, that he couldn’t say what he wanted to say and he took it out on us, threatening us, hitting us, and sometimes telling us that he hates us. This was probably one of the hardest things to cope with. I should state that my dad was not a violent man, it was not him saying or doing these things, this was the illness. However, anyone who has been in this position can tell you that although you know that it wasn’t him saying and doing these things, it’s still your dad saying these things and separating the two is really hard to do. Then after all that you go to work like everything was fine.

We got pretty good acting like everything’s fine. I think we learnt pretty early on that people just weren’t interested that we where tired, or that things where getting harder. Or maybe it was that they just didn’t understand. It was hard to talk about, and if I did the other person that I was talking to would quickly change the subject. They would talk about normal things, like what they did the day before, and talking about feeding your dad, trying to persuade him to take one more bite for an hour or so doesn’t really make good conversation. If I did open up to people they where sympathetic, but they didn’t really get it, sometimes I felt like they like they weren’t listening at all. The very few that I did open up to, later that person went onto a job where they where caring for people either those with special needs or going to peoples houses to see if they where ok. Each of those occasions I was told that I didn’t know what hard work was or how lucky I was. I had never felt more hurt in my life.

Going to work after everything going on at home was hard, but being at work, that was for us a break. It gave us some sort of a normal life. Its strange when you think about it, going to work being a break from working, but it was. Looking back on everything we where doing I have no idea how we coped, how we didn’t get ill doing this day in day out. But I suppose we just pulled through as a family.

There is no right answer whether to carry on working or to stop work to care. You can only do what is right for you.

Till next time

Kirsty