Topic Tuesday / 24 March 7pm AEDT / Is life not going the direction you thought? A discussion about the loss a carer experiences

[Rjb]

She is angry at me as a consequence of me having a brain injury, caused by aneursym clipping! She says she lost her mum 10 years ago and this one came in her place. She will not see counsellor or therapist.

[Untethered]

My daughter is also unmotivated, selfish and at times completely out of control, despite her mental illness I often remind her it is not an excuse to disrespect those around her and act in such damaging ways, I too don't like her for the choices she is making but I am beginning to realise that at times she actually has no control over them, doesn't make life easieer though and I go fro strength to strength to utter despair and back again, ... just starting to seek support for myself though as sadly i feel this is going to be a long long road ,,,

[Former-Member]

Hi Rjb - I imagine that it is very distressing seeing your daughters mental and physical health go downhill, as well as dealing with the difficult comments that she is directing at you. Sometimes people caring for someone with a serious mental illness talk about a feeling of chronic sorrow - that there is a heaviness that they carry with them because of the ongoing stess and the loss of the dreams they had for their lives. Are you finding ways to get support for yourself and have you taken the time to speak to someone you trust about the impact that caring for your daughter has on you?

[Concerned]

I also have a daughter suffering from anorexia, anxiety and depression.  She is currently suicidal and under the care of a psychiatrist and local hospital.  My life as I knew it has gone.  My family and work colleagues are unaware of the problems that I face everyday; which means that I have to pretend that everything is fine.  I've had numerous 'sick days' at work when she's extremely agitated and suicidal, and I'm constantly telling lies to everyone over what is wrong with her.  It's getting to the stage where I'm thinking about quitting my job because she nearly needs full-time care.  I don't want to get rid of the last bit of 'normal' in my life.  I don't know what else to do??

[Concerned]

Can her GP convince her to get help? She might listen to someone other than you.

[Untethered]

I jujst want my life back... my daughter (as for all our family members) means the whole world to me and I love her, but right now I don't like her very much, it is difficult not to feel resentful that all my energy, time, money and thought has been devoted to trying to help her for four years now, and yet she seems unwilling to do anything to help herself and her condition is actually getting worse.. and now I am being told to accept that she may not become the person I wanted her to be or hopd she would be, she almost seems like a stranger... the onyl feeling worse than my resentment is my overwhelming despair that there seems no solution... sorry to be so negative, but right now after a particularly difficult month I have nothing else left

[Viv]

Hi all,

This is one of the better things I have learnt:

If you are in a FOG, you don't see clearly, your vision is obscured by the FOG. You have a distorted view of things.

The Fear, sense of Obligation and of Guilt, is what makes for a FOG. This can get mixed up with our grief, to cloud our path forward.  To see the one I love, for me as a parent, live a life of pain and unrealised possibility was a terrible grief. To grieve for the lost relationship that I had hoped for with my daughter, was so cruel an experience. I expect it is one that had to be endured, but how much of my experience was clouded by a FOG? My fear of what was happening and what the future would be, my sense of obligation to try to make everything ok for my adult daughter and my sense of guilt for my own role in the whole situation, was difficult to work through.

I found an answer when I recognised that what was important to me in this situation was my relationship with my daughter. Nothing more, nothing less. She, as an adult was responsible - I could support her, but not enable her. There was nothing I could do for her to make her better. All I could do was accept the situation over which I had no control. Anything that had happened in the past, was in the past. My efforts are now focussed on the present, and what I can do to have a good relationship now. The future will happen.

For me now, grief has subsided into the background. I have replaced it with hope. 

I expect this is not so easy for others whose children are still 'young adults', whose loved ones are suicidal - but I think the way forward is still the same. Beware of the FOG, it clouds perspective.

[CherryBomb]

@Rjb @Attahua and @Concerned 

I just read that you're all new to the Forums and not quite sure how it works. I thought I'd quickly explain how it works. Tonight, in this discussion we have a special guest, @Former-Member who is talking about the grief and loss that carers can experience when the care for  someone else. It goes for two hours from 7 - 9pm so feel free to share your thoughts and ask questions. But you're all doing it fine, from what I see! 

From what a few of you have written, caring for the needs of your loved can be immensely challenging. As @Concerned mentioned, it can seem like the life you once had is gone, and all that is left is caring and giving sometimes to the point of exhaustion, and frustration. This tough, as @Untethered said, their behaviours are often out of their control, and they can behave in ways that they usually wouldn't

I wonder how and if it is possible to connect with your old life. @Former-Member is it a matter of letting a previous life go, reshaping a new, or finding a balance of the both??

[Former-Member]

Hi Untethered @Attahua @Rjb - it must be very hard to come to the realisation that your daughter does not always have control over how she is feeling and bahaving. I'm really glad to hear that you are starting to seek support for yourself. This will hopefully give you the chance to discuss how your daughters illness has impacted on you. One of the difficulties with the loss caused by mental illness is that the loss is ambiguous. In other words it is not always clear what we have lost because the person is still physically present but they are psychologically changed. Is this something we should grieve? It can be dificult to know how to react to this type of loss...

[Rjb]

I am lucky I have supportive family , tho interstate, and a wonderful dr and daughters GP is good too