1 week Ago
October was a really unusual month for me and the boy. I went on my first holiday abroad in 24 years, and the boy had to manage for ten days in the knowledge that I was too far away to get back to him if he needed me. Wow.
That’s big stuff. My holiday had been in the planning for nearly a year, and I had set my heart on it and so was driven to make it happen. But I also knew that having me out of reach was very challenging for the boy.
How selfish was I prepared to be? READ ALSO More from Karen Anderson Ross-shire newsletter free to your inbox twice a week News from Ross-shire That is what it feels like to me – my selfish pursuit of an experience that I desperately needed, was in direct conflict with its need to have me nearby to fight all his dragons and set his world up the way he needs it to be to be comfortable and happy – and that makes it a selfish act on my part. But what’s the alternative? The last year has been extremely difficult at times with high pressure situations around my work and home life, including splitting up the boy’s family unit, selling the family home, moving him to a flat in Inverness and having him share his time between our home and his father’s house. While this has undoubtedly tested him at times and caused extreme anxiety for a long period of time, it has also been an incredible test of my resilience and ability to keep everything moving along and managing his world so he can cope.
Result? Near burn-out levels of exhaustion for me. Don’t get me wrong, I was never in danger of falling apart at the seams, but I was just about coping with the help of my wonderful friends and family. No margin for error though.
And this is what happens so often to carers like me who constantly have to juggle and be the ‘case manager’ for the person they care for. We just keep going, adding more and more balls to those already in the air, and hope that one or two will be taken away in the near future to lighten the load a bit. However, as my trainer has told me, if you add weight slowly it is not so traumatic, and you build your strength in parallel with the increased burden and you cope with it.
That is what we all do. Just keep taking on more and more and learning how to deal with it. A vital tool to keep a carer’s resilience strong and intact is respite.
This can be small breaks or a great big hoop-la of a holiday in Malta for eight nights (which was magical and everything I hoped for and needed – but I won’t bore you with too many details). I am not overstating it when I say it is vital. You can only stretch an elastic band so far before the tension is too much and I have seen many people over the years who go past their limits and the results for both them and their loved ones can be catastrophic.
Maybe I should listen to my own words of advice and stop feeling so guilty. The boy survived and thrived on a week away in York with his Dad, and I feel so much better that it was all worth it – even with the worry and work that it took to set up. Karen is Mum to an autistic son in his twenties and campaigns for the rights of w carers to be supported in their caring role and involved in the decisions that affect their lives and the lives of the people they care for.
You can find her on X and Instagram @Karen4Carers..
