The Thoughts Caregivers Don’t Talk About | The Difficult Side of Caregiving

Caregiving can be a blessing. It can also be exhausting, frustrating, lonely and incredibly difficult. And sometimes caregivers have thoughts they’re afraid to admit out loud. In this “very special episode” of Redhead Ranting, I’m talking about the side of caregiving we don’t see nearly as often: caregiver burnout, anger, resentment, guilt, and those moments when you simply don’t want to do it anymore. I cared for my mother in one way or another for most of my life after she suffered a brain injury when I was four. As her needs increased, there came a point when I had to recognize that loving her wasn’t enough to make our situation sustainable. You can love someone and resent taking care of them. You can be grateful for the time you have and still desperately want a break. Those things can exist at the same time. We talk a lot about the beautiful side of caregiving. I think we need to be able to tell the truth about the difficult side, too.