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Learning to say “no” helped me cope and helped me look after my own health. There came a time when I decided that I would only allow a certain amount of my time to be used up by my son and I learnt not to feel guilty when I was doing something for myself that I enjoyed. It was sometimes very hard not to feel guilty when my son had been home on his own in a bad way, but I decided I just needed to live a life too. (Mum)
As a carer of siblings with mental health problems, I have discovered the importance of letting go....After eleven years of caring for my sister, I had the ultimate challenge of having to let go when she ended her life. It was shattering to lose her after all our efforts to keep her alive. It was difficult to accept that she no longer felt capable of going on; that our support and love were not enough to sustain her. The mental illness that plagued her day and night had won. This kind of involuntary letting go is no easy matter to recover from. I truly believe that the only reason my world has continued is because I reached out for help from others who understood the grief and loss I was experiencing. I could not have dealt with this pain on my own. I had to rediscover the loving relationships I had with family and friends and that insight eventually made it worthwhile for me to continue. (Sister)
Since my daughter has been living at the Community Care Units, I’ve been able to let go in some ways knowing she is well cared for. But this is only temporary and there should be more places like this, because in a lot of cases it doesn’t work out for them to live at home or in the community. (Mum)
After 45 years of marriage, through the era of no anti-psychotic medications and the eventual, inevitable, non-compliance, my active caring role came to an end, upon the death of my husband.
I had become extremely involved in ARAFMI, a non-Government, Carer Support Organisation, plus being a member of several other groups. Suddenly, there was a big void in my life. How was I going to fill this void?
It was important that I did not withdraw, believing that I was no longer needed. Over those very active years, I had acquired a wealth of knowledge on coping skills for carers and ways of imparting those skills to other carers. It seemed obvious that I could give something back, by passing on this knowledge and giving hope, so easing the journey for others, towards resuming their previous quality of family life.
This is a great booster to one’s own self worth and can be a step towards taking up a new interest that benefits, not only others, but ourselves as former carers. It takes time and in doing this, I found that it vital to take some time out, to do something... just for myself. (Wife)
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