Nobody has asked how I am in two years

Started 18 December 2025 · 18 replies · 142 hearts · read 1.8k times

PamSouthport, UK · 18 December 2025

7 months ago

Nobody has asked how I am in two years — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

The logistics of this are defeating me more than the medicine is.

What I am after is the version of this that works when nobody is helping, because that is my situation and most accounts assume otherwise.

The arrangements are the hard bit for me. Nothing medical has been difficult; the organising has been relentless.

Two years is the honest figure, taken from the two-line diary I keep rather than from memory, and memory had it lower.

If anybody has an arrangement that works and is willing to write it out, I would be very grateful.

IzoldaVilnius, LT

My experience is that this is entirely doable while caring, and that it needs more planning than the guides assume.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

Facilitator note: the guides cover the practical side of this reasonably well, and what this thread has that they do not is somebody's actual Tuesday.

SerenLlandudno, UK

The best practical advice I have had here was to prepare for the bad weeks rather than the good ones. Everything I built assumes a difficult week.

6me too 4

BrennaEnniskillen, NI

What surprised me was how much I needed somewhere that was not about him. This circle is the only place in my week that is.

ZoraSarajevo, BA

Well said, and thank you for taking the time over it.

LandoLeeds, UK

Seren, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

I would gently say that if you are the only person holding everything, that is worth telling somebody clinical rather than absorbing.

FitzLimerick, IE

Coming back to what Brenna wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

The thing that nearly stopped me was a fortnight where his needs increased and I had no capacity for anything of my own.

IdrisCardiff, UK

What I got right was keeping this very simple. No tracking, no apps, no projects. One thing, once a week, written in a notebook.

NkosiJohannesburg, ZA

I have found the check-ins here more useful than the circles, because two lines on a Tuesday is what I can actually manage.

KeeleyBlackpool, UK

#10

Something that helped was telling one member of the family what I am doing, so that somebody other than me knows.

4me too 6

PipBristol, UK

#11

Saying it out loud helps other people say it too. Thank you.

5me too 2

LinnetKendal, UK

#12

I would say ask about a carer's assessment if you have not. Mine took an hour and unlocked things I did not know existed.

GigiNaples, IT

#13

Pip, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

What helped was one hour a fortnight that is genuinely mine, arranged formally, so that it cannot quietly disappear.

BramberSteyning, UK

#14

My GP asked how I was doing as a carer, once, unprompted, and I cried in the appointment, which surprised us both.

ÖzlemIzmir, TR

#15

Eating properly is the thing that goes first when I am stretched, and it goes without me noticing, and this circle is where I noticed.

GwythFishguard, UK

#16

Gently disagreeing with Gigi, or rather adding the other half of it.

Something practical: I got my collections aligned with the ones I already do for somebody else, and it saved me a journey a month.

10me too 7

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

#17

Thank you for the honesty about how hard the logistics have been. The accounts that admit the planning is exhausting are the useful ones.

IzoldaVilnius, LT

#18

I do mine at six in the morning because that is the only twenty minutes of the day that belongs to me.