The guilt of resenting it sometimes

Started 23 May 2025 · 19 replies · 180 hearts · read 1.7k times

IdrisCardiff, UK · 23 May 2025

about a year ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: The guilt of resenting it sometimes

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

I nearly did not ask because it sounds trivial written down, and it has been the most persistent difficulty of the last six months.

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.

No hurry. I have a fortnight before I need to decide anything.

LandoLeeds, UK

Coming back to say we found a rhythm, that his care has been stable for a year, and that I have kept going, which two years ago I would not have predicted.

LinnetKendal, UK

Nobody has asked me how I am in about four years and this circle asks every week, which is most of why I am still here.

7me too 4

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

I want to say that a genuinely new practical idea is rarer than it sounds after two years of these threads. If you have an arrangement nobody has mentioned, it is worth the post even if it seems obvious to you.

FitzLimerick, IE

What I found is that the logistics assume a person with a spare afternoon, and I have not had a spare afternoon since 2019.

BramberSteyning, 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.

7me too 1

ÖzlemIzmir, TR

Building on what Wren wrote rather than answering the original question.

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.

PamSouthport, UK

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

NkosiJohannesburg, ZA

I have stopped apologising for the length of time it takes me to reply to things. Everybody here understands.

PipBristol, UK

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

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

BrennaEnniskillen, NI

#10

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

SableCape Town, ZA

#11

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

#12

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

8me too 9

SerenLlandudno, UK

#13

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

IzoldaVilnius, LT

#14

Recognition rather than advice, if that is any use at all.

ZoraSarajevo, BA

#15

The guilt about spending money or time on myself was the hardest part, and it is still the hardest part two years in.

8me too 4

GigiNaples, IT

#16

Izolda said something I want to sit with for a second.

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.

IdrisCardiff, UK

#17

Izolda has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

My routine is completely non-negotiable because it has to be. Everything else in my week bends and this does not.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

#18

Gently: nobody needs to justify the shape of their week here, including the members whose weeks have no shape at all.

LinnetKendal, UK

#19

I would have written the same thing a year ago, word for word.