Hidden Caregiver Relief: You're Not the Only One

i don't know if this is a horrible thing to say but i finally bought a new washing machine after mother passed and i haven't done that since the divorce that was 26 years ago and it just feels like... …

My grandma passed away last month and I just feel… lighter. …

I think about the concept of emotional debt a lot. …

I slept through the whole night last night, like, really slept, and my kid didn't wake up once... …

it’s awful, but after all those years with the early-onset dementia and the sundowning, I felt this — this flicker of actual *joy* when he finally, mercifully, went. …

You know that feeling when a significant phase of your life, one defined by constant vigilance and a kind of anticipatory grief, just… ends? …

Frontotemporal dementia. …

And then the doctors said he needed to go to hospice because it was just too much for me and like they were worried about him and me and I felt so guilty because it felt like I was giving up on him… …

And the exhaustion… it’s a soul-deep kind of tired that just… gets into your bones. …

i feel like im a TERRIBLE person for this but i have to get it out like i guess i just need to know if anyone else has ever felt this way— so my grandma passed a few months ago right— like december… …

And then he’d just stare at me, like I was a stranger. …

I feel a relief that is almost… clinical. …

and a grotesque sort of relief. …