Thank you so very much for your advice here. You have read my mind.
I begin today practicing your suggestions. At times, I felt as though I was the only caregiver in the world, until I found, "Aging Care", to which I am grateful.

I'm sure many others like me, see their classmates and friends and co-workers who are retired and both are in good health, and they take cruises and fly to Vegas for a weekend and go out to dinner and maybe golf or go boating or hiking...all those things I love to do and still could do. One can't help thinking their life is rolling by and they are being cheated out of enjoying old age!

This is surely good advice, but every situation is different and requires a different approach. My 82 year old wife was diagnosed with dementia a few years ago and it had begun some time before that. Her dementia morphs from one personality to another, mean, to sweet, to depressed...but she is still cognizant of her family and surroundings and mostly her problem is her memory. However, she has physical problems that compound the problem and I feel and she insists I am the only one that help her. Neurogenic bladder requires twice daily catheterization, she can't do it, asthma inhaler procedure daily, degenerative disc disease severely limits mobility. She can still handle personal hygiene with occasional help, and dress herself. She tries to tune television and gets it so fouled up I have to reprogram it, and a few minutes later, she does it again! She knows she has mental and memory problems and we talk about it but she tries to talk about a tv program we are watching and can't.
What I was leading up to is this: I CAN'T ask her to submit to someone else as caregiver and would be afraid they would do something wrong. She can manage to make doctor visits and I am able to go grocery shopping or short trips to town for an hour or so. I spend a lot of time on my laptop while sitting next to her and she is beginning to resent it! But as long as I have a little freedom, I won't ask for help. I likely won't unless she gets much worse and I feel I can't care for her properly. It appears it will likely be a long, long time!

This is a wonderful article. I had no outside help or respite relief while taking care of my dying husband. Being able to vent my frustrations to a trusted friend online definitely kept me sane.
If you have no immediate personal contacts, write your thoughts down. Preferable longhand on paper. It is important to recognize and articulate your honest feelings somewhere. If you want to write negative things and then tear up the paper, that's OK. Identifying and expressing the feelings is the important part.

It is hard to see a loved one slowly decrease in front of you. I have a friend who recently lost a loved one. She had a hard time coping with the lost. She became very distant with a lot of people. Her family and friend would try and encourage her to talk to someone about the loss. She would not talk about it for a while. She has recently started opening up about the loss after a few years. I hope that she will be able to find peace again soon.

OK. I set the timer for 5 minutes to limit my worrying. And then I set it for another 5 minutes to think of something good. Hey, if I had 10 consecutive free minutes, I'd read a chapter in a good mystery novel. Total escape is better than disciplined thought anyday! :D

Other than that, good article!

This was wonderful! I know I have felt constrained at times when I was caring for my mom, but now that I will be in the caregiver role for my husband, I am feeling a little overwhelmed. this really helped me

Kedwards460 & drpalm, both of you put into words how I feel. Caring for a father who wasn't a great one to begin with and was absent pretty much most of my life until last year. I don't feel guilty about my thoughts and feelings as they are honest. Like you, Kedwards460, I have never married and have no children so caregiving does not appear to be in my genes. A huge learning curve that I am not very successful at. I too dislike being referred to as a saint or an amazingly kind human being. The article was good and I needed to read it and read your comments. Thank you!

I love the fire safety ananlogy as I feel I am always putting out fires. Although my husband has been living in a care facility for the past 19 months, it is still my responsibility to figure out what causes his agitation. For example this week he had a paranoid reaction to the word "shot" on the day flu vaccine was administered. He ranted about getting guns and shooting people and felt unsafe all day.

Good article. I don't feel guilty at all about the thoughts I have because they are reality. I know not to express them to the person I'm caring for b/c that would be hurtful and cold but I'm glad to feel no guilt. Why should I feel bad about knowing that as an unmarried adult with no children I have no caregiver bred for me so I have to be more reality based than my mom who has a bred caregiver. I do have to admit that I used to get annoyed when people would act like I'm some friggin saint. I would tell them straight up "No, I lost my job at the same time mom's health declined so it was coincidence. not a Mother Theresa moment". If I hadn't lost my good paying job with good benefits, she'd be in a facility" because who in their right mind (esp an unmarried adult supporting herself) would give up financial security?