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When you are the sole caregiver, there are not many joys life can deliver.


You slump & slink into depression, you put your life on hold and enter into a recession.


It’s the right thing to do, of course that’s what you think, only to learn that keeping their head above water causes you to sink.


You can feel your own sanity starting to slip it becomes a daily struggle to not totally lose your grip.


As their demands increase, there’s a decline in your compassion, you try to resolve things in ways your brain cannot ration.


Then one day in your deepest despair, you come across something called AgingCare.


As you read postings on this website, you feel a twinge of hope & catch a flicker of light.


Everyday you visit to do more reading, you soon realize you’ve found a safe place to help with your healing.


Although you’re still caring for your loved one, you improve your perspective to the best it can be thanks to the love & support of your AgingCare family!


susan xoxoxo

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💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞 Beautiful ode! Thank you.
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Thank you, Susan! Very touching and timely. Bless you and all who find comfort in this site!
Much love and light to all.
Pearl
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Im thankful to have found this site. Last year my mom lost her baby sister due to dementia, her only remaining relative of that generation. I knew hardly anything about this horrible disease. Have my eyes been opened!!!! I come here every day to learn....but i leave with a broken heart for all of you who are walking this caregiving journey and all the horrors so many of you are faced with, due to so many different circumstances. I hope each of you had a good day today, hope you got some good food, some rest, and hope each of you can take one day at a time....,i pray for all of you daily, that YOUR needs are met, and that yall are taking care of yourselves. Im also thankful for the wise women and men who provide us with much information and answers to our questions.
love and Blessings to all.....
Liz
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This is so beautiful, made me teary eyed..No one understands our burdens better than AgingCare community..

A Blessed Thanksgiving & Holiday Season to all Earthly Angels!😇❤️
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Thank you all from the bottom of my heart💓
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(((((((((hugs))))))))
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Thank you Susan... you describe the void well. And the community you create w/ a safe space, is much to be grateful for. XO Carla
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Yes, thank you to all who post and give so much encouragement. And, help to normalize this painful journey. God is using you all to help others through the hands of Christ!
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I have found this site very helpful, both for the answers I've received in response to specific questions I have asked, and just the "education" I receive by reading all the other questions and the answers they've received. Much of it makes me realize how easy my situation is in comparison to many others, and some of it helps me when thinking about what I will want and need some years from now. I've suggested this forum when posting or making comments on others' postings on Yahoo.

Sometimes I wish we could all meet in a big room somewhere to get to know each other better--associate faces with names, etc.
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Thank You All!
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You nailed it Susan. Keep pushing on! Reading that we are not all alone and others are going through the same things we are helps take the edge off. If someone isn't living it, they don't totally get it. If you ask a question, someone in this forum has been through it, or is dealing with it. Has been a Godsend.
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I wish I had found this site when I was caring for my mom........things might have been so different now.

However, the way things have turned out for me I am so pleased to have people who understand what I am going through because they have dealt with the same problems.

I really appreciate this site & all the wisdom & care people show to one another.
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I, too, am very grateful for this site! My mother has gotten way more forgetful since I last posted, and lately has other issues, that cannot be resolved in her own home. FINALLY she got a SW that managed to get her certified for Medicaid, while also getting her a waiver so she can have more help in her home for now. Hanging on by our toes, and have AC on "speed dial"...
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I feel the same way. It helps so much to have the support of others on this sight. Each person brings new perspectives and encouragement when needed.
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💕🤗 HUGS....everything you going through, so am I . I am struggling every day...so difficult now since my mother has this annual cough that lasts a long time....keeping me up & I try to give cough medicine only to be refused because she insists it’s poison. How can a woman, I wonder, have no common sense who has college degrees with double majors.? But that is this disease. I try the nebulizer & she punches me & pushes it away. My patience wears thin. She says she prefers to cough rather than take the “poison “ I give her. Such a burden, yes an incredible burden. I’m honest . I go to take a Valium....Hugs 🤗 to me & you.
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Haven't read the others comments yet, just wanted to say this made me misty eyed. This is how I feel about AgingCare. You all have helped me with warm advice and those blunt comments too. It's been a blessing for sure.
I feel it is a safe place to come and vent and for the most part a no judgement zone too. Good people.
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I agree, Susan. This site helped me so much in navigating caregiving issues with my mom, and even after she passed early this year, I have received so much caring and support. I too found this site by accident, searching online for ways that I could help calm mom down, and trying to understand and make sense of what she (and I) were going through. Not only that, but coming from a dysfunctional family, there was so much of that mess and drama going on too that I was trying to cope with in the middle of caregiving. I found a whole community here that not only understood, but provided wonderful advice and insight based on experience. It was such a relief to know that I was not alone.

I still keep learning from everyone here, and I hope I can help someone else who may be going through some of the things I have experienced. I'm so grateful for you guys and this community.

Longears- I just saw your comment and I appreciate you too! Hugs, your encouragement and support has meant so much.
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Until I stumbled upon this site, I had no one to talk with who understood the caregiver situation day in day out. Thank GOD for all the angels on this site.

Super shout out to Frazzledmama, Midkid58, Rainmom, Buzzybee, OldSailor, Dorker & so many others who are no longer posting here anymore. Y'all have made a difference in my journey as I follow along with your journeys. Thank you for being here 24/7/365
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Well said!
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My story is a bit different. I was losing my mind one day. I called a social worker on the phone and explained how I simply couldn’t cope anymore. The social worker told me about this website and said it would help. Glad to have found it. Thanks everyone!
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I, too, found this site by accident and it has been such a blessing in my life! I don't know what particular drama we were enduring at the time, but I know I was stressed beyond belief and nobody would ever talk to me.

I feel like y'all have been better friends to me than the people in my life I call "family" and "friends". I have had better advice and more prayers offered up in my behalf from essential strangers than I have from my family.

And I hope I have given some advice and support too.
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PharSytid - Thank you for your post. Many of us have found this forum to be a source of support, help, useful information, and a place to safely vent our frustration or resentment over some aspects of our caregiving obligations.

This forum has helped me a great deal during the most difficult period of my life, and for that reason, I hang around and try to support others going through the same issues, even though my caregiving journey ended over a year ago.

Best wishes to you. I'm glad you're finding the help and support here that I did.
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Everybody’s story is different..I had it easier than most of the people on this site in regards to my Mom. I wish I had found this site years ago. Reading stories here made me realize I should have put my foot down with my mom down sizing in 2013 after breaking her hip. Running errands, doctor appts, etc, her living 30 minutes from me with 25-35 speed limits. Moving her to my house after a second fall, my husband thought it would be easier having her with us...in a way yes it was, but then it was more stressful. Moved her to AL in June 2015, she didn’t do well socially, but when she had to go to the SNF section she thrived. Always busy with her group of friends and activities. I give everyone here so much respect dealing with your LO and family members.

Yes this site should be featured on 60 Minutes, 20/20 etc.
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Boy, truer words never spoken.

This site has been a buoy in a very stormy sea. Aged/elderly don't get better and if its an aged/elderly thats stubborn and refusal to see reason and logic as to all the deep increasing, ever increasing never ceasing need, then YOU have to be the one that changes what/how you participate... or don't.

AC's many many folks that have paved that path before you, immeasurably supportive in how to find that path for yourself and save your own sanity.

This site should have a profile on 60 Minutes or some other popular venue..to inform those out there adrift in elderly care
.. there is help. Lots of it .. in those who've lived it.
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Thank you all for your comments on my posting this is the most amazing place and I think there have been many minds and lives saved and restored thanks to aging care.com there’s no judgment you can vent you can vent as much and as ugly as you want and somebody does understand you because they’ve been there I thought I was the most horrible person in the world for feeling the way I felt then I realized there I’m not I had slipped so far in my darkness and depression I was actually asking my friends if they would take care of my beloved pets for me only thing that saved me was aging care thank you all so very much I’ve been able to pull myself out of that despair without medications thank God and with simple pure untainted support those who understand me have a great day all
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Rainmom, shout out to you for all great advice that you give. I also found this site by accident. I was terribly annoyed by what was going on with my MIL and thought I knew what was best for her care.

I got totally slammed here by a couple of long time posters...and they were right. It wasn't my place to make decisions for her. I was fortunate that I stuck around so that when my mom started to decline, I had folks to ask questions of. I wouldn't have made it through my mom's death were it not for frequent flyer, V, gardenartist, countrymouse, jeannegibbs and many, many others who talked me through years, months and minutes until her last breath. This place is invaluable.
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Hear, hear! I had a few angels on here too. Countrymouse and you Captain were the first people to help me on here. I never forget how desperate I was feeling and you guys and so many others were a voice of reason when I was feeling lost.

This is a valuable little community!
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i agree about the value of AC and its members .
i found the site by googling ' dementia ' . i then proceeded to read nearly every back article that AC had published on the subject -- even before joining the forum .

dementia caregiving still twisted my brain into knots but by 6 months into it i was sharing information and observations with ( some ) hospice workers who probably got their certification out of a cracker jack box .

' others ' were brilliant and dedicated professionals .
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Feel the same. We are family
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AMEN!!!

I found this site by accident as I was desperately googling, trying to find reason in why my mother - a strong, brilliantly intelligent woman had suddenly begun to have bowel incontinence and worse - seemed unable to take her brief off without covering the bathroom and herself in poo.

You have no idea how lost and depressed I was, cause this was just the latest in my five year - soon to be six - struggle in looking after her and watching her slip into becoming someone I no longer recognized.

But wait! Maybe you do have an idea of how I felt. As it turned out - there were lots of people who knew exactly how I felt... because it was happening to them too.

Here on AC I asked for advice, I received it and I followed it. It didn’t take long for things to get... better?... maybe to strong a word but things became tolerable, at least. Not because my mom improved - but because I did. With the help of the folks here!

A special shout-out to BarbBrooklyn and CarlaB. My personal guardian angles. They may not even know that - how they impacted my life. But they did - along with so many others.

I will be grateful until my last breath. Or until dementia robs me of my memory. Whichever comes first. Hopefully, death.
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