The Caregiving Journey

The day job is slow. The caregiving is not. It’s an all-consuming and isolating phase of life. Your world closes in. You go nowhere. You turn down every social invitation until they no longer ask—and that’s a relief. You scroll past the Facebook posts of the rest of humanity going by amazed that people get on with their lives. And yet it is on Facebook that you also find your current tribe. Groups for caregivers—many of them with much more dire situations—which either make you feel not quite so sorry for yourself, or guilty that you’re even tired when compared to the challenges of others. Here are people who understand you now—better than your closest friends. It’s odd, even surreal that you feel more in common with strangers than with those around you. You’re committed to it—because it’s the right thing to do and you love your loved one who is suffering so much more than you can imagine. But you wonder what you’ll have left when it’s over—when you’ve given your all—poured into the black hole that is dementia—the incurable, one-way street.