Caring

In any relationship where someone is a carer, the focus is inevitably on the person with the disability, with the frailty, with the dementia.  It is understandable that this is the case - and it is all too easy to take the health and well-being of the carer for granted.

All too easy - and dangerous.

No one person has quite the same amount of influence or beneficial effect on the recipient of care as the person providing that care.  If the person that they are caring for is their number one priority, well that is understandable and should come as no great surprise.

But in reality, to provide that care - to continue to provide that care - the carer needs to be nurtured too.  In fact, the most important person in the relationship actually is the carer, because without their ability to deliver the required care safely and effectively, they need to be functioning fully.

Yet carers experience extremely high levels of stress; they often have health issues themselves; they are burnt out, depressed, isolated and doing it tough.

And they are doing it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, twenty four hours a year.  Even when they are 'off-duty' they are still on-call - psyched up, ready for action.

Who cares for the carer?