Carers who care for loved ones. Not a job for the fainthearted.

Posted in Sandi's blog on 23 February 2010 | 0 Comments

When I decided to grab hold of the grieving process with both hands and mourn the loss of my eyesight wholesale, I tried to get my husband, Mark, to come along for the ride. But, the truth was that, although he was going to be there to love and support me and catch me when I fell, which he did plenty, it was a journey that I had to take alone. But, and boy is this a big but, it would now appear that although he did not need to join me on my journey, he did need to have one of his very own.

Having someone you love and who loves you back as your carer, whichever guise that comes in - spouse, parent, child, sibling, friend, and so on - is an incredibly intricate thing. It is something that we are learning more about day by day, as its complexities continue to unfold. I suspect that what we have had to go through, to learn that these carers need to grieve for the loss alongside those they care for, would have ripped most marriages apart, but fortunately, the love and respect that we have for each other has seen us through and the learning made us stronger.

What happened was this.

I came out of the grieving process, having fully accepted the fact that I am going to lose all of my eyesight, a stronger and happier person. Strange. I know, but there you have it. And, right there next to me was Mark, propping me up and being the amazing loving and caring and wonderful man that he is, but after a year of this propping up, I didn’t need it any more. I needed him to step away. I had my wings and wanted to fly. But, after such a long time, this had become routine. He didn’t know how not to care for me in the way he had become accustomed to, so he kept on being there, right next to me, waiting to catch me when I fell, but I didn't fall.

I started to feel that he was invading my personal space and I didn’t know what to do about it. Was I really going to tell him, "Thank you very much for holding fort for the past year whilst I contemplated my navel, but you can go now", so, in my infinite stupidity, I did nothing.

But, the truth has funny ways of coming out and my need for space turned into friction and I started pushing him away, which led to confusion, more tension, and then it started to pick up speed. This was not good. But what I thought was him just being there for me, turned out to be something far deeper. He didn’t want to let go, because if he did, he would have to accept that this is it. That there is nothing more that he can do. That he can’t make IT better and for those of you using screenreaders, I have capitalised IT because IT is the big bad fact that I am going to go completely blind and there is nothing he can do about it.

And so his journey begins.

0 comments | Tags: Grieving, Carers