Feeling adrift

I used to run a carers group at our doctors surgery where I worked and this is the most common things that carers suffered with. Being someone carer for so long its like suffering a bereavement when your love one goes into a home. Your life totally changes, the feeling of guilt sometimes, and the feeling of isolation as they were your main contact 24/7. My advise is try and find a carers group near to you - talk to people that are going through the same thing, they will know exactly what you are going through right now. The best place to start is with your doctors surgery as they will have a carers lead and should be able to point you in the right direction. Good luck x

In so many ways your situation is like a bereavement - you have lost your old life, and feel as if you are standing on shifting sands while a new life slowly forms. Be very kind to yourself; have some little treats like a hairdo or a massage perhaps, and concentrate on doing the things you really enjoy. I am sure that calmness and peace will come eventually as you form a new pattern, and I send every good wish for you to reach that stage soon. xx

Again nothing to add to all the excellent advice given. Take some time to adjust, don't feel guilty that your OH has had to go into residential care. When you are ready to move forward consider volunteering - I have just being reading about the wonderful support provided by Silverline. Also try to make yourself get out for a walk in your local park or woodland - I find nature's restorative powers never fail to lift my spirits.

These feelings are nebulous and like shifting sand. It's possibly a sense of loss?

I am not minimizing anybodys experience but I get a version of this when I go on holiday. I want to go but after 24 hours I don't know what to do with myself and I want to come home.

As they say Change is Strange.

Its grief. Natural and understandable. Give yourself time. Go gently. Be kind to yourself.

Nothing to add except give yourself time. DH died. I was main carer, he died at home as he wanted. He had dementia. Never been on my own til now, im 68. Its been eighteen months and i am afraid i am still unable to function as one. I am being kind to myself as suggested on here. Someday i know i will come out the other side but i am still grieving

This may sound daft but you can get really immersed in doing a jigsaw, the time passes quickly and you won’t have to do any outside thinking.

Nothing to add, really, just to agree with others that this is a big adjustment, and five weeks is no time at all. Glad you've taken the decision to be warm and comfortable - now is the time to look after yourself and get back to understanding your own needs.

Yes. DH has been in a nursing home for eighteen months and I still feel as you do. He needs two carers to move him, and continues to have psychotic episodes, but I still feel that I should be caring for him. I visit most days, and fit other things around this, including caring for my AC who has learning difficulties. Like you, I feel that there is less purpose to my life. I try to keep busy, which I'm sure you do too. Maybe we need to see it as a stage in life, and hope that ' this too will pass '. Be kind to yourself, as you did all you could. I'm thinking of you.

Not been in your pisution personally but have encountered many who have (through work). If course you are feeling adrift. Your life has been fully occupied with caring and now that has changed. It is a huge loss. There is no way you will not feel adrift as you say, it is so early for you not to have those feelings. Not easy to do but you have to give yourself time to adjust, the loss of your daily role is like a bereavement, one minute you are fully engaged with your role and the next that is taken away from you. Do you have family who you can visit now and again. Remember, your DH s being cared for you do not need to visit every day. I do know some people feel they must and want to visit daily and that is fine too. Could the care home put you in touch with anyone who could help you with your feelings which to me are of "loss". Does the Home have a relatives group? Perhaps you may find others who have gone through the same kind of feelings. If you are the organised type and having cared so well for your DH you do seem to be, perhaps you could organise something at the Home if there are no supports in place already. Allow yourself time, you have had a big life change.

Married but lonely.

My first post - please be kind!

My husband and I have been married for over 37 years and even though we’re both still working, I feel so lonely when we both get home. Now the kids have left home we seem to have little in common and just row all the time - and then he ‘sulks’ for days without speaking to me. Sad incidents in my life have left me with depression and some days I think about just running away, because it all becomes too much. I only have one trusted friend, but she has problems of her own, so I try not to burden her with mine.
I have looked to join some local groups to meet new people (hence joining this one) but I need to actually go ‘out’ to something - even though it will cause more sulking! I just reminisce on a wasted lifetime with this grumpy old man and feel if I don’t do something soon I will go mad.
Anyone else have this ‘lonely feeling’ even though they are in a relationship?

After both my parents died (I'd cared for them for 8 years) I remember waiting for the sense of relief but all I felt was lost - the loss of what was my normal life, loss of routine, loss of a sense of purpose. I saw a counsellor and she helped me work through the grief. Don't forget that this is a type of bereavement for you. You need to give yourself time to grieve and adjust - think of it as a Pause, before you press Play again and go forward into this new "normal") Lots of great advice on here already for you - when you're ready.

blueflinders - I am sorry that your life is so difficult at the moment. That must feel like a lonely place to be.

I have been on the phone half the morning with my OH in the NH - he gets confused and paranoid in the mornings and needs lots of reassurance. He is able to ring me from his room. One of his comments was "I know I am here so that I do not spoil your life." It is so distressing when he talks like that. Rubbing salt in the guilt wound.

It is chaotic here at present because all DDs and their families are here - not staying with me, but nearby - and they tend to visit him en masse - and I think that confuses him. I am hoping to be able to find a quiet time to go and sit with him.

The blessed Decision Support Tool (I kid you not!) is to be done on Tuesday morning which will lead to a decision about health authority funding - likely to be a no again I suspect - and OH will have to listen to a great group of people discussing at length how ill he is. I am going to try and organise for them to speak briefly to him and then get them out of his room as it will distress him. Makes me a bit cross all this.

Many thanks for helpful posts and especial thanks to Maw for her kind "glowers" - just what I needed.

Lucky I have been in your situation. Husband died 4 years ago, but for last 16 months of his life was in a care home after he broke his hip. He had a rare dementia which affects vision and co-ordination first, so there were enormous difficulties with rehab after the fracture. I entirely endorse what Maw says. Don't make any sudden changes. You are suffering a kind of bereavement and you will feel it sorely, but you also have a huge role in your husband's care in the home. That is often not recognised, but it's nevertheless very demanding. You will get more comfortable with being on your own, but give it time, and don't despair. You will gradually find your way. Lots of hugs from me!

blueflinders so sorry to read of your sadness. It is awful to feel 'alone, together' . You will find much in the way of good advice, kindness, and hopefully things to laugh at and lift your spirit on Gransnet. Welcome, and I hope you find some of the solace you need here. x

It’s a very very hard time. I have been in the same situation. My DH developed vascular dementia 3 years ago and gradually lost all mobility. I cared fro him at home until it was impossible and he went into nursing care. The home wasn’t wonderful and I was there every day checking his care. I was persuaded to take an occasional day off especially as it progressed and I realised he didn’t remember I hadn’t been in. He was very agitated and frightened and always begging me to take him away. There really can’t be any worse time in life for the spouse . It is now one year since he died and I still feel really lost. All I can say is most advice doesn’t help a lot. Only you can work out what’s best but I would say if possible don’t give up everything to be with him all the time because afterwards is harder if you have no interests to fall back on . A lot of the time they don’t mean a lot to me but I know he wouldn’t want me to shut myself away and not try to make a life however much I’d rather have the old one back. I’ve still got a long way to go.

My aunt went through exactly this - it took her over a year to adjust and stop feeling guilty but she’s fine now, she joined a book club and is finally able to relax.

Lucky girl
I do so feel for you. My DH has this awful problem too though quite clearly not as badly as your husband.
There times when 'll could scream with frustration for the lack of humour, not getting the point in a joke, the constant repetition of questions and stories and my guilty conscience when l get to shouting point - and having to control myself. I love this man to bits and he loves me but as one tactless person tactlessly told me 'you gradually lose them' l know this, but don't need people gleefully telling me this - but another thing, no one comes to see us or bothers to ring. In all other ways my darling is fine, except he has rotten knees, He's had surgery on both, didn't do the exercises, and is in quite a lot of pain. I need surgery too for knees too, they're in an advanced state of rubbish, and lm sorry to moan about these things but sometimes l think my heads going to explode. There's more, but l cannot write any more as l feel rotten enough just moaning about this. I still have my darling and thank God for him, Grandsnetters, forgive me

I have no experience of what you have gone through but I'd like to say how much I admire you and all the other carers out there. It would be so easy to let someone else take responsibility for your loved ones. I feel so humbled that there are such wonderful people existing who give of their lives to support others.
Please take care of yourself now and let yourself heal and return to the old you gradually. Best wishes

Being a newly, I feel I’ve clicked the wrong button and ended up in someone else’s thread - sorry Luckygirl! I have no idea how to start a new thread or remove my post from your thread. Help!!!

I echo what granbabies said.

I know how you’re feeling, my Mother went into a home a month ago. I really struggle with, is she in the right place but I know she is. At the same time my only son left home which left two massive voids in my life.

oh, such good comments here,
my dh has been in hospital for over 5 weeks now.. a place, I can`t get to visit without someone taking me, so haven`t seen him for 2 weeks... we have been married 50 years this coming January, and a close couple in that we never lot of friends, been retired 20 years, and I have been my dh`s carer most of that time, though he has not been completely incapacitated.

now just got him transferred to a hospital nearer home, so I can visit more often.

but these last 5 weeks, I so relate to what has been said here..
yes it is grieving, yes it is hard. again fortunately I have quite recently started attending a local church, and have a couple of groups I have joined, so getting out, other than that,, it is not easy...

jigsaws yes,, I got involved, and oh my! such mind relaxing... I recommend jigsaws

I do not make friends easily, though I can catch to anyone when out at the local shop etc.. that helps me.

coming here also helps

Sorry to hear you're going through this. When you visit him, ask if there are any support groups you could attend. You need to be with people going through the same thing. Now it's autumn, you could look into starting a course in something you like.. It'll give you more purpose and a little routine. Self refer to Steps to Wellbeing..Group CBT to learn more about coping strategies. Good luck.

In the time you were so busy with him, you gradually lost all your other interests and pastimes - and maybe even lost touch with friends, so it's fairly obvious why your time feels a bit empty now. Gradually you will redevelop interests and things to do. It won't happen all at once, but it will happen.