Carers Anonymous Meeting Held 27th October 2011.

Good Evening Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I hope you will forgive me for being terribly nervous as I am unaccustomed to public speaking.

I admit, here tonight before you all that I am a carer.

I first started caring about 10 years ago. I thought that it was a macho thing to do at the time. I was sure I could manage it, after all it seemed so simple and straightforward and I could fit it in with the other things I was doing, like full time work and general DIY round the house and garden.

I think, at that time, I was just a social carer. A quick fix of caring after work and during the weekend did no harm and was something I could easily handle. In fact, I felt quite happy I could control caring and even stop it whenever I wanted.

Gradually though, as time went by, I began to rely on caring. It was not a St.Paul’s Road to Damascus conversion, it just sort of crept up on me.

The after work caring slowly began to increase and the weekends were being taken over with household caring as well as patient caring. I did not realise then that I was becoming addicted to caring.

It was pointed out to me by friends, neighbours and family that I was losing weight, becoming more irritable and was looking ill and pale. I took no notice at all. Caring was still a macho thing to do and I was sure it was doing wonders for my street cred. After all, I was getting pats on the back from the Social Services and some sympathy from my colleagues and workmates so why stop now?

Each week that went by saw an erosion of my ‘me’ time but the change was so gradual that I hardly noticed. By now, hardly a day was going by without carrying out some aspect of caring and I was really being sucked in to the whirlpool.
So it went on, day by day, week by week and month by month learning how to cope with full time work, full time housework and caring.

At some stage, I snapped and knew I would have to call for help. The addiction was taking hold of me and future looked bleak and miserable. I was faced with the choice of going ‘cold turkey’ and walking away from caring altogether, packing in work and giving in to the addiction or a compromise situation where other non-addicted carers would take over part of the caring role.

I chose, to my everlasting regret, the compromise option. I thought that non-addicted carers, because they were professionals, would do a much better job than I could. How wrong I was!!!

I found that the professional carers were slack, lazy and totally disinterested in caring. I supposed that this was because they did not want to become addicted themselves. Before very long it became quite obvious that I was still carrying out the same duties as before and the ‘quick fix’ of caring was turning into something much more uncontrollable.

So, having seen what was on offer from the professionals I chose to become a full time carer and I stand here before you tonight as a fully addicted carer.

I know that I still have the ‘cold turkey’ option and I also know that many of you here tonight could tell similar or worse stories and I would like to thank you for welcoming me to your group.

Thank you for listening.

written by a carer for carers everywhere