www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/more-than-40-of-parents-with-disabled-children-have-thought-about-suicide-study
I found this by googling pretty much the exact same thing. I'm having a bad day. The only thing that keeps me here is her, my beautiful disabled daughter.
Have any other parent carers ever felt this way? It's the most isolating job. I've ended up pretty much completely alone due to my own health suffering as the years drifted by in a blur, me giving more than I have, one emergency after another. I often care for 16 hours a day, some even more than that. I have no energy left for anything. Leaving the house is physically and mentally difficult, there's no such thing as jumping in the car.
I feel like we live in a goldfish bowl, I can see out but nobody sees in. I watch everyone else living whilst I do the same routines all day, every day, if I'm lucky, some days I'm too ill to do them.
I love my child so much, please don't read this and think she is in any way responsible, she's not. She's wonderful and I'm so glad she's here. I'm also very aware of being unable to voice these feelings in real life because I know people who have lost children. They would give anything to feel like I do right now. The guilt of that compounds the feelings I already have.
Even writing this scares the shit out of me because if she dies tonight I'll regret this post forever. I feel like I'm not allowed to feel how I feel. It's impossible.
I try so hard to be a good mum but I'm shell shocked from the trauma I've experienced as a 'medical mum' (hate that term, don't know how else to describe it) One thing after another after another. It's brutal. There's no time to process any of it. I used to write but now I can barely form a sentence. I feel so fucking stuck. I'm a robot.
I don't even have the option of suicide because she needs me too much. I know her inside out, I keep her alive. But it doesn't stop me thinking about it.
I can't be alone in these feelings?
If you know any parent carers or carers in general, check in on them. This life is not for the weak.