What are your thoughts and experiences of being an important part of someone else's support network, when you're very much in a place of needing support in your own life?
For context, my DS is a single parent who works long hours and relies on me heavily for practical support with childcare, especially during school holidays etc. She tends to tell me rather than ask me when she needs me but I appreciate it's really hard for her.
I struggle with my mental health (depression, anxiety and PTSD) and have my own children for whom I'm the main day to day carer as DH works away a lot. I find it very hard to predict whether I'm going to have the mental capacity and energy to look after her kids as well as my own at any given time, but appreciate she needs advance notice of my availability so that she can book leave or paid childcare when I'm not going to have her kids.
I appreciate my mental health doesn't exist in a vacuum and it's a normal part of life to be needed by others, as well as sometimes being the person needing the support. Just wondering if others have similar situations and how you've struck a balance between your own needs and other wider responsibilities outside caring for your immediate dependents.