Caring for someone else as well as yourself?

Hi @Fingers90 ,

Welcome to the forum..

A good while ago I was balancing my life & the care of my elderly parents. My father had dementia. My mum though full time carer for him was developing altziemers.

It can be dificult. What I do know is your own health comes first for working at "optimum performance" when actioning care & decision making for the ones you love..

Think of the emergency instructions on a plane regarding when the oxygen masks drop? Put your own on first before tending to others..

Hope this helps!

@Fingers90 if you aren't looking after yourself you do risk ending up being no use to the people you want to look after, or worse making yourself unwell so that they have to look after you. Looking after yourself isn't being selfish or giving yourself undue priority, it's making sure you are in the best position so that you can continue to do the looking after.

Can you try and make things easy as possible with your meds to avoid forgetting? Things like alarms/reminders on your phone, dosset boxes for tablets, keeping meds and test kit (muliple sets) in the most convenient place - try sticking one in the cutlery draw, one in the glove box, one on the bedside table.

You need to prioritise your own health and suggest you should also strive to get the support you need from other sources.

Fingers90 said:

Thanks, it does help. I know I need to help myself so I can help others but I find it so hard and I feel selfish. I just need to put in more of an effort and change the way I think

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Hi
Please don't feel selfish, your helping others and you need to be well to do that.
Try getting into a routine with your insulin/tablets and meals, hopefully you'll be less likely to forget.
There are lots of gadgets to help you to remember to take tabs/insulin.
Are you feeling low in your mood?
Caring is a difficult role, sorry your going thru this.
I'm sure you do put in effort, maybe your feeling ill and this is why it's harder.
Take care

Fingers90 said:

Thanks, it does help. I know I need to help myself so I can help others but I find it so hard and I feel selfish. I just need to put in more of an effort and change the way I think

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I know our family GP at the time appreciated carers needed a focus on wellbeing too. And pushed for it..!

You're not being selfish by looking after yourself, thus "arming up" for the best prospects of taking care of your family..

Fingers90 said:

I do feel down at time @Kittycat_7_, but that’s most likely due to the fact I don’t regularly take my levothyroxine as under active thyroid can depression among many things. Everything just gets on top of me and I struggle. I’d be able to cope much easier if it was just my wife or just kids but the combination is exhausting.

Obviously when my wife gets into a deep depression such as now things get very hard to deal with, but thankfully the mental health teams seem to be helping more than before

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Hi,
Glad your getting more support for your wife, hope the depression improves with taking your meds regularly.
You have a lot to cope with, can any family members help you?
Thyroid problems can cause terrible exhaustion, hope once you have enough meds in your body this will improve.
Please don't blame yourself, your ill as well.
Take care

Everyone is right you need to look after yourself otherwise you won't be able to look after anyone else because you won't be around your a young man and have a young family who need their dad around to help them especially as your wife is ill to you have a lot on your plate but you need to take great care of yourself so you can look after everyone else most importantly your children if you were not around because you had a stroke or heart attack think how your kids would feel any gobshite can be a father but it takes a special man to be a dad and you need to be that special man both for your own sake and your family very best of luck to you all.

Not trying to be nasty or anything just trying to give you the push to help yourself and thus be able to help others

Fingers90 said:

Hi, my names Lee, 27, diagnosed with type 1 February 2016. Also have Hypothyroidism and 4 young children.

Does anyone here care for someone else who has mental health issues?

My wife was diagnosed in October 2015 with EUPD and recently diagnosed with Bi-Polar 2 disorder alongside it.

Personally I struggle to look after myself as well as my wife and kids, and I was wondering if there’s anyone else in the same boat as me. I forget to take my meds (metformin and levothyroxine) and insulin as my every day life seems so choc full of other things I put as priority then I just forget.

Everyone says I need to look after myself so I can look after everyone else but I see myself as bottom rung because others need me more than I do.

What does everyone else think? Am I being stupid or do others think the same way as me?

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you are not stupid , you really have an overload of stress and too much to look after, I also forget my medication when I am stressed out, I don´t know if this suggestion will help you , but I have put an alarm on my phone to make me remember when to take my medication and I also have extra medication in the bag I carry with me everywhere....

but all that said , you are the one to solve all your problems it seems so you really need to put your health first, as no one is in charge it seems if you go totally down with a mental and physical meltdown ... even if it is difficult try to put yourself first at least a few hours every day

by the way welcome here, this is a great and very supporting forum so stay here and tell of your troubles and ask all the questions you need to get off your heart Lee...
there are more people in here with more problems than diabetes either type 1 or 2 or one of the more seldom kinds. I myself also struggle with mental isues and also have an artificial metabolism and take levothyroxine every day... and being a single mother with no support from my childs father I also have no space for a total meltdown ever

are there maybe some voluntary support groups in your local area where you could ask for some support like someone to do something with f.x. your children once in a while or maybe a group where you could go to get mental support ...?

Fingers90 said:

Thanks everyone this has been a great help to me, been quite the pick me up I’ll make sure I remember my stuff from now on and I should be able to deal with things better

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Swinging or roller coasting blood sugar levels also have an effect on mood...
It well documented on here from all types of D.

Do feel free to ask anything @Fingers90 ?

Maybe put a picture of your family on a box or bag containing your meds. Just to remind you of the reason..

Hi Lee, welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear that life's somewhat stressful at the moment, particularly coming up to Christmas, so please try to look after yourself. You've had some good advice above, so I won't repeat that, except perhaps to suggest that you might push for a bit of help from rellies, if possible, just till you get yourself & the family properly organised. You are only one person and can do only so much, so don't try to do everything.

Maybe you won't have much time to visit the forum or to spend reading around the site, but keep in touch if and when you can. The people on here can be very supportive and helpful for any queries you might have.

And if you just want to let off steam - there's even a "scream" thread where you can have a good old rant any time you like, about anything, knowing that you're in a safe and secure place, amongst friends.

You have a lot on your plate and you can only do your best do you not have any family or friends that could give you some help even it is a hour a day just so you can make sure you can look after yourself, you could ask the mental health team if they can offer you some support. In fact i think we have the same kind off life i am a single dad of 2 children and my parents split up when i was 17 so i stopped with my dad as he has polio and in now in a wheelchair, my mother had to have stomach removed because of a tumor and then caught MRSA and was in hospital for 6 months and all the while i was a type 1 diabetic. I have had laser and ops on my eyes and ops on my hands and elbow, plus just before my 39th birthday i had a pancreas and kidney transplant even though it went well the damage the diabetes had done over the years came to the fore nerve damage all over my body causing chronic pain, nerve damage effecting my bladder and bowel and mental health problems for the past 21 years. I am at hospital that much i am on first name terms with a couple of women who work at the WRVS and my mam comes down once every two weeks to clean my house as i don't do it right. All we can do it look after ourselves so we can help them who love us but everyone needs a break from time to time or we will end up in hospital ourselves.

I agree with the others above, and I might hav a tip for you. For me alarms or reminders on cupboards don't work, because I encounter them when I'm busy doing something else, so I postpone and then forget. If you're lucky enough to be allowed to take everything at the same time, you can do what I do: I have my long acting insulin and my tablets next to my bed, under my alarm-clock. So when I set the alarm before sleeping I take them, and I do not postpone, as I'm not doing anything else at that moment exept putting the light out and lay down. Under your toothbrush might be an option as well.
Good luck and take care of everyone including yourself. Don't hesitate to ask for help should it all become too much!