BURNOUT AND BREAKDOWN.

Well, it’s hit. After three months without a break of being woken up at all hours of the day and night by my father to help with one thing or another, and neither of them will consider respite care, with my father having cancer and my mother severely disabled by multiple sclerosis, I have nothing left. I have been coming closer to more meltdowns. Part of it is also because I’ve had to do the shopping, the cooking, some cleaning, the laundry, and provide emotional support for them while all my brother has done is accompany my father to some appointments at his own insistence (my brother’s not my father’s) yet a simple request that I have for them, namely that they close the screen door behind them, is not met, and the house fills with flies!

For the past week, I have been dealing with cramps in my legs, and last night, after I’d come home after an infusion, my father asked me to go shopping for him. I had to crouch down to get something off a freezer shelf and I couldn’t get back up again. Another shopper had to help me. Then, today, my father asks me to go shopping again for him! It’s been raining and he says he doesn’t feel like going out. Then, I haven’t been able to go a week without my brother and his family coming over. I am exhausted!

What I really need is for my folks to let me have at least a week or two on my own. They’re talking about going away in September, but that’s too far off! I need a break now! I also need them to say, “All right, we won’t contact you every day if that’s not what you want.” I need solitude.