Support for Carers

Caring for someone you love can be one of the most demanding things you’ll ever do — and one of the most invisible. Whether you’re caring for someone with a terminal or life-limiting illness, or for someone with a disability, the emotional weight often gets pushed to the bottom of the list, underneath everything practical that needs doing.

Carers I work with often describe a similar mix of feelings: exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix and guilt for needing a break. They tell me there is a sense of having lost themselves somewhere along the way. Further they become frustrated at how little time or support is actually there for the carer, rather than the person being cared for.

None of that makes you a bad carer. It makes you human, doing something genuinely hard, usually for far longer than anyone anticipated.

Giving time to yourself

Counselling gives you a space that’s entirely yours — not about managing the illness or the care plan, but about how you’re doing underneath it. Some carers come for a handful of sessions during a particularly difficult stretch; others come regularly, as an ongoing place to put down what they’re carrying.