I am tired. I’m tired of doing this job at a time when it’s so hard to function. People don’t understand how hard it is to be the full time carer of someone with serious medical problems who needs genuine help all the time. I’m overtired. I have no social life. No one is there to help me when I need it. Majority of the time I feel like I need to run away and never come back but I’m not allowed to do that because I’ve got the responsibility to look after my son.
I know I sound like a bad person because I’m his mother and I should be looking after him but it really isn’t that simple. I did not sign up to pretty much act as his disability service provider. That’s not my job. I’m a qualified electrician. I’m one of the only female electricians in the company and one of very few qualified female electricians in the state and I can’t even go to work and represent the women in the field who have worked so hard to be there. It’s really hard having a disabled son and I wish that this wasn’t my life. I know people aren’t supposed to say that but I also know a lot of people think it.
To be honest, I just need help. I need someone to step in and save me because at the moment I feel like I’m drowning. I seriously don’t know how people in healthcare do it. Imagine being a full time disability support worker servicing the Adelaide area. I don’t know how they do it. I can’t even look after one person with a disability, someone who I love. I couldn’t imagine looking after heaps of people suffering from illnesses at all times. It would be an exhausting profession and obviously I can only speak about my own experience as a personal carer, but it’s also a thankless experience.