And according to them, I am an “angel” and “have my halo,” etc.

I have considered caregiving to be a blessing in so many ways, but I cannot believe how easy it is for others to act this way. The best part is how Gram and I are supposed to feel so thankful and blessed when the condescend to come by for AN HOUR maybe once a week or month. They tell me that there is no way they could do it and gosh, they have all these things going on in their lives.

And I don’t? I’m in my twenties, and have a fiance waiting for me back home. I’ve spent almost this entire last year away from him. We are considering postponing the wedding because there hasn’t been any time to plan it and since I can’t have an income, there’s only HIM to pay for it. How is it that they are allowed to have a life while I am expected to watch my twenties pass me by?

Anyway. I hear ya. It makes me feel very bitter towards other family members. I am sorry you have to feel this way, too.

I do love the idea of there being a Caregiver Diagnosis. I didn’t want to get out of bed today and wanted to ignore my grandmother’s cries when she called for me this morning. (And as a result, have been guilting myself all day long for being a rotten, thankless individual.) I know that can’t be healthy and points to something serious.
.-= Miss R´s last blog ..The Age Of Invisibility by Eissa Stein =-.

I am not interested in caregiving, I have never been interested in caregiving. I have been burdened with relationships in which the other person became ill, and I had to become the devoted, selfless fill-in-the-blank. Family members who should be helping me pretend that I chose this way of life, and that I am naturally suited to it. I am not suited to it; I hate it. However, this is the fantasy that allows family members to make not the slightest effort to help. They say, “Oh, I couldn’t do what you do,” as if I chose this.

I once heard an actress who had been under contract to M-G-M in the 1940s say that every child performer grows up and wonders, “What would I have become, had I not been forced to become an actress?”

I sometimes wonder what I would have become had I not been burdened with sick people all of my life. What are my talents? What do I like and dislike? After a lifetime of learning a person’s preferences and needs, I wonder, what are mine? Am I really an early riser? It doesn’t feel like it. Am I really a loner? It doesn’t feel like it.

I wonder who I am, besides a life-support system for people whose lives are, for reasons I don’t understand, more precious than my own.