After seven years of caregiving, I’m out.
Last Friday, I texted a friend who I care give for and told her I was running late.
She told me that she expected nothing less.
For me, it was the last straw in the abuse I’ve had to take for years and told her to fire me, so she texted me, “You’re fired.”
I know that for the entire time, I’ve been there, she’s been disappointed with me and she needs someone else.
I am also getting older and feel that it’s time for me to take care of myself but there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgment of that.
In fact, during the pandemic, I had to travel across town on the train to get there and back.
I’ve gotten into fights, seen violence on the train, etc.
She told me then that she didn’t care because she wasn’t in my situation.
I’ve held onto her line of thinking and feel it reveals what she thinks about me.
She’s called me a martyr.
Also, whenever I cook for her, she gets annoyed when I ask her what I should do.
It all turns into a circular argument and I don’t want to do this anymore.
I feel that I’ve wasted seven years of my life and in those seven, I’ve become less relevant in the job market.
Now, I have to catch up.
I feel like a terrible person because I’ve walked away from helping her.
Apparently, I’m supposed to submit or be submissive in general.
I’ve never been submissive.
I met her when she put a post on Next Door asking for help and offered to pay 25 a week.
She happened to live down the street from me and knowing I could walk there, I answered the call.
She opened the door with a big smile, the place was a mess.
I got to help her the best I could given the situation.
A few weeks in, she had some caregivers showing up who she signed up for in the meantime, telling her that the place was gross or that she needed to put her cats up.
She cried every time she told that story.
I contacted them and established that they needed to put me on the payroll or I would talk about how terrible their staff was.
Some years later, we both agreed that they weren’t accommodating enough and we sought out another company.
We’ve been through a lot she and I but I feel there’s a line that’s been crossed in regards to how I’m treated.
She needs someone else.
I have my health to look after and eventually, my mother’s who is in her 80s.
I feel extreme guilt after this but I keep going back to the problems I’ve had with this job, which wasn’t what I considered to be a job to begin with.
I felt I was helping someone out and now it’s turned into a relationship problem that became personal.
This is new to me being that I don’t feel that I’ve been allowed to be myself but now, in making my own decision, it feels strange.
That being the reality, again, I have a lot of catching up to do to make myself relevant again.
Part of the thing with this is that I have to let all of this go and it’s a hard reality to confront.
This struggle is real.
Would love to know what you think, and if I’ve left anything out.
Might need some engagement on this.
I am a terrible care giver.