Caring for yourself while caring for others

This hits home. I've been taking care of my father for years. He has dementia, COPD, and a bunch of other issues. In a lot of ways it's like the pandemic never ended for us. I barely leave the house other than for trips to the grocery store and doctor's visits. It's brutal.

Sadly, I'm also recognizing that as a man pushing 50, I'm not very good at asking for help. I don't. I'm also not good at maintaining strong social ties. Both of these are things I hope to get better at. It sounds so easy, but I struggle with both. Especially while managing the ups and downs of my mental health and taking care of my father.

That said, I'm very grateful that none of this triggered a relapse of my drinking. That would not be good. For the most part, I use meditation and exercise to hold myself together.

Sharing this doesn't excite me, but maybe there are other caregivers out there that feel the same way. And for those of you with children, please plan for how you're going to handle your late life care.

Fellow man pushing 50 here. I'm caring for my mom who has COPD and is starting to show signs of dementia. She lives a couple hours away and I just started a job that's 3-4 hours in the opposite direction, so I'm balancing a long-distance weekly commute along with weekly trips to cook, clean, do shopping, etc. Due to how this eats up most of my free time, it's actually made me better at squeezing "self care" into my schedule since it's become clear that it's not something I can defer to later, since "later" may not come for several years.

It's not at the same level as your dealing with, so I'm writing this mostly to offer support and to be glad that you've found some activities to help center you. I do encourage you to try to find some help, even if it's just for some small part of the care, like cleaning, shopping, bathing, whatever.