Therapy for caregivers

In India, caregiving is usually absorbed into family duty rather than recognised as work. It falls disproportionately on daughters and daughters-in-law, frequently alongside a job and children, and it is expected rather than thanked.

Because it is framed as duty, the strain has nowhere legitimate to go. Complaining feels like betrayal.

What caregivers carry

• —Exhaustion that sleep does not touch, sustained across years rather than weeks.
• —Guilt, constantly. For resting, for irritation, for not doing more.
• —Resentment, followed immediately by shame about the resentment.
• —Grief for someone still alive, particularly with dementia, where the person is present and progressively unreachable.
• —Invisibility. Every conversation is about the patient.
• —Anger at siblings who send advice and money but not time.
• —A vanished life. Friendships, plans and ambitions deferred so long they have quietly expired.

The thought nobody admits

Many long-term caregivers have, at some point, wished it would end. Then been horrified at themselves.

It is worth saying plainly: that thought is common, it does not mean you want your person to die, and it does not make you a bad daughter or son. It is usually exhaustion speaking, and sometimes compassion — not wanting their suffering to continue. Carrying it in silence does far more damage than saying it out loud once, to someone who will not flinch.

Why "take care of yourself" is useless advice

Because it assumes available time and permission, and caregivers usually have neither. The useful version is more specific: what could realistically be delegated, what a sibling could be asked for in concrete terms, what respite exists locally, and what standard you are holding yourself to that no one could meet.

What therapy offers

1. 01A space where you are the subject, possibly the only one in your week.
2. 02Permission for the difficult feelings, which loosens their grip considerably.
3. 03Work on guilt, which is usually measured against an impossible standard.
4. 04Practical thinking about boundaries and asking, including the family conversations you have been avoiding.
5. 05Grief support, both anticipatory and after.

Video sessions matter here more than in most situations: many caregivers cannot leave the house, and an hour that requires no arrangements is the difference between attending and not.