It's the week before Carers' week and I am busy beating myself up for writing this so late that by the time it reaches your screens the whole event will be over. I console myself with the knowledge that I will look through my back history of I Couldn't Care Less and if I can find anything I like enough I will share it online over the week, which is a lot about my psyche in a sentence and a half. But for right now (whenever that is) I want to synthesise the overarching conceit of sharing with others the fact that life is sometimes awful with the specific theme of being a carer. No problem.

If you pay attention to me, or Carers' week, or both, you'll be familiar with the standard spiel. Carers save the UK enough money every week to financially incentivize Donald Trump to admit that he has the hands of an underdeveloped toddler. That's, true and important, however flippantly I frame it. Everyone who looks after a friend or family member with mental or physical health problems is taking on what would otherwise be the state's responsibility. They are taking on, with no training or experience, conditions so obscure and complex that they have to be explained to medical professionals. The are looking after people they care about without support, or backup, or pay, or any end in sight. It really is a loving, generous, heroic thing to do, and it took me a long time to accept that this was indeed what I did. There's one little thing... I have no idea what I'm doing.

How do I screw this up? Let me count the ways. There was the time I was trying to help my half-unconscious wife get to the bathroom and I missed my footing and she collapsed on top of me. Or the time a consultant asked me how long my wife had been out for and I said 'maybe three minutes' and the consultant gently explained that three minutes was quite a long time and we agreed it was probably more like 30 seconds. Or the time I forgot to order her important prescription from a raft of medication I can't always remember the spelling or even the purpose of. I shouldn't be a carer – I can barely look after myself.

My usual message here is to go easier on yourself, that the expectations of matching those around you mean you will always fall short of an invisible and unattainable perfection. But in this instance I am conflicted. This is not a question of whether your holiday was amazing enough or your children are too awful for you to admit to. This is the well-being of another person, so your failure has consequences that matter. You can't beat yourself up for getting it wrong, but you also can't pretend you don't need to get it right.

I do think enabling carers to do better is a part of the solution. It's all well and good to talk about how much money they are saving, but if you don't measure the world through the prism of pound notes they, we, are also ensuring people we care about are able to lead active and independent lives in the same world as everybody else. This is the option I think a great number of people would choose for themselves and I think rather than wanging on about how much money carers save, government should invest some of those millions in training and support carers to enable to make their contribution safely and well.

And carers themselves need to assess their mistakes on a case-b-case basis. If it led to harm, or had the potential to do so, take a step back. Are you properly trained, equipped, prepared to do what you were trying to do? Are you overburdening yourself? If no harm was done and none was likely give yourself a break. You are doing your best in a far from perfect situation. Rather than expecting yourself to do the impossible, remember that for the person you care for you are making the improbable possible.

Benjaminpmoore

11.06.18 Front Page

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