So, over the last couple of years my life has exploded, and not in a good way!<\/p>\n

In 2012 my mother and her two sisters moved from 45 minutes away from my home to 3 hours away! For reasons which are completely irrelevant they ended up living in a community where they knew no one and with no support nearby so we started spending as much time with them as we could. That’s challenging when you have two homeschooled teenagers and a mentally ill husband. Of course, it would have been more challenging with two public schooled teenagers. In fact, it would have been completely impossible.<\/p>\n

In 2014 I had to admit that it wasn’t healthy for any of us to remain living under the same roof and convinced my husband to go to the local mental health unit where he was told to move out on his own and learn to be an adult. So, now I’m caring for three elderly ladies 3 hours away and two traumatised teenagers. Life just got really complicated and after a bit I stopped writing,<\/p>\n

2015 my aunt died leaving my mother and one sister 3 hours away and all of us grieving.<\/p>\n

2016 my daughter admitted that she was struggling and sought help from a psychologist. So now I’ve got two old ladies 3 hours away, one teen with anxiety in therapy and one teen grieving. And I thought that 2014 was complicated. Late 2016 my aunt got sick. Fortunately we were down with them for Christmas and we just stayed.<\/p>\n

January 2017 one of my best friends, and my daughter’s godfather, died. He wasn’t young (about 33 years older than me), but it was a real shock. He left behind a mobility challenged widow, also one of my best friends, and another person for us to care for. My mother and aunt travelled up for the funeral and stayed with us. The very end of that month my aunt was admitted to hospital for the first time in 91 years. The last time she’d been in hospital was when she was born. Twenty-one days later she died and we stayed with Mum. My brother made it back into the country for the funeral but by mid-March he was off again and Mum moved in with us.<\/p>\n

March 2017 my husband moved in with his girlfriend. At least now we weren’t having to deal with his craziness or suicide threats but it just added a whole new level of grief and stress.<\/p>\n

So here we are in 2018 and I am the carer of two homeschooled teenagers and an elderly mother who has decided that she’s living with us because “we won’t let her live on her own”. Really? I’d be happy for her to live on her own IF she wanted to. She doesn’t want to and that’s just fine but why does she have to make it sound like it’s my decision?<\/p>\n

This blog is unlikely to end up being anything like I thought that it would way back when I started it but I hope that it will be helpful to me, if no one else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, over the last couple of years my life has exploded, and not in a good way! In 2012 my mother and her two sisters moved from 45 minutes away from my home to 3 hours away! For reasons which…
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