I'm 23, but have been taking care of my mom since I was 15. Over the years, especially the past 3 years, my responsibilities have just gotten more and more demanding. She has extremely debilitating arthritis, colitis, and lymphodema that keeps her at home 24/7. She has only left the house once in 8 months. On top of that, she's very depressed because of these circumstances and cries all the time. To be honest, I'm tired of hearing her cry and hearing about how depressed and in pain she is. What about me?

I've had depression and anxiety problems since I was 13. I feel like I've lost my teenage years to that. Now, I feel like I'm losing my 20's to caregiving. I've never had a job, never been to college, don't have friends or a life, etc. The only other person I talk to on a regular basis is my fiancé, but he lives out of state at the moment. I don't even have a driver's license right now, so I can't go anywhere that isn't within walking distance. I've tried seeing therapists, but I can't afford it anymore and all the ones covered by my insurance are too far away.

What's worse is that there's nobody to help me take care of my mom. My dad is in prison for life and all my extended family lives across the country and hardly ever checks up on us. Our neighbors help us a little by taking care of our lawn and taking me to the grocery store every once in awhile, but that's it. It's mostly just my mom and me.

I'm just so exhausted and angry/resentful/bitter. I don't sleep well anymore, because she wakes me up a lot to get her food or whatever else she needs. I've got BPD, so I don't cope well and turn to alcohol, OTC drugs, self-harm, and food to soothe myself. I've gained some weight recently because of all the stress.

She's mentally sound. There's nothing wrong with her other than being physically diabled. She's not even sick enough to be in the hospital or a nursing home (not like I'd put her there anyway). She has in-home nursing care, but they aren't here very often. We can't afford to have extensive nursing care or anything either.

Nobody ever asks me how I'm doing. Nobody asks me if I've cut myself again, if I'm still fighting off urges to get wasted. Even other caregivers that I've met never ask me if I'm okay. It's always questions about how my mom is doing, how I can be helping her even more, etc. The most advice I've gotten is stuff like 'try to get some exercise' or 'take a relaxing bath'. I don't have time for that. I don't have the energy for that. I just want a break. I just want to be able to sleep for a full night, wake up and not have to worry about feeding anyone but myself, not have to worry about running errands when I'm exhausted.

I'm tired of putting myelf on the back burner. I'm tired of having to smell feces all the time because of her colitis. I'm tired of always being on high alert, worrying if she's going to fall again (she's fallen 2x in the past month), worrying is she's going to fall while I'm away at the store or something. I'm just tired and angry and nothing will ever change.