Christine

Cared for her mother

Age at interview: 53
Age at start of caregiving: 46

Christine is 53 years old and has lived most of her life with her parents. She lost her job shortly after her father died and became her mother’s full-time caregiver when she was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy (MSA). Christine recently had to make the difficult decision to move out of her parental home where she had lived with her mother as the caregiving tasks were seriously affecting her own health.

Christine found that providing care for her mother gave meaning to her life while she was still in mourning for her father. Initially she felt proud to make it possible for her mother to remain in her home thanks to the care she was providing, but throughout the years, her mother’s condition deteriorated considerably and the caregiving tasks became more and more challenging. Christine started to lose herself so much in her caregiving role that it was difficult to find the time and energy to search for work.

Christine’s siblings had a hard time understanding her caring situation and were hardly involved in helping her with these tasks. She felt that they were not actually contributing to her mother’s care while continuously commenting and criticizing Christine’s efforts. For example, her sister would endlessly accuse her of abandoning her mother whenever Christine took time for herself to visit friends. Christine asked her sister to look after her mother so that she could go on a much needed four-day holiday, and her sister reluctantly accepted. Nevertheless, she refused to arrive in time to take over the care when Christine was scheduled to leave the house. In this short period of absence of care, her mother made a bad fall and ended up in the hospital. A period of rehabilitation followed before her mother could return home with a further loss of abilities. In the meantime Christine’s initial feelings of pride for caring for her mother started to disappear.

After the rehabilitation period, the caring demands of Christine’s mother increased so much that Christine became seriously affected by her situation at a psychological level. Exhausted and stressed, Christine started to have suicidal thoughts as a way to get out of her situation. These thoughts forced her to seek quick admission to a crisis support centre. Paradoxically, in spite of her delicate mental state, Christine felt that the 10 days that she spent in this facility were like a holiday: finally she could catch up on her much needed rest and sleep. After this healing period she decided that she had to get out of the house and break contact with her siblings in order to protect her own health. Christine explains that her siblings, who were then obliged to take over the care for their mother, were unable to do so and decided to place her in a long term care facility. Today she finds it very difficult to see her mother in this facility knowing that things may have been very different if only she (Christine herself) had received the support that she needed.

Today Christine does not regret having taken these difficult and painful decisions as she realizes that this was the only way she had, at the time, to protect herself from serious mental illness. She visits her mother as often as she can, works hard on her mental recovery and is slowly rebuilding her life. She has learned that strength comes from determination as much as from making the right decisions before is too late.

Go back

More content

• Additional Supports Needed for People Living with Long COVID – Christine
  Christine wishes there was more information about long COVID specifically for employers.
• Support from Employers, Colleagues, and Worker’s Compensation Boards – Christine
  Christine is only allowed to use her sick days midweek even though a Monday or Friday would give her more recovery time.
• Advice to Healthcare Providers – Christine
  Christine describes the potentially serious impacts of an insensitive conversation on a patient.
• Impacts on Partners and Households – Christine
  Christine worries that she is often too sore to welcome physical contact from her husband.
• Support from family and friends – Christine
  Christine’s sister criticized her for the way she was caring for their mother, and accused her of being selfish and abandoning their mother.
• Navigating the system – Christine
  Sometimes you don’t know about the helpful services that are out there, says Christine.
• Impact on professional life and career – Christine
  Christine was so caught-up in caring for her mother that she never resolved her employment situation.
• Impact on health – Christine
  Christine was so exhausted that she reached a point where she considered suicide.
• Hospitals and facilities – Christine
  Christine realized she had to leave her mother’s home to protect herself. When she left, her mother moved to a care facility.
• Home care and live-in caregivers – Christine
  Interaction with the home care staff was difficult for Christine’s mother as she kept meeting new people.