The Silent Cost of Caring: Caregiver Burnout

A personal reflection on caregiver burnout—and the deeper existential toll of caring for an elderly loved one.

I have so many dreams. So many that I often don't know where to start.

I have too many dreams to live in one lifetime—songwriting, animal communication, tiny house living, ski holidays, a Joe Dispenza advanced retreat, other healing retreats, knitting, pottery,

volunteering at an animal rescue, lots of massages, and so many more. 

But lately, it feels like I’m living in a waiting room. In 2023, I sold my house to move in with my 90 year-old grandmother to care for her. On paper, it’s a generous choice. In reality, it’s a complicated one.

I love her and genuinely enjoy taking care of her. I’m so grateful to still have her in my life and I certainly don’t regret being close to her at this age.

And yet, almost without noticing, I’ve been slowly placing my own life on hold. One dream after another quietly moved to the backburner. What started as a season of caring has begun to feel like a slow erasure of myself.

Our lives couldn’t be more different. Her world is simple, concrete, practical. Mine is layered with meaning, ritual, and spirit. I try to keep a few sacred things from my “old” life—my meditations, my spiritual practices. Those are non-negotiable. They live quietly in my room, behind a closed door. No one here knows about them, because spirituality has no place in my family’s vocabulary. For them, there’s only what you can see and touch—the surface layer of life.

Apart from my spiritual practices, I’ve put almost everything else on pause, just to blend in as much as possible, to fit my edges into the shape of this house. The truth is, combining my grandma’s needs with all of mine just isn’t realistic. I knew that when I moved in here. So my life has been quietly rearranged around hers.

Recently, I’ve started to really feel it. The imbalance. The stagnation. The heaviness. Sometimes I feel like I’m 92 as well. I keep up appearances, of course. People see the capable one. The strong one. The person who manages, organizes, keeps it all together. But honestly, sometimes I just need the time in between to lie in bed and rest, trying to refill a well that has been drawn from for too long.

It feels, in a way, like I’m starving myself—not of food, but of my own needs, my own life. It’s so easy to disappear into someone else’s needs. Admittedly, it’s not a new pattern. I have a weak spot for that. Growing up as a COPMI—a child of a parent with mental illness—often means stepping into a caring role far too early. I’ve been doing it since I was little, when my mother was deeply depressed and spent her days in bed, unable to function. So I learned early on how to tend to others and ignore myself. I became so good at it that at some point, I didn’t even know what my own needs were anymore. And I know I’m not the only one. A person can manage like that for a long time—caring deeply, even joyfully—without realizing how much they’re quietly abandoning themselves. Until something happens, the final straw, and everything explodes. You wake up in the middle of your own life wondering: How did it get this far? That’s where I am right now. What began as caregiver burnout gradually turned into a full-blown existential crisis—one that reached far beyond caregiving into my work, my identity, and my sense of direction.

I know I have to find a way to keep caring for my grandmother without abandoning myself. But I’m tired. Bone tired. And there are still only twenty-four hours in a day. So I’m not forcing a solution. I’m resting when I can. Letting stillness be my starting point. Hoping that from this pause, new ideas will emerge. Tiny ways to return to myself, to my dreams, to a life that makes space for both: the one I care for, and the one I am.

For those who enjoy images alongside words, I've also shared a short visual version on Instagram.