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What I Never Said Out Loud: A Caregiver’s Quiet Inventory
- Mobile Memory Enrichment, LLC.
- May 16
- 2 min read
Naming the Quiet
There are things I never said out loud—Not to my partner.Not to the hospice nurse.Not even to the mirror.
I love the person I care for. And I’m tired.Not sleepy-tired. Soul-tired.
If you’ve felt that kind of tired, this post is for you.
You may not say these things out loud either. But maybe, together, we can name what we’ve been carrying—and remember that we don’t have to carry it all tomorrow.
🎒 The Backpack: An Invisible Load
Caregivers carry many things—most of them silently:
Grief before goodbye
Guilt for forgetting—or for remembering too much
Calendars of meds and moods
The fear we’re not enough
The fear we’re too much
And even the small things add weight:
Reheating the same coffee three times
Being called by someone else’s name
Forgetting the last time you heard your own
According to the National Alliance for Caregiving, over 53 million Americans provide unpaid care—and most do not ask for help. Not because they don’t want it. But because they don’t know how.
What I Never Said
Here’s what I never said out loud—maybe you haven’t either:
“I’m not sure I can keep doing this.”
“I resent how invisible I’ve become.”
“I miss being touched like a person, not a lifter.”
“I feel shame for wanting my life back.”
“I am proud. But I am also breaking.”
If you’ve had thoughts like these—you are not failing. You are feeling. And you deserve space to do both.
A Gentle Practice: Lighten the Load
This week, try this quiet exercise:
Inventory Your Backpack List what you’re carrying emotionally, physically, and mentally. Be honest. No one else needs to see it.
Pick One Stone to Set Down Choose one thing on the list that you can release—even a little. Guilt? A self-expectation? Perfection?
Join Something That Sees You Whether it’s a dementia caregiver support group, an Alzheimer’s care circle, or just a friend who listens—connection.
Support groups like HOPE and resources like MME exist to help lighten the load.
Final Thought
You are doing something holy.
You are allowed to hate it sometimes.
You are still here. And the backpack doesn’t have to be full tomorrow.
“Sometimes it’s not that we’re carrying too much. It’s that we’ve been carrying it alone.”—Unknown
🗓️ Next Week
Laugh, Even If You’re Crying in the Bathroom Later Next week in the Caregiver Laugh Lab, we’ll explore how sideways moments of humor—however unexpected—can offer emotional relief in the middle of hard days, and why laughter really does help.
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