New sole carer to mother and sister

Yikes @Vigilisque

That is some heavy stuff you are dealing with. How old are your Mum & sister?

Can I suggest that you get in touch with the social worker on the mental health team as they might be able to help you on relation to any help your mum or your sister might be able to access from Centrelink. They might also know of local charities that might be able to help too.

The Carer Gateway had a number of free support services that you may also be able to access (including carer focused counseling).

Can I also stress the importance of you to lean into your own mental health supports, you might be wise to get some extra counseling to help you through this period.

There are also a number of mental health support services that might be able to help your Mum and sister too (you may already be aware of these, but if not I am happy to send a list if you let me know what state you are in).

Having the love, care and support of family does lead to better outcomes, however this needs to be done in a healthy way, encouraging best practice so that as soon as practical, they can take responsibility for looking after themselves, time is a factor in this and as Mum gets better and NDIS is hopefully approved that will take the pressure off you.

Encouraging Mum to see a counselor or therapist who is qualified to help might be part of this if she is not already seeing someone. I have learnt to say "is that something you could speak with your therapist/ counselor about?" rather than try and offer solutions.

Thanks for your reply Darcy! Mum's in her late 40s and my sister's 23.

In the last day or so we've been able to get better centrelink payments for mum. My sister is on disability pension so that's already fine.

I'll definitely look at the carer gateway though, thank you. I've been scrambling to try and find a new psychologist to connect with for myself but unfortunately there aren't many near me, and those that are that I've found so far either specialise in areas that don't suit my needs, are booked out for months or I've already seen before and don't feel comfortable with. So tricky! My GP is looking too so fingers crossed.

My sister is thankfully extremely well networked with a team of people and mum is accessing outpatient services through telehealth.

It's just hard because if I'm not at work she wants me all the time. I feel really guilty even going to bed earlier than her. Like last night I'd been awake so long I was dizzy and nauseous yet still felt bad leaving for bed, let along doing something just for a break.

I've actually told the acute care hospital team that I don't feel capable of providing the level of care she seems to need right now and they basically said too bad we can't help and gave me lifeline's number. Lifeline is a fantastic service for immediate support but they aren't a solution to a long term sustained stressor like this.

I'm not sure where else to go from there.

@Vigilisque

Sadly public hospital services are stretched and carer support often lacking - what state are you in? I will send you a list of support organisations.