Caring for the carer
If you look after a child with a disability, your mother or father, a partner with a progressing illness or someone who is dying, this guide is for you. It explains what happens to the person who cares, how to recognise exhaustion before something breaks, what genuinely helps and when it is time to ask for help for yourself.
Updated: September 12, 2026
What happens to the person who cares
Caring for another person is one of the most important things anyone can do, and one of the things that most wears down the person doing it. Not because they do not know how to care, but because care has no timetable, no weekend and, almost always, nobody else.
The carer lives with a grief that does not end: for the person their mother was before Alzheimer's, for the child they imagined before the diagnosis, for the partner they were going to grow old with differently. And they live with a guilt that never rests: for getting tired, for getting angry, for sometimes wishing it were over, for looking after themselves for a while.
That wear has a name, carer burden, and it is not a weakness. It is what happens to anyone holding up alone something that needs several people. When the carer falls, the person cared for falls too, which is why looking after yourself is not a luxury: it is part of the care.
How to recognise exhaustion
- It has been months since you had time for yourself without feeling guilty about having it.
- You are always tired, sleep badly or in fits, and rest does not take the tiredness away.
- You snap over small things, at the person you care for or at whoever is not to blame.
- You have stopped seeing friends, doing sport, working as you used to: your life is the caring.
- You catch yourself wishing it were all over, and then hate yourself for having thought it.
- You get ill more often, your back, head or stomach hurt, and you do not see a doctor because there is no time.
- You feel nobody understands what you carry, and that asking for help would be failing.
What helps
Sharing the load, even when it is hard. A sibling who takes a weekend, a respite service, a day centre, some hours of home help. Delegating is not abandoning: it is making sustainable what today is not.
Time of your own, scheduled. Not time whenever possible, because it never is. One hour a week, fixed, that is yours and is defended like a medical appointment.
Talking to people in the same place. Family associations and support groups are where nothing needs explaining. Hearing that others feel the same guilt takes half the weight off.
Naming the grief. What you feel for the person your relative used to be has a name and is not disloyalty. Naming it lets you mourn it while you go on caring.
What therapy does. In therapy the carer has a place that is theirs alone. Guilt, anticipatory grief, anger and overload are worked on, you learn to set limits without stopping caring, and the support you need gets organised. When the person cared for has a mental health condition, how to accompany them without disappearing is worked on too.
What it does not do. It does not care for your relative or replace the social and health services you need. It helps you hold them up.
When to ask for help for yourself
Getting tired of caring is normal. It is time to ask for help for yourself when tiredness has become hopelessness, when there is no moment in the week that is yours, when you have started treating the person you care for, or yourself, badly, when your health is suffering, or when you have felt for weeks that you cannot go on and have told nobody.
If you have thought about harming yourself or not wanting to go on, do not wait: call 024 (Línea 24h de atención a la conducta suicida). If there is immediate danger, to you or to the person you care for, call 112. We Are Psycho does not handle emergencies.
Who you would talk to
Licensed professionals on our team who work on this. You choose, and you can change if it does not fit.
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Jordi Dou
General Health Psychologist (Col. 30243)
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Maimuna Balde
Licensed General Health Psychologist
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Sofia Falaschi
General Health Psychologist
Frequently asked questions
- Is it normal to feel anger towards the person I care for?
- Yes. Anger is the response to a situation that was not chosen and does not end. It says nothing about how much you love that person. What matters is having somewhere to put it so it does not land on them or on you.
- How am I going to go to therapy when I don't even have time to sleep?
- Sessions are online and fit whatever gap exists, however small. Many carers find the therapy hour is the first they get back for themselves, and that from there it is easier to get others back.
- What if what I need is practical help, not talking?
- The two go together. Therapy also maps out the support: what public services exist, what you are entitled to, how to ask the family for help without it turning into a fight.
Sources
An informational guide prepared by We Are Psycho from reference bodies and guidelines. It does not replace an individual clinical assessment.