Being a parent carer

Many parent carers live with a kind of grief that is rarely spoken about.

The grief of the life you imagined.
The loss of ease, freedom, certainty, relationships, career paths, rest, identity, and sometimes the feeling of simply being held yourself.

Supporting a disabled child can bring immense love and connection, but it can also bring exhaustion, isolation, guilt, anger, fear for the future, and a deep loneliness that is difficult to explain to others.

This is known as living grief — the ongoing experience of carrying repeated losses whilst continuing to love and care every day.

For many families, this grief changes again when an adult child moves into supported living or residential care.

Even when the move is necessary, positive, or carefully planned, it can bring another layer of loss and emotional complexity:

• the loss of daily routines and physical closeness,

• the ending of a caregiving role that has shaped your entire identity,

• uncertainty about your place in your child’s life,

• guilt for needing support,

• fear about their safety, happiness, or care,

• and the painful conflict of grieving while also feeling relief.

Parents often describe feeling emotionally displaced — no longer carrying the same practical responsibilities, yet never ceasing to be a parent. Others speak about the silence left behind after years of constant vigilance, appointments, advocacy, and caregiving. The world may assume things are now “easier,” while internally you are adjusting to another profound transition.

These experiences can affect relationships, self-worth, purpose, mental wellbeing, and the ability to reconnect with parts of yourself that have been paused for many years.

As a counsellor, I offer a space where parent carers can speak honestly about all of it — the love, the resentment, the exhaustion, the fear, the relief, the sadness, and the uncertainty — without judgment or pressure to present things positively.

Together, we can make space for:

• grief and overwhelm,

• identity beyond caregiving,

• relationship strain,

• burnout and emotional exhaustion,

• anxiety about the future,

• navigating transitions into adult services or care settings,

• and the quiet losses that often remain unseen by others.

You deserve support too. Not because you are failing, but because carrying so much for so long affects every part of a person.

You do not have to hold it all alone.

If this is something you would like to explore then please do not hesitate to get in touch to book a session.