Caregiving is one of the hardest, most isolating experiences a person can go through—and yet, it’s often misunderstood, overlooked, or wrapped in a neat little bow for the sake of making it easier to talk about. This series is about breaking through that silence. It’s about telling the truth—the good, the bad, and the parts no one warns you about. Whether you’re deep in the trenches of caregiving, have walked this road before, or simply want to understand what it’s really like, these posts are here to shed light on the realities behind the role.
Caregiving is one of those things that people love to romanticize—the devotion, the sacrifice, the unwavering love. I get it, as I begin writing this post with songs like “Jacob and the Stone” and “New Home” playing in the background on my “Comfort for Writing Hard Topics” playlist. To be fair, I’ve likely sounded like romanticizing is what I’m doing when I’ve been talking about this topic, both in the midst of and post-caregiving. It’s easy to do. It’s the stuff of tear-jerking movies and heartfelt social media posts. But if you’ve actually been a caregiver, you know the ugly truth: it’s brutal. It’s exhausting. It changes you in ways you never expected, some of which you might never fully recover from.
Even those of us who have long experience in caregiving for family and friends can sugarcoat it. We are almost forced to, really, for the sake of not making anyone around us uncomfortable or inconveniencing them. But rarely does anyone allow for the brutal truth. It can be a beautiful experience at some levels, if you allow it to, but there’s also an equal balance of excruciating difficultly and struggle and no one tells you what it’s really like. Not before you start, not while you’re in it, and certainly not after it’s over.
People don’t want to hear about the resentment, the burnout, the way you slowly lose yourself in the role. They don’t talk about the fact that caregiving doesn’t just test your strength—it tests your sanity. It rewires your relationships, warps your identity, and leaves you with a kind of exhaustion that sleep can’t fix.
Throughout this series, not just this first post, I’m going to say the things no one else will. Because if you’re a caregiver or have been one, you need to know that you’re not crazy, you’re not weak, and you’re not alone. And if you’ve never been a caregiver? Buckle up, because it’s time for a reality check.
The Physical, Emotional, and Mental Toll No One Warns You About
People think of caregiving as helping out. A few tasks here and there, some heartfelt moments, a natural extension of love. But the truth? Caregiving is relentless.
Physically, it drains you. It’s lifting, shifting, bathing, dressing, feeding, cleaning, turning someone in bed, helping them to the toilet. It’s broken sleep because they need you at 2 AM. It’s sacrificing your own health because there’s no time to care for yourself when someone else’s life depends on you. It’s back pain, chronic exhaustion, stress-induced headaches, and the realization that your own body is breaking down under the weight of this role. And then there’s the part no one likes to talk about—the grossness of it all.
Caregiving is not just feeding someone soup and holding their hand while soft music plays in the background. It’s bodily fluids, medical messes, and the kind of sounds and smells that make you question your own ability to stomach it. It’s draining and cleaning feeding tubes, suctioning mucus from airways, packing wounds, and changing colostomy bags. It’s administering injections with shaking hands because no one trained you, but here you are, doing it anyway. It’s wiping butts—sometimes of those who once wiped yours. It’s diapers, dookie, urine, vomit, infections, and bathroom accidents that go beyond the typical definition of an accident. It’s scrubbing sheets at 3 AM because something leaked. It’s trying not to gag as you clean up a mess that no one ever prepared you for. And through it all, you’re expected to be calm, capable, and unfazed—because if you hesitate, who else is going to do it?
Emotionally? Caregiving is a black hole. It pulls every ounce of patience, love, and compassion out of you—and then asks for more. It’s watching someone you love suffer, knowing there’s only so much you can do. It’s carrying the emotional burden of two (or more!) people while having no one to share your own with. It’s being screamed at, ignored, taken for granted, or even resented by the very person you’re sacrificing everything for. It’s wondering why you feel so angry when all you’re doing is helping.
People leave marriages and friendships over far less, yet here you are—begging yourself not to give in to the momentary urge to just throw up your hands, say something self-supportive for once, and walk out.
And mentally? Caregiving is a slow unraveling. It’s the stress of your life, your time, your mind never truly being your own. It’s constantly being on call, living in a state of hyper-awareness because even in the quiet moments, you’re waiting for the next crisis. It’s never being able to fully relax—because even if you do get a rare moment to yourself, the worry doesn’t leave. It’s the guilt of sitting down when there’s always something that needs to be done.
It’s making medical decisions you’re not qualified to make, hoping you guessed right because someone else’s well-being depends on it. It’s Googling symptoms at 3 AM, trying to figure out whether you need to call an ambulance or if it can wait until morning. It’s juggling schedules, appointments, medications, and crises while trying to remember when you last ate something more substantial than coffee and whatever was closest. It’s mentally mapping out every errand, every trip outside the house, based on how long you can be gone before something goes wrong.
It’s carrying the weight of another human life—all the time. There is no clocking out. There is no real break. There is just this. And even if someone does offer to step in and give you a breather, the truth is, the responsibility never really leaves your mind. Even if you take time for yourself, you are waiting for the phone to ring (because it almost always does, with one crisis or question or another) and carrying concern about not knowing exactly what is going on while you’re away (because you are going to have to catch up when you get back, regardless).
And if I’m being honest? The mental toll is the worst part of it all.
How Caregiving Warps Your Relationships
Nothing strains relationships like caregiving. The people you thought would show up? Some of them disappear. The ones who do stick around? You start to see them differently. Because caregiving doesn’t just change you—it changes how you see the world.
Friends stop inviting you out because they assume you’re too busy (most of the time, they’re right…and even if you want to and could join in, you’re too exhausted). But after a while, they stop checking in too—because your life has become too heavy, too complicated, too inconvenient. The invites disappear, the texts slow down, and at some point, you realize the only conversations you’re having are with doctors, pharmacists, and the person you’re caring for, or the ones where those same “friends” are in need of something from you, too.
Family members love to say, “Let me know if you need anything,” but when you actually do? Suddenly, they’re too busy or not sure they can handle that. They’ll “pray for you,” they’ll “wish they could do more,” but what they won’t do is show up. And the few who do step in often do it in ways that make it more stressful—half-committing, canceling last minute, or making you feel guilty for asking in the first place. You start to realize that, for a lot of people, their support is performative—something they say to feel better about themselves, not something they actually intend to follow through on.
And then there are the people who avoid you completely. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t want to deal with the reality of what you’re going through. They don’t want to see the exhaustion in your face or hear the weight in your voice. Your life has become a constant reminder of something they’d rather not acknowledge—aging, illness, the sheer fragility of life. So they ghost you, pretend they don’t see you struggling, and hope you don’t notice their silence.
But what’s most annoying? EVERYBODY seems to judge, misunderstand, and feel the need to counsel you. They offer advice they have no business giving, armed with a few Google searches or a vague memory of their cousin’s neighbor’s caregiving experience. They tell you what you should be doing, how you should be handling things, how you should be feeling. (As if you haven’t already thought of every possible solution. As if you’re not the one living this reality every single day.) You’re either “too stressed” or “not doing enough.” You’re “too attached” or “not caring enough.” You’re making it “harder than it has to be.” And my personal favorite? “You just need to take care of yourself more.” (Oh, gee, thanks, I hadn’t thought of that! Let me just schedule a spa day in between managing someone’s life and trying not to fall apart myself.)
At some point, you stop expecting people to understand. You stop hoping they’ll step up. And you learn to navigate the loneliness of caregiving with a quiet kind of resignation. Because in the end? It’s all on you.
Even the relationship with the person you’re caring for changes. Sometimes, it strengthens your bond. But other times? It destroys it. Because nothing is more devastating than realizing that the person you’re sacrificing so much for doesn’t appreciate it. That they see you as an obligation, not a loved one. That they’re angry at their situation and taking it out on you. You become less of a person to them and more of a necessity.
Caregiving rewires the way you love. It teaches you to pour yourself out completely, absolutely—but it doesn’t always fill you back up. And if you’re not careful, it can leave you empty. One of the most valuable things I took away from my experiences was learning how to change that—how to refill myself in real, long-lasting, and truly fulfilling ways. We’ll touch on that in a future post.
Losing Yourself in the Role
Caregiving doesn’t just take your time—it takes you.
It starts slowly. You give up a few things—hobbies, outings, the small pieces of yourself that seem easy to set aside “just for now.” Then it takes a little more. You start canceling plans, saying no, focusing entirely on your responsibilities. You justify it—This is just temporary. This is what love looks like. This is what I have to do.
Then one day, you wake up and realize you have no idea who you are outside of being a caregiver.
What did you used to enjoy? What did you used to dream about? What did you used to do for yourself? You try to remember, but it feels distant, almost like you’re grasping at the ghost of someone you used to be.
The scariest thing about caregiving is that it can consume you so completely that you don’t even notice yourself disappearing. You fade, bit by bit, until there’s nothing left of the person you once were. And by the time you do notice? It’s hard to figure out how to get yourself back. Because even when caregiving ends—whether through recovery, transition, or loss—who you were before is long gone. And what comes next? No one tells you how to rebuild from there.
That’s the foundation of this series—to help you avoid needing to rebuild as much as humanly possible, and to support and teach you how to, if that’s where you already are. You don’t have to lose yourself entirely. And if you already feel like you have? There’s a way forward.
The Invisible Labor and Lack of Appreciation
Here’s a truth that might sting: most people will never fully appreciate what you do as a caregiver.
They see the surface-level care—the feeding, the driving, the assisting. But they don’t see the mental load, the planning, the constant worrying. They don’t see the sleepless nights spent listening to make sure they’re still breathing. They don’t see the exhaustion that sits in your bones, the stress that never fully leaves your mind. They don’t see any of what we talked about above—the relentless demands, the loss of self, the emotional, mental, and physical toll caregiving truly takes.
People love to say they admire caregivers, but caregivers aren’t in the business of seeking admiration. Admiration doesn’t lighten the load. And the hardest part? Even the person you’re caring for might not appreciate you. Not in the way human nature causes you to need to be appreciated. Not in the way you hope.
Caregiving is a thankless job in so many ways. And yet, you do it. Because someone has to.
The Guilt That Follows You Everywhere
Caregiving and guilt go hand in hand.
Guilt for feeling tired. Guilt for feeling resentful. Guilt for wanting a break. Guilt for not being enough—not patient enough, not kind enough, not better.
Even when you give everything, it never feels like enough. And the moment you need something for yourself? The guilt is there, whispering in your ear that you’re selfish. That you shouldn’t complain. That you should be grateful to still have them.
And then, when caregiving ends—whether through recovery, transition, or loss—the guilt doesn’t leave. If they pass away, you carry a whole new kind of weight. The “I should have done more.” The “Why wasn’t I more present?” The “Did they know how much I loved them?” Even if you did everything humanly possible, grief finds a way to make you question it. And if you ever dared to feel exhausted, if you ever wished for an end to the suffering—for their sake or your own—the guilt of that thought alone can haunt you.
Caregiving teaches you to carry guilt like a second skin. Even when you don’t deserve it. Even when it outlives the role itself. But you don’t have to.
The Battle Between Love and Boundaries
Caregiving is supposed to be an act of love. But what happens when love and sacrifice become indistinguishable? When giving becomes giving everything? When devotion turns into depletion?
The hardest lesson a caregiver has to learn is how to set boundaries without feeling like they’re abandoning someone.
Because the reality is, when someone depends on you—when they need you—putting up a boundary can feel like a betrayal. You tell yourself, They can’t do this without me. I’m the only one who knows what they need. If I step back, what happens to them? The guilt creeps in, whispering that if you really loved them, you wouldn’t need space. You wouldn’t need rest. You wouldn’t need anything for yourself.
But you do.
It’s the realization that you matter, too. That you can’t pour from an empty cup. That setting limits doesn’t mean you love them any less. That choosing to take care of yourself is not selfish—it’s necessary.
And yet, even when you know that, putting it into practice is something else entirely. No one teaches you how to say no when someone’s well-being is at stake. No one tells you how to stop feeling guilty for stepping away—even when stepping away is the only way to keep going. No one prepares you for the backlash, the pushback, or the fear that if you take a break, you might not be able to come back at all.
Too many of us have had to learn this the hard way. Through exhaustion. Through burnout. Through breaking down and realizing that if you don’t start protecting your own energy, you won’t have any left to give. And the hardest part? Learning that you shouldn’t have to reach that point to deserve a break.
It is our hope that this series of posts helps you to learn BEFORE you have to, so that the “hard way” isn’t the teacher.
The Bottom Line? Caregiving Changes You.
Caregiving is not just “helping out.” It’s not just being there. It’s an all-consuming, identity-shifting, reality-altering responsibility that reshapes your entire life.
It will break you and rebuild you. It will test your patience, your strength, your ability to endure. It will bring out both the best and worst in you.
When it’s all said and done? You won’t be the same person you were before.
And no one ever talks about that.
We will, with the hope it helps.
The Twin Tree Project 