The Guilt You Haven't Talked About

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You know the guilt I’m talking about. The one that wakes you up in the middle of the night. The one you’d never say out loud.

There's the guilt everyone expects in caregiving—forgetting a medication dose, speaking too sharply when you're exhausted, missing the signs that your person needed help sooner. You can talk about those kinds of guilt with other caregivers. You can even laugh about them sometimes, in that dark humor way we all develop.

But then there's the other guilt. The kind that sits heavy in your chest. The guilt about thoughts you have in the shower, or driving to the store, or lying awake while they sleep. Thoughts like: How much longer can I do this? Or worse: I wish this would just be over.

I've been there. When my husband was first diagnosed at 55, I felt guilty about everything—that I hadn't noticed sooner, that I sometimes got frustrated, that I mourned the future we'd planned. But as the years went on, a different kind of guilt emerged. The kind I couldn't even write in my journal at first.

You need to know something: These feelings don't make you a bad person. They make you human.

When You Wish for It to End

Let me say what you've been afraid to admit: Sometimes you wish it would just be over.

You're exhausted. You've been living in a state of prolonged grief for months or years. You watch someone you love disappear in slow motion. And yes, sometimes you think: I can't keep doing this. I don't want to keep doing this.

Maybe you've thought about your own life, the one that's been on hold. Maybe you've looked at your friends who are traveling, pursuing new careers, enjoying their retirements. Maybe you've caught yourself imagining what it would feel like to wake up without that immediate weight of responsibility.

And then the guilt crashes in. Because how can you think that way about someone you love? How can you wish for their life to end?

Wishing for the journey to end isn't the same as wishing harm on your person. You're not hoping they die. You're hoping you both find peace. You're hoping the suffering ends—for them and for you. Those are different things.

When I found myself having these thoughts about my husband, I felt like a monster. It took a counselor to help me understand that I wasn't wishing for his death—I was grieving the life we'd both lost. I was exhausted from watching someone I loved become someone I barely recognized. I was human.

You can love someone completely and still be depleted by the caregiving journey. Both things are true.

The Relief You Feel About Placement

Maybe you've already made the decision to move your person to residential care. Or maybe you're seriously considering it. And here's the guilt that haunts so many caregivers: You feel relieved.

Not just a little bit relieved. Deeply, profoundly relieved.

You wake up the first morning after placement and realize you slept through the night. You ate a meal sitting down. You watched a TV show from beginning to end. And you feel... lighter. Then immediately, you feel horrible about feeling lighter.

The guilt tells you that you've abandoned them. That you've broken promises. That a "good" spouse or daughter or son would have kept going. That relief means you didn't love them enough.

None of that is true.

I've talked to dozens of caregivers who moved their loved ones to memory care, and almost all of them describe the same experience: profound relief mixed with profound guilt. The relief came from finally being able to breathe, to sleep, to have one moment that wasn't structured around caregiving tasks. The guilt came from a belief that they should have been able to keep going indefinitely.

But you can't pour from an empty cup. And by the time most caregivers make the placement decision, their cup isn't just empty—it's shattered.

Feeling relieved doesn't mean you love them less. It means you've been carrying an unbearable weight and you've finally set it down. The love doesn't go anywhere. You'll still visit. You'll still advocate. You'll still be there. But you'll do it from a place where you can breathe.

That matters. It matters for you, and it actually matters for them too. When you're less depleted, you can be more present during your visits. You can focus on connection rather than crisis management.

Permission to Release the Guilt

The hardest truth I can share with you: Not all guilt serves a purpose.

Some guilt is useful—it tells us when we've crossed our own values, when we need to make amends, when we need to change course. That kind of guilt can guide us toward being better caregivers and better people.

But the guilt about your human thoughts? The guilt about feeling relieved when the impossible becomes slightly less impossible? The guilt about acknowledging that this journey is devastating? That guilt doesn't serve you. It doesn't help your person. It doesn't make you a better caregiver.

It just makes you suffer more.

You've probably heard people say "let go of guilt" and wondered how on earth you're supposed to do that. I can't give you a magic formula, but I can tell you what helped me: I started treating these guilty thoughts like clouds passing through my mind rather than facts I needed to debate.

The thought would come: I'm terrible for feeling like I can’t do this anymore. And instead of spiraling into all the reasons I was or wasn't terrible, I'd simply notice: There's that guilt thought again. I'd acknowledge it was there, and then I'd gently remind myself: Having this thought doesn't make it true.

I also started talking about these feelings with safe people—my counselor, a trusted friend who'd been through it, my caregiver support group. The first time I admitted out loud that I sometimes wished it would all be over, I braced myself for judgment. Instead, every single person in that room nodded. "Me too," someone whispered. "Every day," said another.

The silence around these feelings makes them grow. The sharing shrinks them down to their actual size.

You're Not Alone in This

Whatever guilt you're carrying—the kind you've never said out loud—I promise you're not the only one who's felt it.

Every caregiver I've known, including me, has had thoughts that scared them. Every single one has felt relief about something they thought they shouldn't feel relieved about. Every one has wished, at some desperate 3 AM moment, that the journey would just end.

Thinking these thoughts doesn't make you a bad caregiver. It makes you someone who is trying to survive one of life's hardest experiences. You can love your person deeply and still struggle with this reality. You can be doing your absolute best and still feel overwhelmed by it all.

The guilt you haven't talked about doesn't need to define you. You can acknowledge it, understand it's a normal part of this impossible journey, and still know that you're doing the best you can with an unbearably difficult situation.

You're allowed to be human. You're allowed to struggle. And you're allowed to give yourself the same compassion you've been pouring into your person.

Your Action Plan

This Week:

• Write down one guilty thought you've been afraid to acknowledge. You don't have to share it with anyone—just get it out of your head and onto paper.

• Identify one safe person you might eventually talk to about these harder feelings (therapist, support group, trusted friend who understands).

• When a guilt thought appears, practice simply noticing it: "There's that thought again" without immediately believing it or arguing with it.

This Month:

• Join a caregiver support group, either in person or online, where you can hear others share similar experiences. Sometimes just hearing "me too" is the beginning of releasing guilt.

• Schedule an appointment with a counselor or therapist who specializes in caregiver stress. These feelings are too heavy to carry alone.

• Write yourself a permission statement: "I give myself permission to feel _____ without judgment." Read it when the guilt feels overwhelming.

Ongoing:

• Keep a list of facts about your caregiving: the visits you make, the advocacy you provide, the love you show. When guilt tells you you're not enough, you can look at evidence of what you actually do.

• Practice self-compassion language. Instead of "I shouldn't feel this way," try "This is really hard, and it makes sense that I feel overwhelmed."

• Remember: You can hold both truths at once—you love your person deeply AND this journey is devastating. Both are real. Both are valid. And neither negates the other.

You're doing better than you think. Even on the days when you don't believe it.

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