Eventually she couldn't be left on her own at all. But I received all sorts of help, till eventually I really felt that it was becoming almost impossible for me to keep up a full-time job and then come home and give her care in the time I wasn't working. I was doing two jobs really. I was left to myself. So from sort of 6 o'clock in the evening and all weekend it was just me and Sandra.
Some people are copers.
It's almost an admission of failure for a carer to say that they need that sort of help in the sense of take the person away from me for a while so that I can recover. And I think that's what stops a lot of carers pushing for help. So there's a dilemma. Carers won't ask for help, however modest their demands might be. Either they don't want to admit to needing it or they think they won't get it.