quackademic<p>The lives of unpaid carers are exhausting & their work deserves Huge respect. Watching a loved one decline like this is endless grief.</p><p>But…. </p><p>The tone of this piece & others like it is another version of the myth of the ‘good woman’ (even tho some carers are men) - the idea that the ‘right’ way to think about dementia is that the person suffering is a paragon & the adoring carer will sacrifice their own health & well being for as long as it takes.</p><p>I wonder whose voices are silenced by this.</p><p>What about the people who are bound by circumstance caring for someone who for years has been their abuser? People entrapped in a relationship of coercive control learn they cannot trust their own feelings or judgment, that their worth lies only in serving their abuser & that they are not entitled to be safe. The idea of standing up to a partner who does not want to go into care is unthinkable. Facing their anger is too frightening.</p><p>The framing used in pieces like this is another rope binding such people into their learned certainty that ‘if I wasn’t such a failure as a person I could do this’. Looking from this place, for some the only escape that feels possible is their own death.</p><p>For all the respect I offer to carers like those in this article, it is the experience of people whose voices are made inadmissible by the framing used here, that breaks my heart 💔</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/AgedCare" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AgedCare</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/Dementia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Dementia</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/CoerciveControl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>CoerciveControl</span></a> </p><p>‘I could never, ever not care for her’: how do carers know when to stop caring for those they love? <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/03/i-could-never-ever-not-care-for-her-how-do-carers-know-when-to-stop-caring-for-those-they-love?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/society/2025/m</span><span class="invisible">ay/03/i-could-never-ever-not-care-for-her-how-do-carers-know-when-to-stop-caring-for-those-they-love?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other</span></a></p>