Holding Space When You’re Tired Too

There comes a point in caregiving where you stop asking yourself how tired you are, because survival becomes more important than the answer.

You learn to function exhausted.  To smile when your tank is empty.   To hold space for someone you love while slowly disappearing inside yourself.

Caregiver fatigue is a very real thing.  Even now, although I feel much better than I once did, I still struggle with a softer version of it and have to work almost daily to ensure I don’t fall back into old patterns.  Thankfully, I now have a support system that helps me tremendously.

What I didn’t understand through my young adult life was this: I was learning how to hold space for someone else while running on empty.

The First Time I Ran Out of Energy

The first time I experienced caregiver fatigue was the year before my Grams passed away, I was barely 28 years old.

Grams was my role model; the woman I saw as my mom.

I was my Grams’ and Gramps’ “spoiled brat,” spoiled in the best possible way—with love. I ran away to her house every weekend I could.  By high school, I was taking the bus to her house almost daily.  She even picked me up from college every other weekend.

She was the best.

That last year for her, I lived four hours away.

Tom was a Military Police officer working rotating shifts: five days on, four days off, then four days on and five days off.  On his days off, he became a full-time dad and took over my home daycare so I could travel home to care for my Grams.

We lived like that for a year.

Tom held down the fort. I worked hard to complete all of my daycare planning and prep while I was home so that all he had to do was provide play-based care and take care of the children.

Between family, caregiving, and work, neither of us had a real day off that entire year.

We were both holding space for others, and neither of us had space for ourselves.

But this is what you do for family.  With no regrets!

When Grams passed away when I was 29, I was completely destroyed—and so exhausted that it took me years to recover.

In some ways, I’m not sure I ever fully did.

When Exhaustion Settles Into Your Bones

Before Grams got sick, we were an active family. The girls were involved in extracurricular activities, and we filled our time with bike rides, rollerblading, and being outdoors.  We didn’t have cable or dish and no video games, life was simple.

I belonged to the base gym and often met friends there once the kids were tucked into bed.

When Grams first got sick, I brought my rollerblades home with me so I could sneak away for an hour at the local high school track.

At the time, I didn’t realize those small breaks were the only moments when I was doing something just for me.

They were also the very things I should never have stopped doing as life became harder.

By the end of that year, I don’t think I could have walked the track once, let alone rollerbladed.

A deep, chronic fatigue had settled into my bones, and it refused to leave.

From Grief to Walking on Eggshells

A month after Grams passed away, we moved back home.

The posting had originally been a compassionate move so we could help care for her, but she passed away before we arrived.

For the next four years, our house backed onto the senior residence where Grams had lived. I could sit in my breakfast nook and look out over what used to be her backyard.

I don’t think I truly started healing until we moved away, 4 years later.

Through the looking glass of time, I believe my caregiver fatigue played a role in why I didn’t fight harder to get Tom the help he needed when I first suspected PTSD.

Because when you are already exhausted from holding space for one person, it becomes almost impossible to recognize you are being asked to hold it again.

After we moved and I no longer had that constant reminder of Grams, I began to heal, at least a little.

But there wasn’t much time.

Not long after, at this time I was about 35 years old, Tom’s PTSD symptoms began creeping into our daily lives.

I went from caregiver fatigue to walking on eggshells.

From holding space for grief to holding space for fear.

And I’m still not sure which was harder or even when one began and one ended.

Becoming a Caregiver Again

When Tom had his breakdown 10 years later, everything changed.

I shifted from walking on eggshells into a full caregiving role.

Over the years, that role deepened, and the fatigue returned—stronger, heavier, and more chronic.

My daughters were grown. I had been married for more than 25 years.

It’s normal for moms and wives to lose parts of themselves over time.

But for me, it was more complicated than that.

Years of walking on eggshells had already worn me down, that I became a shell of the person I once was.

By the time Tom truly needed me, there was very little left in my tank.

And yet, I kept holding space.

Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of who I was beyond being a mother and caregiver.

Why This Kind of Caregiving Was Different

As a caregiver for my Grams, I wanted to make her better, or at least make her remaining time as good as it could be.

As a caregiver for children, my role was to help shape their experiences so they could grow into the amazing people they were meant to become.

But being a caregiver for Tom was different.

And in many ways, so much harder.

Aside from my girls, my grandparents and Tom are the people I have loved most in my life.

When my Grams died, I felt like I lost my Gramps too.  He passed a few later. That is a story for another day.

With both of them gone, my world felt smaller, quieter, and lonelier.

But I still had Tom to support me.

He was my anchor.

As his symptoms worsened, he could no longer be that anchor.

Instead, he became the storm that roared around me.

And I felt truly alone.

What Caregiver Fatigue Felt Like

Caregiver fatigue left me exhausted before my feet even touched the floor.

Simple tasks took enormous effort.

My brain felt foggy all the time—some of that may have been perimenopause symptoms, but not all of it.

I went from being quick-thinking and confident, someone others came to for advice to struggling to form simple sentences.

I was emotionally drained.

The smallest tasks felt overwhelming.

My social battery was always empty, so I withdrew from friends and focused what little energy I had on basic household responsibilities and caring for Tom.

Over the course of nearly ten years, as Tom’s PTSD symptoms worsened, I slowly lost more and more of myself.

Through it all, I kept hoping the man I married would somehow return.

When You Start Believing Everything Is Your Fault

I tried to fix everything that was he felt was wrong.

Sometimes I failed simply because there was nothing left in me to give.

I tried to make life easier for Tom by removing anything that upset him.

Eventually, I even tried to fix him through rewarding the good moments and ignoring the difficult ones.

I felt like the struggles in our marriage were my fault because I couldn’t give enough.

I felt like his unhappiness was my fault because I wasn’t trying hard enough to be the best wife I could be.

I felt like his anger was my fault because I wasn’t good enough.

Too imperfect.

Too broken.Too lonely.

Too needy.

Too clingy.

Too weak.

Too tired.

Just too much.

Whether intentionally or not, his words, reactions, and actions often reinforced those feelings.

Because I thought that was what holding space meant.

I wore myself down trying to be enough for both of us until there was very little self-esteem left and mild depression settled in.

I suffered quietly so Tom would have fewer things on his plate.

I hid my tears and pain so my emotions wouldn’t collide with his anger.

I made myself smaller so that he could be okay.

But holding space isn’t supposed to cost you yourself.

When Things Began to Change

When Tom was finally diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety, it changed everything.

It opened the door to honesty, for both of us.

He became more willing to work together to make life better.

It became less about him and me, and more about us.

It opened the door to a diagnosis and understanding his C-PTSD… and ADHD.

And that when things began to change slowly and would allow me to begin my own journey of healing.

Learning to Hold Space for Both of Us

I am still learning what it means to hold space for someone I love without abandoning myself in the process.

Because being there for someone else matters.

But so do you.

Especially when you’re tired too.

Today, Tom and I give each other grace—to admit when we are tired, to rest when we need to, and to remember that caring for each other should never come at the cost of losing ourselves.