Just recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the past life I had before I became an unpaid carer for both my parents and the parts of my life that I’ll never get back, the friends that I’ve lost, a lost career and a lost social life.

Sadly there are still people out there who seem to think that unpaid carers can just carry on as before whilst fulfilling their caring roles at the same time, but as we know that’s just not possible when you’re on call 24/7/365.

The pandemic has meant even more isolation for many carers as we’ve had to do all we can to protect our loved ones and even things like popping out to the shops brings risk which we have to assess first.

Thankfully Twitter has connected me with other carers and new friends that have been there to support me and have seen me through some pretty dark days and in return I’ve been able to do the same.