Mrs Wilson has been caring for her 88-year-old grandmother since 2005, her dad who has dementia, a family member with a mental illness, and looks after her granddaughter two nights a week. This week is National Carers Week and Carers Australia are recognising and celebrating the contribution carers make.

Mrs Wilson never thought would be how her day-to-day life would turn out, but started caring for her family members out of necessity. 

It started when she gave up work to look after her grandmother. 

“You just have to do it. It’s what needs to be done,” she said. “I get a carer’s allowance which is about $116 a fortnight … It doesn’t go very far.” 

Her grandmother, Elizabeth, moved from Queensland in 2005 and planned to live by herself. 

“Once she got here and after a couple of months of staying with us we just decided she should build a room on the side of our house, because she couldn’t live by herself anymore,” Mrs Wilson said. 

Then about three years ago, Mrs Wilson’s 67-year-old dad Peter was diagnosed with dementia.

“He has only just recently become on a restricted driver’s licence and I’ve had to take over driving him to town if he has to go to appointments,” she said. 

“It’s scary to think what he is going to go through and what we’re going to have to go through with him. Once he fully goes through it, every day will be a new day for him, but each day we’re going to see what we’ve lost.”

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Dealing with their illnesses and her family member’s depression is challenging at times and she admits she has given up a lot of her life for her family. 

“I went and did a carer’s course just mainly to learn how to handle the hard days when nan is feeling down and how to cope with those day,” she said.

“You just don’t feel like doing things any more. Your whole life is wrapped around them. Your conversation is about them, so you don’t have anything in common with [your friends] anymore.”  

Although, most of the time caring is rewarding, she said it was also very exhausting. 

“Carers have been a very big support for me ... without being pushed towards them I wouldn’t have made it this far.”