This is a woman with PhD and was working in the UK when her mother was getting depressed, with insomnia and palpitation. Without much considerations she decided to quit her job and come back to Malaysia to look after her mother.

She has a younger sister who can’t manage stress and see us for some medications; another sister’s husband (brother in law) who is having fits and seizures. She also has a brother who abuses substance. So when she gets home being unemployed, she became the person to look after all these family members, like a … maid, but with a PhD and a highly paid job in UK which she left. Every day she wakes up around 5:30am, preparing meals, cleaning the house, preparing medicine for all ill family members, bringing them out for hospital appointments, collecting medicine for them from different clinics and hospitals.

Sometimes the brother in-law refuses to take medicine. Sometimes the mother refuses to exercise (or even move at all) despite advice from specialist doctors. Every day the mother moans about her problems and illness, winding her up. Her day usually ends at about 10.30pm when most of the family are settled down or sleeping.

When we spoke to her, she said she would probably, at some points, have to make an appointment and come to see a psychiatrist doctor and take medicine, as she really couldn’t take it anymore. All these caring work is draining her out.

It really isn’t easy to look after family who are mentally ill after all, what say a few members that’re unwell. These family members should win more respects, and should really get some proper support groups, perhaps just from each other, some time off, just to do something they like and to lead their own lives, yet it really isn’t that simple as said once the “job” commences…