How Much Longer Will This Go On

I’m 39, and most days I feel like I’m living two lives—one where I’m trying to hold my own world together, and another where I’m holding my mum’s world from falling apart. Mum is 76, and Alzheimer’s has already taken so much from her. And from us.

People don’t talk enough about the “in-between” years of this disease—the years where your loved one is still here, still able to walk, still able to talk, still able to smile… but slowly slipping away. Some days I catch myself wondering, How much longer will this go on? And then I feel guilty for even thinking it.

The truth is, caring for Mum is a strange mix of love, grief, responsibility, and exhaustion. I warm a mug of milk at bedtime for her like she used to for me. I remind her how to hold her toothbrush. I repeat answers to the same questions 30 times in one hour. Some days she’s calm. Other days she’s confused, frightened, angry.

But the hardest part isn’t the tasks—it’s the uncertainty.

Every specialist appointment, every care plan discussion, every well-meaning friend asking how things are going… it all leaves me with the same knot in my stomach. I want someone to tell me what happens next. I want a timeline. A roadmap. Something. But Alzheimer’s doesn’t work like that. It’s unpredictable, messy, and painfully slow.

Some weeks feel almost “manageable.” Then suddenly we hit a decline—she stops recognising her favourite TV show, or forgets that daytime and nighttime are different, or asks where her own mother is. And I find myself starting from scratch again, emotionally and practically.

I love my mum deeply. She was strong, independent, stubborn in a way that now feels like a luxury. She raised me and my brothers mainly on her own as my dad traveled a lot for work. She taught me how to stand up for myself, how to cook a proper roast, how to laugh even when life feels unfair. I owe her everything.

But I am tired.

And scared.

And sometimes angry at the universe for giving her this disease… and giving me a caregiving role I never expected to take on so early in life.

I keep wondering how long we’ll stay in this middle stage—where she knows me one minute and forgets me the next. Where she calls me “my little girl” instead of my name. Where she’s physically healthy but mentally drifting. Some days I want time to slow down so I can keep her with me. Other days I want this chapter to move forward, because watching her decline feels like being slowly pulled under.

But here’s the part I cling to: there are still moments of connection. When she squeezes my hand. When she laughs at something funny on TV. When she unexpectedly remembers a detail from my childhood.

Those moments make the uncertainty slightly more bearable.

I don’t know how much longer this will go on. I don’t think any carer ever truly does. But I’m learning that all I can do is show up for Mum today—just today—because today is the only day Alzheimer’s hasn’t taken from us yet.

And maybe, for now, that’s enough.