Looking back, I was disappearing as a person.

Mary Daybell is a retired English teacher and literacy specialist. She’s a caring mum and gran, a loving wife to her husband Peter, and since Peter’s dementia diagnosis in 2017, she is also an unpaid carer. She talks about the support she has had from Quarriers in Moray.

My husband Peter was diagnosed with dementia aged 66. Our long and happy retirement was not to be.

You get the diagnosis, they give you a prescription and they say “Go home and make the most of it.” Eventually we moved to Elgin to be close to our daughter. It was the middle of lockdown and services stopped talking to you. I had to fight to get an assessment. The bottom line was we needed help.

Peter’s decline was rapid. He had been in the Air Force, and there was a stage in his Alzheimer’s when he would imagine himself in difficult situations in the night. Those times were horrendous. I’d be begging him to stop, and he couldn’t. I felt like I just didn’t have the resources in my own personality to solve it.

Being referred to the Carer Support Service was a relief. It felt like someone could see I needed something, that my mental health was important

Looking back, I was disappearing as a person. I was doing it willingly, but it was wiping me out completely. You don’t want to think of yourself as a carer. When you get married, it’s for in sickness and in health, and you just think you’d better get on with it.

"The staff at Quarriers made me feel I counted."

Because it was lockdown, I was offered telephone support. Anna was my support worker and without fail, she would phone every week. As soon as walks were allowed, she would walk with me. We’d moved to a new area, and Peter’s condition meant that we couldn’t just say “we’ve moved to a new place, let’s invite the neighbours in” so I was very isolated. Really, what Anna did was so wonderful – she befriended me.

Since then, there has been constant change and transitions, with support from Quarriers coming in and out at different times – like when Peter had to go into residential care. In the end, other people had to tell me it was time. It’s so difficult, you’re crying in the corner, you know it’s time, but you need someone to say it.

Now, it’s a strange situation I am in. It’s like you’re a widow but you’re not a widow. For over 40 years, I was in a couple and now people don’t quite know how to deal with me socially –am I in a couple or am I single?

When you’ve been doing the caring, so much about your own identity is caught up in the caring role, but there is also the loss of my husband. The person you want to talk to isn’t there to talk to.

No one can give you a fix. What Quarriers do is offer small ways to top up your own resources.

There are so many different sessions, workshops and different things that Quarriers can tune you into. You do find yourself thinking “Do I really want to do that?” but then it’s always worth trying what they suggest. They also asked me to get involved in helping interview candidates for a new post. It was humbling and I was delighted to be asked. I felt “I can do other things, not just look after my husband.”

I have been supported by Quarriers for over two years now and Anna is there for me to talk to when I need it. The awful thing is when people sign you off and you think “but I still need the support”. That’s the worst feeling.

The brilliant thing about Quarriers is the effort they put in to finding those little things that will help you as an individual, as the person who you are. Quarriers make you stronger to deal with what you have to deal with.

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If you are in Moray and caring for somebody, we can help. 01343 556031 quarriers.org.uk/moray For Quarriers carer support in other areas, email hello@quarriers.org.uk