Michelle Cottle

sometimes really kind of dark humor exchanges about like, oh my God, he's gone rogue.

He's driving into a bad part of Houston.

He's gotten lost.

He's ignoring phone calls.

And then later it's like, oh my God, he called.

He thinks he's playing poker with his dead brothers.

You had to have somebody to talk through the disbelief at how crazy things got.

Or you would just go crazy on some level.

And so I've found this with a lot of people.

Like, I'm at the age where almost all of my friends are dealing with something similar.

And sometimes, you know, we'll just get on the phone and we're like, oh, my God.

Like, let's just go through the recital of the crazy, of what's happening.

And it's an emotional release of sorts.

It's a safety valve.

And I think everybody needs that.

And when I've talked to...

caregiving experts and professionals and things like that, they agree that this is the thing that most people underestimate the need for.

And you should not try to grind this out alone.

Absolutely.

So as you might imagine, lots of people had similar situations where they just were overwhelmed by what they found themselves dealing with.