I'm 20 and I've been the sole caregiver to my grandfather for around 4 years now. My grandmother died in 2009, she had a rare blood cancer, it wasn't something that I'd been shocked about, her death was something I expected so it didn't really hit me that hard. My grandfather was pretty independent for a while but he fell and chipped his hip bone which slowed him up more and brought on arthritis worse than before. He then started using a zimmer frame and slowly things he did for himself were left to me. I have a very limited social life, once I left school I couldn't get a job or go to college because I was stuck at home, I go out with my friends every week but I can't stay out like they can, I always have to go home early, I'm constantly feeling like I'm trapped and that I have no freedom, he was in hospital a few times this year and respite in a local nursing home and they were the best weeks of my life so far, I felt free and that I could actually have a life, but every time it'd come to the day before he came home I'd feel down again and know that I'd be back to the same again. There's days I just don't want to get out of bed because I know I have to deal with everything all over again. I've turned in to an insomniac because the only quiet time I have is at night when he's in bed, and when I do sleep I'm only lightly sleeping because I need to be alert incase he calls me. I'm generally just depressed deep down all the time and I don't talk about it because I'm the up-beat funny one who keeps his cool, but inside I'm just lonely and depressed. I can't get into any relationships because I don't have the time, even though that's what I want. I just want a normal life for a 20 year old, and that's not hard to want, I'm not looking for the world on a plate, just a life, I'm just existing at the moment, not living.