You can grieve someone you're still caring for.
Online counselling for the grief that comes with caring — while you're still caring, and after it ends. I was my parents' carer for more than ten years before I trained as a counsellor.
Deborah Haywood
ACA Registered Counsellor (Level 2)
Caring for someone often means grieving them at the same time
If the person you care for has dementia or a progressive illness, you may be losing them in small pieces — missing them while they are still in the room. That's called anticipatory grief — grieving someone who's still alive. It's real grief.
Caring holds other losses too. Grief that builds quietly over years rather than arriving on a single day. Grief for the relationship as it used to be. Grief for the shape your own life would have had. Most of this goes unnamed — there's no ceremony for it, and people rarely think to ask.
You don't need to justify any of it. If you're grieving, that's enough.
I came to this work through caring
I'm Deborah Haywood. For more than ten years I was the primary carer for my ageing parents, so I know it first-hand — watching someone you love change slowly, the tiredness that builds over years of caring, and the tangle of feelings that comes when the role changes or ends. It was that experience that led me to train as a counsellor.
I hold a Master of Counselling (University of Canberra) and a Bachelor of Psychological Sciences (Swinburne), and I'm a Level 2 member of the Australian Counselling Association. Based in Sunbury, Victoria, I work with clients across Australia via telehealth, in a person-centred, trauma-informed way — you decide what you share, and the pace is yours.
Whatever you're feeling — including the feelings you'd rather not have — you can say it out loud here.
What people bring when grief and caring overlap
Every situation is different, but these experiences come up again and again.
You don't need to be in crisis to get in touch, and you don't need anyone to agree that your loss "counts". If it weighs on you, it belongs here.
How sessions work
All sessions are online via video call. If you are still in a caring role, that matters in practice: no travel, no waiting rooms, and no need to arrange cover — sessions fit into the time you have.
Choose your starting point
You can start with a free 15-minute Fit Call, or book a Standard Session directly if you feel ready — whichever seems more doable this week.
Meet online, from wherever you are
Sessions are online, so you can talk from home or anywhere private, at times that work around your responsibilities.
Bring whichever is on top
Sessions are unhurried and led by you. Some weeks the focus is the grief; some weeks it's the caring. You won't be asked to separate them.
You can bring all of it
You don't have to untangle grief from caring before you get in touch. The free Fit Call is a chance to see whether this feels right.
One-to-one counselling for all ages · $90 standard session (60 min) · Seven days a week
Prefer to call or email first? Call (03) 8007 3516 (leave a message if Deborah's in a session) or email deborah@reflectrenew.com.au.
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