National Carer's Week Breakfast 2026: When caring became my identity

About

This National Carers Week take a break from your caring role and join us for a special event celebrating carers. Hear from Rachael Lovelock, a carer who realised that she had disappeared inside her caring role, and the steps she took to claim back her own identity.

For many years, caring shaped almost every part of Rachael's life. It influenced her decisions, her relationships, how she spent her time and, eventually, how she saw herself. There was no single moment when she chose to lose sight of who she was. It happened slowly and almost invisibly, as the needs of the people she loved became more urgent and more important, and took up more space in her life.

In this deeply personal reflection, Rachael shares what it meant to recognise that she had disappeared inside caring, and what it took to begin finding herself again.

This is not a story about walking away from the people we love or stepping back from the responsibilities that come with caring. It is about the quieter loss that can happen when a person's own identity, needs and hopes are continually placed behind those of someone else.

Rachael opens up a conversation about what can become invisible when caring takes over, what carers may stop recognising in themselves, and what services, workplaces, communities and systems may fail to notice.

She also asks what becomes possible when carers are given the space to reconnect with who they are beyond caring - and when the people and systems around them recognise that identity,…