What I have taken from the last couple of years of dealing with a dying parent, keeping up with a grieving parent, and maintaining my own life, marriage and mental health is that things get divided into categories pretty sharply and quickly. There is:
What I Can Do
What I Can't Do
What I Must Do
What I Would Like to Do
What I can do, I do. That may seem obvious to some, but it was something of an epiphany to me, and involved a rather steep learning curve. I can go to school full-time, get all the work done, and take care of my family. I am exhausted at the end of the day, but I can do it. I can do it with an A average too. I can do my dying mother's physical therapy, and MAKE her do it, and monitor her glucose levels. I can make huge batches of food on Sunday and pack them into lunches and dinners for the rest of the week. I can keep up with my friends and the movies I want to see and allow myself to have fun.
What I can't do, I don't do, and I don't apologize or explain anymore. I grew one hell of a backbone in the last year and I don't take crap anymore. One of the last lucid things my mother said to me was that she was proud of how assertive I was, and wished she had been so at my age. I will carry that with me always. I could not give my mother injections, though I've given dozens to total strangers. Just couldn't. I also could not help her with toileting, but that was all right, because she really didn't want me to anyway and remembered the horror of having to help her father wipe himself in his last days in the hospital. I'd had enough with having to be the grown-up for my parents and take responsibility for them and advocate for them without having to deal with that. Everyone has a line, those were mine, and my mother thankfully respected that. This is not to say that I did not make certain that other people didn't get my mother's injection and toileting needs managed. I did. Her comfort was paramount in those last weeks. Grocery shopping has become a social anxiety nightmare and is no longer worth my time or effort. I use a delivery service from a local chain, and am very pleased with it and find it to be worth every penny of the ten dollars and then some. The husband griped at the cost at first, and offered a compromise of shopping for me if I made him a detailed list from the store's website. That happened one time and one time only and then he figured out that grocery shopping really does suck and eat up a lot of time, and now he cheerfully pays the delivery fee. This has been really good for us both, and has reduced impulse purchases to almost nothing.
Things I must do are pretty obvious and clear. I must get up, feed myself and the cats, take pills, and go to work. These things aren't choices. They have to happen, so it's on me to make them happen no matter what I need to do to make it so, or what I'd rather be doing at the time. I must shower, must have clean clothes, and must get the dishes clean and the garbage taken out so that I don't live in toxic waste. If that also sounds obvious, remember that I have ADHD, and that it is so very easy to hyper-focus on something, anything I'd rather be working on. I've plowed through hours of writing and RP before with Snape hair and a growling stomach and just kept on going because I'd rather be writing. Part of getting these things done was learning to delegate what I can't do and what I don't have time for. This is a hard one too because ADHD is related to OCD, and it's very hard for me to give up control. Basically, if I haven't done something myself it's very hard for me to really believe that it's been done properly or at all. But, I've done it. My husband and I have split the chores, we order grocery delivery, and all the bills are on automatic debit. And, sometimes, when I'm on a tear, the roommate has to get up and get her own lunch. ^_~
What I'd like to do still ends up on the bottom of the pile more often than I'd like, but I'm getting better at making time for it. I've taken up knitting again because I enjoy it, and it's good for me. I've also taken up gardening again and have hit the local hardware stores and farmer's markets for supplies. Making myself get out and see people and planning to see movies is harder than it used to be because I have a harder time with social anxiety now. I can't stand to have strangers touch me, or even stand too close sometimes. This translates over to friends and family when it gets bad. If you touch my hair or pat my back, and I flinch away from you, it's not because I don't like you or because I'm angry at you, it's because my senses are over-loaded and those little touches are like a red-hot cheese grater to me. Sometimes clinging or hand-holding helps, and helps me to refocus my senses, but not always. Sometimes I just have to leave. Thankfully I've become better at planning outings so I can get things done before I get overloaded.
I'm sure that there are people out there that think that all my quirks and coping skills and planning are crazy, but really, crazy is the alternative.