You're Not Overreacting: an Honest Guide for the Adult Child Who Noticed First — Caring Aging Parent, Surviving Your Siblings, and Protecting Yourself

"Stop being emotional. She's just getting forgetful."Her mother balanced a checkbook to the penny for fifty years. Then the past-due notices started arriving - and her daughter was the only one who could see what they meant.This is the book for the woman who noticed first, and got called dramatic for it.Written by a daughter who spent seven years caring for both of her parents, mostly alone, You're Not Overreacting refuses to sound like the pamphlet they hand you at the hospital. It says the parts nobody prints: what it costs to be right early, what to do while nobody believes you, and how to protect yourself in a job that has no end date.Inside you'll find: - What to do in the months before anyone agrees there is a problem- How to get eyes on a parent's accounts without taking them over - and the one kind of account that can quietly rewrite her will- How to make decisions with a sibling who arrived eleven months late- What a prognosis actually is, and why "by Christmas" is not a date- The conversation to have long before you need it- What caregiving does to the caregiver's body, and the five things to do about yoursShort chapters, because you're exhausted. Sentences you can say out loud on a phone call, because in the moment, you won't think of them. And an appendix that collects every checklist in one place, for the night you need one at three in the morning.You noticed. You showed up. This book is on your side.