'The exhaustion of caring is always in my bones': being responsible for parents while at university | Vanamali Hermans

Being a student and a carer isn’t easy. We are alone, isolated and find it almost impossible to stay enrolledI loved my first year at the Australian National University. I had landed a scholarship and found myself at college. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief – I’d managed to escape the poverty of country New South Wales and establish a safe haven for myself.It was like walking in two worlds. I would talk to my parents on the phone every night, as they tried to make ends m