Trigger warning: Mentions of suicide. This story was brought to you in collaboration with the Lien Foundation.
All images by Isaiah Chua for RICE Media unless stated otherwise.
“Every day I’d find myself retreating to the toilet to have a good cry just so no one can see my pain,” Richard Ashworth, 71, says as he recounts his caregiving journey.
At 46, Richard retired early to look after his foster father, John Ashworth, who was battling colorectal cancer.
But it wasn’t the cancer that took the hardest toll on his caregiving duties. It was when John was diagnosed with severe dementia in 2012.
Richard points to a broken front tooth—the result of one of his father’s violent outbursts. Dementia altered John’s personality, turning a quiet man into someone prone to unbridled tantrums.
“Growing up, I remember him being gentle and kind,” Richard recalls.
“Monthly, he would never fail to donate to a boys’ home, and he even sponsored university educations for the less fortunate. But as the dementia worsened, he became more aggressive and we fought every day.”
Small arguments escalated into daily battles, both emotional and physical. The man Richard once revered seemed to slip further away, and there was little he could do.
In the final six months before John passed, there was even less Richard could do. He heard his father strain to breathe while being fed through a tube. He remembers getting up at odd hours of the night, constantly worried that his father had taken his last breath.
It was the darkest period of his life. Richard himself was suffering from his own heart condition and was on constant medication at the time.
“It was so painful for me to watch him suffer every night. I even had a mindset to just strangle him to stop his suffering, and then take my own life so we could both go together,” Richard admits, tearing up.
Morbid thoughts are not uncommon among fatigued caregivers. According to the Ministry of Health, physical disabilities and mental illnesses such as depression and life stressors intensify the risk of suicide among seniors.
The worse a patient gets, the more a caregiver gives. Without rest or support, exhaustion creeps in. Meals go uneaten, sleep turns fitful, and fatigue becomes a way of life.
Raised on the bedrock of filial piety, Singapore’s caregivers—whether willing or not—bear the crushing weight of expectations, often at the cost of their well-being.
For those caring for dementia patients, the burden is even heavier. As their loved ones fade into forgetfulness, trapped in the fog of lost memories, caregivers too begin to lose themselves.
When they start neglecting their own needs, they forget that they, too, deserve care.
The First Step is The Hardest
Richard agrees in hindsight that perhaps his father’s dementia had crept in earlier on. But he was none the wiser because “he had no clue what dementia was.”
It was only until one day when Richard was accompanying his father on a drive to his office in Tuas. Navigation was never an issue for his father, seeing as he used to be a maritime captain. He had never needed a GPS to get around.
But that day, his father drove aimlessly around in circles, visibly confused. That was the moment Richard knew something wasn’t right.
“I reached out to a neighbour, who coincidentally had looked after a relative suffering from dementia. She advised me to send my father to the polyclinic for a check-up,” Richard recalls.
On the pretext of a “regular check-up”, Richard brought his father to the polyclinic for a general consultation. After multiple tests, his father was officially diagnosed with dementia.
The thought of sending his father to a nursing home was out of the question. Would the facilities be sufficient? Would his father have enough food? Would he be comfortable?
“I want to pay back what he has given to me all these years,” Richard explains. He owed his life to John, the British man who took him in when he was 21.
Richard’s childhood was rough. He was born one of 12 siblings in a fixer-upper in Chinatown, and could barely speak any English. As a teen, he landed himself in bad company and started abusing drugs.
It was his foster father who pulled him out and gave him a new lease on life, teaching him how to speak English and encouraging him to continue his passion for art. That support shaped his future—Richard went on to lead a life marked by professional success and eventually won a prize for his sculpture.
It’s what led Richard to commit to being a full-time caregiver for his father—a role he embraces fully, even as he admits it took immense patience.
The pandemic lockdown only aggravated Richard’s stress as a caregiver. The usual morning walks around the estate turned into confinement within the four walls of their home in Jurong East. He felt imprisoned. His father was continuously agitated despite Richard trying to explain to him in vain that it was a mandatory lockdown.
In the end, he had to resort to making excuses—grass-cutting, ongoing construction work—so his father would stop demanding to leave the house.
To make matters worse, his father had to be admitted to a public hospital for pneumonia. Because of his father’s erratic and violent behaviour due to dementia, Richard knew he needed to be by his father’s side to calm him down. However, with Covid-19’s limitations, he couldn’t.
“I didn’t want the nurses to touch him, because I didn’t want any of the hospital staff to get hurt,” Richard says. “The moment he gets violent, he’ll hit the nurses. I even explained it to them.”
Unfortunately, on two separate occasions, Richard’s father lost control and hit the nurses, leaving one of them with a swollen arm.
On another occasion, the doctor wanted to draw his father’s blood for a check-up. When Richard offered to help, the doctor simply told him: “I’m a professional, I know what I’m doing.”
As if on cue, his father swung his arm toward the doctor, breaking the needle. Blood splattered everywhere.
Richard could only watch as his father writhed in pain. Unfortunately, they had to redo the process all over again. This time, Richard hugged his father to calm him down. The second time, it was a much smoother process. But the experience left a bitter taste in Richard’s mouth.
“I’m upset. This is what you call family-centred care? Why can’t doctors and nurses trust the family member who knows the history of the patient? At the end of the day, my father suffered,” he says.
It pained him to see his father in that state. For Richard, grief came not as a sudden blow, but as a slow, relentless unravelling. Dementia doesn’t offer the clean break of death; it slowly unspools a person’s identity. The body remains, but the mind—the laughter, the stories, the quiet wisdom—slips away, piece by piece.
The emotional weight was crushing. No matter how much love he had, Richard knew he couldn’t go through it alone. Where does a sole caregiver of a parent with dementia go when they need care? Who would understand the complexities?
Reaching Out
Driven to desperation, Richard turned to alcohol as an escape—three to four cans of beer a day, sometimes more when the stress became unbearable. But deep down, he knew if he didn’t rein it in, he was on the brink of losing control.
The constant emotional whiplash—one moment soothing a scared, childlike elderly father, the next defending himself against unbridled rage—left Richard teetering on the edge.
There were dark nights when he sat alone, fists clenched, thoughts spinning into places he never thought he’d go. Resentment, guilt, helplessness. All of it intertwined until he could no longer tell where one ended and another began.
How could he mourn someone who’s still breathing, still sitting across from him, but whose mind seems to have wandered far beyond his reach?
In the end, he reached out to a counsellor at a polyclinic’s Health and Mind Clinic to talk about how he was managing with his father. On one of the last few visits Richard made, he opened up to her about his suicidal thoughts.
“Calmly, I told her how I felt. I told her I quit drinking. I wanted to ask for help. But immediately, her response was that I needed to admit myself into the Institute of Mental Health,” Richard sighs in frustration.
There was no way Richard could leave his father alone. How long would it take if he had to wait for a consultation at IMH? Who was going to be able to handle his father’s temperament if he had to be unexpectedly warded there? He turned the counsellor down.
As these thoughts swirled around in Richard’s mind on the bus ride home, a phone call from the police interrupted him, demanding that he return home immediately.
Richard remembers his heart beating hard. Did the counsellor he confided in reach out to the authorities to report his suicidal ideations?
When Richard reached home, he was met by four police officers waiting by his door. He pleaded with them to let him stay home because his father needed him.
It was to no avail—Richard had no choice but to follow their instructions. He felt his neighbours’ eyes on him as he made his way to the police car.
“I felt like a criminal,” he says.
In the end, it was a wasted trip. The doctor at IMH found nothing wrong with him, and he was discharged within an hour.
Till this day, Richard feels angered by how he was treated when all he wanted was to seek help.
“I was so upset. So angry from the stress—I truly thought about taking my own life that night. Instead, I cried. If I’d dropped dead from the stress, who’s going to take responsibility? Who’s going to take care of my father?”
From then on, Richard vowed he’d never tell the truth or share his emotions with any doctor.
“I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll be arrested again for no reason.”
Richard’s father had no relatives that he was in contact with, and though Richard had a good relationship with the neighbours on his floor, he chose not to approach them for help because he says it’s “not fair to pass my burden to somebody else.”
Still, he needed help—a process that was far from smooth sailing.
Despite various pleas to the respective agencies due to the atypical nature of employing a male migrant domestic worker, Richard was nowhere close to getting a helper for his father.
“I wanted to give up after trying for almost two years. It was only after Dementia Singapore and a doctor from National University Hospital appealed on my behalf that I managed to get my application for a male helper approved,” he says.
Richard was eventually allowed to hire two male helpers. Once that weight was lifted, Richard knew it was time to focus on helping himself.
Helping Yourself Help Others
Eventually, Richard underwent a caregiving course–C2C–organised by Caregivers Alliance Limited. The programme he attended was specifically catered for dementia education for caregivers.
The classes helped him understand some of the behavioural issues that his father presented, and in turn, Richard was also emotionally supported by the staff.
“I remember they’d call me just to check in on me, see how I was doing. I felt relieved that someone cared enough to hear me out and just talk to me,” Richard says.
“I didn’t feel alone anymore. I knew where to go and get help.”
It left a big enough impact for him to pay it forward, even after his father’s passing three years ago. Today, Richard thoroughly enjoys spending his time volunteering with Dementia Singapore and Caregivers Alliance Limited.
Though he’s no longer a caregiver, Richard remains closely connected to the community at Caregivers Alliance Limited. Whenever he can, he shares his story at their classes and events—offering honesty, solidarity, and hard-earned insight.
He also runs workshops for fellow caregivers, giving them a rare chance to step outside their homes, take a break from their duties, and connect with others who understand exactly what they’re going through.
It should come as no surprise that Richard has turned into a strong advocate for caregiver support. He remembers how clueless he was about dementia and how to even go about being a caregiver for his ailing father.
If it weren’t for the organisations that helped him out, he would have continued stumbling around in the dark.
“You might think you’re not ready yet, or that caregiving duties might not happen to you. Maybe you’d say your parents won’t have dementia. But I’m still going to continue pushing for future caregivers to have access to information, resources, and emotional support so that they have it when they need it,” Richard says with a smile.
For Self or For Others?
Caregiving is labour-intensive and, in most cases, financially burdensome—especially when there’s an expectation to juggle the responsibility alongside personal and professional commitments.
For Richard, it goes beyond the daily grind of caregiving. It was also having to watch the light in his father’s eyes dim, replaced by confusion, fear, and flashes of anger. The kindly man who had once taught him self-worth and encouraged him to pursue his artistic passions had become a stranger who sometimes looked at him with suspicion, even hatred.
But that has become a distant memory. In June 2022, John Ashworth passed away peacefully in his home, surrounded by loved ones. As Richard looks around his room, recalling his father’s presence in their final few months together, tears well up in his eyes.
“My biggest regret was that I couldn’t do more for him, but I know I already tried my best,” Richard says, his voice choking up.
If Richard had lost his battle with alcoholism or given in to the darkness of his suicidal thoughts, he would have missed the chance to stand by his father in his final moments—a goodbye that meant everything.
“I still miss him very much. I ask myself why he’s gone. It’s not fair. But his last words to me were ‘Richard, go help those who need help.’”
Richard stresses the need for a strong support system—without that lifeline, an already difficult journey becomes nearly impossible. At the end of the day, no one can pour from an empty cup.
“We’re not asking for privileges. I’ve mentioned to clinics, doctors, nurses the problems that we face, but no one’s taking any action,” Richard says adamantly.
While it’s common to feel torn between responsibilities and your own well-being, it’s important to recognise personal limits. Knowing when to step back isn’t a weakness. It’s survival. You can love deeply and still recognise when you’re running on empty.
Helplines in Singapore
Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) Crisis Helpline
Call: 1-767
Institute of Mental Health Helpline
Call: 6389 2222
Caregivers Alliance Limited @ IMH Caregiver Support Centre
Call: 6388 2686 / 6388 8631 (Mon to Fri, excluding public holidays, 9 AM – 5 PM)
Caregiver Support Services – Dementia Singapore
Call: 6377 0700
National Care Hotline
Call: 1800 202 6868
Singapore Association of Mental Health (Toll-Free Counselling Hotline)
Call: 1800 283 7019
ec2 online counselling
Visit: www.ec2.sg
CHAT
Visit: www.chat.mentalhealth.sg
