There is no finishing. That is not a scheduling problem you have failed to solve, it is the nature of the thing. So you rest inside it or you do not rest.
Horizontal counts
Twenty minutes flat on your back with your eyes shut is not a nap and does not have to become one. Set a timer so your brain stops guarding the clock. Lying down does most of what sleeping does.
Sleep in shifts, on purpose
If your nights are broken, stop trying to sleep like somebody with a normal life. Two blocks of four hours is a night. Plan it that way instead of losing to it nightly and calling yourself a bad sleeper.
One covered night a month, minimum
Somebody else on the monitor, your phone off, a door between you. One real night of sleep resets things that ten short ones cannot.
You had a whole personality before this
Somewhere in the last few years the answer to 'what do you do' turned into an answer about somebody else. That is the quiet cost nobody counts.
One thing a week that is yours
A class, a walk, a standing call with somebody who never asks how she is doing. Not a reward for good caregiving. A separate life, kept barely alive on purpose.
Keep one friendship that predates all this
Somebody who knew you when. They are the proof that the other version of you existed, and you are going to need that proof later.
Say your own name in a sentence
Out loud, about something that is not care. It sounds foolish. Do it anyway.
A boundary is not a betrayal
You are allowed a closed door, an unanswered text, and an hour nobody can find you in.
When somebody asks for one more thing I cannot take that on. What I can do is this instead.
When family second-guesses you I am doing it the way the person who is here has decided to do it. That is not up for a vote from four states away.
When you need the room I am going to be unavailable from two to four. Not an emergency, just unavailable.
Where is it actually sitting today
Not a gratitude list. A reading on the gauge. If you do not know how bad it is, you cannot tell anybody, and you cannot tell yourself when it is time to ask for more.
What happens to you when this is over
Three things end at once. The person. The role. And the schedule that told you who you were at every hour of the day. That third one is the one nobody warns you about.
You will stand in a quiet house at 6am with nothing to do and not know what to do with your hands. Start building for that now, small, while you are still in it.
