Dilly Carter, the decluttering expert from Stacey Solomon's BBC show Sort Your Life Out, broke down in tears on Monday's Lorraine as she recounted the strain of juggling her own cancer diagnosis with caring for her bipolar mother. The 44-year-old appeared on the ITV programme to discuss the difficult decision to place her mother in a care home and the stigma surrounding it.
Carter explained that after her father died in 2010, her mother's home became unmanageable. She and her husband took her in, building a granny annex in their garden so they could keep an eye on her. However, when Carter was diagnosed with stage one womb cancer in October 2022, the situation became overwhelming. 'I just couldn't cope,' she said, fighting back tears. 'It was affecting my family and it was just too much.'
She told host Lorraine Kelly that making the decision to move her mother into a care home was the hardest she has ever made. 'You feel like you're letting them down, you feel like you're shoving them into this place,' she said. 'But it has completely transformed our lives as a family and transformed hers.'
Carter also spoke about her childhood, revealing she was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage at age three. Her mother had her first breakdown at 11 and was sectioned ten times before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Carter said she took on a caring role from a young age, tidying and cleaning to cope with the chaos. 'I was 11 years old,' she recalled.
