I can't control my crashing crushing low mood ....

[lean17]

I've been SAHM for 5 years now. This is an economic and practical decision for our family. We have worked through every consideration, looking at all possibilities, and this makes the most sense for our family and is the way it has to be until DCs are at school. I have no family near by, and we live in a rural area. So I am 100% responsible for DCs with no reprieve ever.

A constant refrain has been how we can carve out time where I can do a little something other than childcare because I feel sometimes like I've lost my identity and I am going mad. Anything different. A hobby. Just to have a break from the monotony. But everything we try has collapsed and I've reached a point I can't be bothered discussing it with DH anymore and I feel like I can't be bothered trying anymore. I get angry with myself for daring to hope it can be different only to get brutally disappointed when it fails. I try keep expectations very limited and I don't plan forward anymore. I try to just trudge through the boring grind and try not to think about it if I can. Last year I hit a massive fucking depression, properly depressed, and I feel like I only just managed to pull myself back from something quiet scary. DH said he'd never ever seen me like that it the twenty odd years he's known me.

That's the background.

Which brings me to today.

I had been feeling a bit better. Most likely because DH took time off over Xmas and I had some free time and a bit of a break with some support. I got some energy back and felt determined this year had to be different. I didn't check myself or remind myself of past disappointments. I've been planning forward. So fucking fucking stupid of me. Inevitably I start thinking if things I want to do. I'm clearing out clutter and hoping to sell stuff etc. I actually got emotionally invested in doing this, because it's something different. Occupied with planning it. Last night I went out after kids were in bed to buy storage containers to make sure I'd have what I needed to tackle it today. A bit of a mission with the snow but I really wanted to do this today. The understanding was DH would take older DC to her activity and I'd tackle it.

This morning I reminded him to remove storage containers from car for me. (I didn't do this last night because path to door was icy and he said last night he'd do it today). This morning again he said he would and told me he'd leave them in the porch. I went for my shower. I came out, and he's gone - with the storage containers still in the car. I now have no car, and the toddler at home and no way to do what I wanted to do. I am fucking devastated. And I know that's a ridiculous reaction, I know this isn't world poverty, or Trump, or Brexit, or anything like that.... Yes, I can do it this afternoon, or tomorrow but I wanted a weekend to do family stuff too because that's also a bit if a break. I can do it next week. But regardless of logic, I am fucking crushed. It's triggered a wild reaction.

My mood has gone from feeling upbeat and ready to tackle something to utterly utterly miserable and low. I have no idea how to process these feelings but I can feel my mood and spirits spiralling downwards by the minute. Logically I can feel it's completely irrational, but I wish there was someone who could take DC2 so I could go somewhere and just cry and cry and cry.

As for DH. He'll be coming home knowing he's fucked things up for me today. He'll know he Solent the morning in Costa drinking lattes while my plans were - again - fucked up, following our special brand of sods law. I don't know what to say to him and I actually don't want to talk to him at all. I just want to cry.

[fallenempires]

That sounds like a miserable existence no wonder you're feeling so low.It's no picnic being a SAHM .You sound very isolated.Have you discussed how you're feeling with your DH?

[lean17]

Endlessly discussed. Nothing ever changes. I don't actually want him to come home now, because I don't know what to say to him anymore. I don't have different words. But at the same time I don't want to be stuck with the toddler on a weekend by myself, which is how I am all week. I'm not thinking clearly.

He'll be expecting me to carry on happily cleaning out at some other time, but I have with one single move lost all motivation or interest in doing it now. Worse still, by clearing out in for the last two days I've got a massive backlog of other housework I haven't done. The house is a tip. I wish I hadn't started. I've made things worse for myself on so many levels.

[Lowdoorinthewal1]

When he gets home let him know he needs to take both DC out for the rest of the day. Then you can do the task you planned AND have some time to yourself. Don't ask him, tell him.

Have you been to your GP? I think maybe that would be a good port of call.

[iveburntthetoast]

What exactly do you want your DH to do? Commit to looking after the kids at X time on Y day? Have you been able to set out your choices to him of what you need? Sorry for so many questions, but it's not really clear to me why you've not been able to put something together.

[lean17]

Low he may even offer that without me asking. It won't occur to him that a/I've lost interest in doing the task now. My mood has crashed to a point it feels like yet another chore and b/ being stuck at home is not my idea of 'time out' when I am at home day in and day out all week. I wanted to sort things so we could do something as a family during the weekend.

Toast we've tried that. We keep trying that. He can work flexibly so he can theoretically give me time during the week when DC1 is at school. So I can bake or garden or sew or whatever. It lasts a week or two then inevitably he has a meeting he can't cancel so we drop the day for one week. Then he automatically just gets ready for work the following week. Then it's back to him not doing it at all. Until the next time I crack up and the cycle starts again. He has massive work pressure at the moment so no chance if anything like that now.


This is insane.

I need to stop typing because I'm going to get a tonne of derision on my head in a minute and that will not do me any good. I can hear myself talk and how pathetic and petty and defeatist it sounds, and I would never have believed I was a women where trivialities would becoming all consuming.

I think my world has narrowed so far that something 'trivial' is now a very very big deal to me. The fact I was so keen to do this clear-out us majorly significant because I've had no energy or momentum for a year. And that momentum has dissipated again. It's like a plug was pulled and it's drained away. I can't call it back. I don't understand this.

I traded a morning out with him - a once a week morning where I'd sit with friends and have coffee - so I could get stuff I wanted to do done and we could then go out later. That's not happened. And I am irrationally affected by it.

My stomach is in knots, my chest feels tight, and I just want to cry. My head is already fast forwarding the week ahead: if I spend the afternoon doing this now undesirable task of clearing out then I will have to spend tomorrow morning at least doing laundry etc, and it'll be 14 straight days at home doing nothing but housework or childcare. But what ever 'time out' we do agree to instead of me doing the task is ruined. Because now I'll have to pretend to feel up for it when I feel completely dead inside.

[fallenempires]

You sound absolutely overloaded.Your frustration and hopelessness is evident.You sound very much like I did a married single parent