Anyone else work ft and have young dcs?

[Trinpy]

I'm currently on a low dose of anti-depressants for depression/anxiety. I've only been on them a couple of months but have been feeling particularly low since around Christmas time. I was talking to my mum last night and she asked if the ad's were helping me and I said no and that I was thinking about asking if I could increase the dose if I don't see any improvement soon. My dm said she doesn't think I have depression and that how I'm feeling is just the result of working ft whilst having small DC. Apparently she felt exactly the same when my siblings and I were children. So I just want to know if this is normal and how everyone feels?

I'm exhausted all the time to the point where the 2 evenings a week my Dh is home I often end up going to bed at 7pm rather than spending time with him. I wake up in the morning feeling exhausted.

I constantly feel anxious - tight feeling in my chest, headaches almost daily, feel like I just want to run away.

Throughout the day I frequently feel close to tears and it's a huge effort to act happy and my usual self at work. I also have had difficulties concentrating recently and my work is suffering as result.

Do you all feel like this too? I have other stuff going on in my life which is contributing to my low mood but the main stress does seem to be from trying to balance parenting and working, which makes me think that my dm's probably right? My dcs are 3 and 5 and my Dh also works ft and feels fine .

That isn’t (as far as I’m concerned) a reaction to working. My DC are now 3 and 6 and I had about 10 months maternity leave after each.

But my DH does 50%, we have excellent childcare and I enjoy the balance.

I don’t have any good answers for you OP but can completely relate to feeling stressed about balancing parenting and working. I don’t even work FT yet! My husband skips off to his FT job quite happily without a second thought whereas i constantly feel guilty about not doing my best with either my DC or with my job.

Have you always worked FT or were you PT before and if so did you feel better then?

I work full time, have a two year old and have done three rounds of IVF, had two miscarriages and a cancer scare in the last six months. I feel generally happy, enjoy my life and work, socialise regularly and exercise three-five times a week and don't feel overly tired. My DH absolutely pulls his weight with household and childcare stuff but I do all the life admin, planning and social stuff on behalf of the family. Occasionally I feel like I've got a bit too much on, and the recent health stuff has been scary. Occasionally I feel a bit down/upset but I think that is a 'normal' reaction to the situation we find ourselves in.

You do sound like you're depressed, what you're experiencing to me isn't 'normal' and you are doing the right thing to seek help. Depression like any other illness needs treatment and managing and you owe it to yourself and your DC to access that.

I'd also look at trying to ode tidy any environmental triggers that you can change- does DH do enough or are you left with all the shitwork? Do you enjoy your job? Have you got money problems? I find I can cope with one area being difficult but if there are multiple things going wrong it's much harder.

Your mum is talking out of her arse. Has she forgotten how hard it is/in denial about mental health perhaps? Either way you sound like you've got your head screwed on, you're clearly self aware so trust yourself and do what you need to do

I have a 3yo and 1yo and work full time. I do get tired (due to chicken pox at the moment), but don’t feel like you do.

I think you need some help

Thanks. Interesting to know none of you feel like this.

My dh does do 50% of housework/childcare in terms of physically being there to get stuff done but I carry all the 'mental load' where the dcs are concerned. This is not fully my dh's fault, he struggles a lot with organising his own life (he was fired from his last job due to this, despite trying really hard at it, so it's not just an excuse for being lazy!). And yes, I'm the same as you Onefootforward1, I feel guilty all the time and like I'm spread too thin.

I have been ft for 2 years and love my job. We are in a fair amount of debt at the moment as my dh was made redundant at xmas and was unemployed for a little while, then after finding a new job was fired after the first month and unemployed again. He's working again now but things around the house broke down, car needed work, etc during this time so we had to borrow money from friends and put stuff on the credit card and we now owe a fair bit. I'm also worried about my dad who is disabled and is currently awaiting potential diagnosis of a life-limiting illness. I'm worried about my dm who is his carer and clearly struggling. I feel guilty I can't do more to help them. I have an assessment for asd coming up in a couple of weeks which I'm very anxious about. It's just a lot of life crap at once.