I didn't quit my job so I could run around after everyone else... AIBU?

[Superbirdtrooperbird]

After struggling for months with serious anxiety, a spell in hospital with an unknown allergic reaction and a complete and total mental breakdown, I decided to leave my job. DH earns enough that I'm lucky to be able to do so, for a year realistically. We're moving in the summer holidays and I want to get as much packing/clearing done while the kids are at school so when the holidays come, we can just go.

After all the 'so you won't work at all, whatever will you do with yourself?' comments had settled down, I started to become the go-to gal for things that other people can't fit into their day.
This week alone I have picked up prescriptions for SiLs kids, waited in for a delivery and the gas man for her, run countless errands for my mum and been 'emergency' child care for 2 friends (the emergency being they'd been out for lunch and chatted too long so wouldn't get to school in time). It's always preceeded by 'seeing as you're not working, could you...'

I've said no to a few things this week too. I'm fully in the 'no is a complete sentence' camp, and I'm assertive enough that if I can't/don't want to do something, I won't. But AIBU? DH thinks I'm not, but I always have the little niggly guilty feeling when I say no. If it's a genuine emergency, I'll do it. But I feel like there's a degree of cheeky fuckery going on here, and I need honest opinions!

For information, I have 2 DCs myself, and DH works long hours, a very long way away so I do have my own shit to be getting on with. I'm not the lady of leisure that everyone seems to think I am!

Absolutely not U at all. I had similar when I took early retirement and everyone assumed I’d got hours of time on my hands to run their errands etc. Just say “no, sorry, really busy just now what with moving shortly ..... “ unless it really is an emergency. Stick to your guns.

Gosh no - your time is your time and you have your own shit to be getting on with.

I had comments like that when I got made redundant over a year ago... "Oooh lady of leisure now" - fuck off - I have 3 kids and they were 1, 5 and 6 at that point and DH regularly travelled for work and came home late. Lady of leisure I was not!

Still not!

Definitely don't give in to CF requests but you sound like you've got it covered 😉

They're taking the piss - get used to saying no a lot more, especially to SIL!

assertiveness and self care.

I'm glad the general consensus is I'm not BU!
It's just the general idea that if you don't work you have a life of leisure! I worked full time for years and never in my wildest dreams would I have palmed my errands off on a friend who didn't. SiL did all the school runs for me, but I paid her handsomely. I had a hospital app a few weeks back and asked her if she'd pick the kids up for me, her response was 'sure, ping the money in when you get a minute'! She had them for 2 hours and didn't even feed them!

I studied for 2 years, going back to work next week and I can’t wait for so many reasons. A big one is so I can stop being everyone’s bloody dogs body.
Don’t even try and tell anyone you’re tired. How can you possibly be? All you do is lie about on the couch eating biscuits. Ha fucking ha.

next time you SIL asks give her the same response of 'sure, ping me the money when you can'

Do you do childcare for her? I would start charging her for running errands too if that’s how she wants it.

Please don’t tell me you actually paid her this time?

Work on your boundaries and assertiveness!

Stop answering the phone!

I used to have six weeks off unpaid during the summer holidays when the DCs were under 12. I was like a taxi service by the end of it. At one point, a few kids were going to a tramplone place from 4-6pm (they'd just finished Year 6) and I suggested to another parent that I'd drop off and she could pick up after work at 6, but she said no because she was getting her nails done after work. At other times, her older son had the car or there was some other excuse.

You’ve got to stop or else you’ll be a mug all summer!!

Now you aren't working, you need to renegotiate the deal with SiL to one of mutual free helping out. Likewise your friends who go to lunch. I'm a great believer in having a few favours 'banked' for when you need one, but not for being available for all kinds of cheekyfuckery. A friend of mine (retired but a busy granny and committee woman) decided recently to take a couple of weeks of for midsummer, say no to everyone and just have time to herself. I am v envious

Start charging your sil the same rate as she charged you for doing stuff.

I'd say no more often, especially with the holidays approaching as people will think they can palm the kids onto you rather than book childcare.

Define your objectives. You need a snappy one liner describing the very important tasks you are quite pressured to achieve before the summer holidays.

When people ask, this is what you are doing. It's busy. You're pressured.

When people ask you for help, you have something important scheduled. You would if you could but this cannot be re-arranged, as your hours for the rest of the week are already allocated. Sorry.

If you gave up work due mainly to struggling with anxiety it seems unsurprising that you might find it hard to say no to people. You dont need the stress of saying no when you find that hard so I think the best policy is to become very hard to contact.
As for if something is really an emergency, look at it this way if you were at work would you be allowed to leave to do them this favour. If not it isn't a genuine emergency.

People do it if you work from home too. They assume you can just drop everything at whim to do their stuff/have them drop in for coffee/go out for lunch/look after their kids/run errands....

I work from home, for some reason people seem to think that because I work from home that I get to do what I want when I want and it means they can visit whenever they like because it doesn't matter. My DM doesn't understand that when she calls and wants to talk for hours on end that it just isn't convenient.

I don't know why people assume that just because you're at home then you have loads of time on your hands.

Ask your DH for a monthly salary as a homecarer. I do. 😬 I do do things for the good of the family each day and not for monetary reward, but I have to say having some small financial recognition helps.

@Superbirdtrooperbird I think I would just get used to saying 'I can't do that.' No explanation or whatever, screen calls and text back to avoid a debate.

Just say to them "Gosh, I have so much on. I forgot how much stuff I wasn't getting done myself when I was working so that's taking up my time now, so I won't be able to pick up your prescription/mind your child/collect your child/paint the Sistine Chapel/whatever". Keep it light and airy and you haven't mentioned what the stuff is that is now taking up your time. Value your time. You've worked hard and deserve to have your time to yourself now.

Your current full time job is to look after yourself and get better. You may as well go back to work if you aren’t able to do this. Tell them you can’t do it.

Put yourself first. Recovery from a mental breakdown isn't easy and I've been there. You don't have to do any of the things you've listed above. The very first time I said "no" to doing something I didn't want to do was very hard, but it got easier.

Turn your phone off for longer, don't reply to messages until a day or 3 later.

YANBU at all. I'm a SAHM and I would pick up a friend's child if they genuinely had a problem or had forgot the time as a one off but if it entered CF territory I'd absolutely put a stop to it.

I'm busy at home with my pre-schooler and when he starts school nursery I have a two week rotating time table for all the jobs I need to get done in the 15hrs a week I have 'free'.