To think that being stressed and on the brink of a breakdown is just the new normal?

[SylviaPlath1984]

I was wondering if it was just me, that I'm burned out and exhausted but most people are pretty happy and laid back and have plenty of spare time to themselves...

But looking through a few posts here, it seems like everyone is really struggling. Being pulled in all directions, kids, housework, job, partner, no time for ourselves...

So am I wrong? Is your life pretty chilled and if so how/why, what am I doing wrong? Or as I suspect is the new normal to just work yourself to the bone and feel totally wiped out 24/7

I really think that the pandemic is simply underlining a lot of issues that were there to begin with, but we were distracted enough not to pay much attention to them.

Much of how you handle this is going to depend on your mindset. I know that sounds flip, but it really isn't. I have friends with several children who determined at the outset that they would be settling in for the long haul and would manage it with a degree of calm...and are doing so. Those who spent the early days bemoaning fate are not doing well at all. In the end, we cannot control what life throws at us. We CAN control how we react to it. Not easily, but we can.

Normal for me, DH, friends. Can't remember a time when I didn't feel like this, it does just feel "normal"

'DECADENCE' sorry can't do the darkened text and can't work out how to pm you otherwise I would. If you see this, please pm me.

@RhubarbCustardy

'DECADENCE' sorry can't do the darkened text and can't work out how to pm you otherwise I would. If you see this, please pm me.

I'm on my phone so not sure if it's different on a computer. If you click the ... On the bottom right of someone's post, the option to do various things including PM the person comes up. To get bold text put the * symbol either side of the text you want to bold.

@RhubarbCustardy you can also do this by putting the @ in front of their name so they get a notification. It goes bold automatically when you hit 'post'.

I was close to breakdown at the height of the last wave in January. Both DS and I working on Covid wards. Every day more deaths.
Will spare you the details but I felt like in the absence of their relatives, I had to be substitute family for the patients. So I made the mistake of getting too emotionally involved.
I wasn't worried about catching it, (had it in Oct) but I knew it would affect me mentally eventually and in January it caught up with me and I was hardly sleeping at all.
It hasn't helped that our chaplaincy teams were furloughed and no one to talk to at work as not a spare moment.
I'm beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel now. DS and I went to an outdoor memorial at a local church on 23rd and I felt so much better.
In my mind, it signalled an end, that its almost over now, it's the only way I can cope. Thought of a third wave is just too much.
I have already put up the fairy lights in the garden for when friends are allowed round.

@SandrasAnnoyingFriend

Oh I can rage too. I've slammed many doors and screamed the word 'fuck' a lot. I don't actually know what to do with the rage sometimes and it's worrying.

Exactly!

I've felt alot more stressed and pressurised recently, although I do have more work on than usual I don't think it's that entirely.

I wonder if the lack of varied leisure/connection opportunities have got something to do with it? I don't think that it's that I have more chores/responsibilities/work than usual, but the lack of varied activities to break it up (dinner with friends, trip to the shops, mum over for a cuppa, playgroup, swimming etc) means that every day is just like groundhog Day!

So much of this chimes with me. I’m not in healthcare so I totally accept I haven’t had as stressful a time as anyone in the NHS.

But having to WFH meant there was no separation between work and home life, I felt invaded. And because I work in Finance the pressure was huge to say what Covid would cost & HR shut us out of the furlough process.

Managed to get back to the office just before HR asked for furlough overpayments back as they’d fecked it up meaning a colleague and me to some degree had to field so many queries from confused and worried people. HR kept saying send them to us it’s not your job but then didn’t provide the info asked for because they had fecked things up.

Add in the usual workload and I have felt on the edge of hysteria many times. Jan/Feb are always really stressful months too, no exception this year and yet again I have felt near the edge of something. It’s easing now but my boss is moving to another project and I can’t go with as I have to support her replacement, and that’s another world of stress ahead.
💐 and ❤️ to all. Please hold on and I hope we’ll get through this together

Huge hugs for everyone struggling and I totally understand why.
I'm a sahm to six kids (two are step who's mum died when young) when the schools were off it was hard. Although we did get into a good routine.
Dh is at work out of the house all week so everything in the home and regarding the kids is my job. Overall it's been fine. Dh's business is doing well so that takes huge pressure off.
My house has taken a battering from all the kids but we've been super lucky that other than lockdown none of the kids have had to stay home due to COVID cases in school.
During lockdown my uncle died and also dh's dad that's been really hard.

So many people struggling with different aspects of this.

Big hugs to @colouringindoors that sounds really tough.

@troppibambini6 I’m sorry to hear of the deaths.

Things that helping me:

Acknowledging the positives like not running around to different clubs every afternoon after school has been nice.

It’s less treadmill.... just a different treadmill...

We are trying to watch comedy in the Evenings which helps.

We have a list of things we want to do in the future when we are allowed.

I’m sure there are others, I just need some time think of some!

We had a work meeting yesterday (on Skype, as they all are these days) and it was clear just by people's voices that almost everyone is close to breaking point. Here in Belgium, they've just announced a new 4-week lockdown and I think it's about as much as people can take.

I think so many women were probably already only a step or two away from meltdown before the pandemic. We have so many balls in the air: career, kids, partner, home, pets, social life, exercise, parents. It's a constant juggle and the pandemic has taken away all the help of family and friends and socialising and the enjoyment of many of the good things. It's just groundhog day now of drudgery, plus added balls to juggle of home school, testing and worrying about the virus, WFH, and generally everything is harder at the moment.
I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect a large overhaul of society is needed really. Better, cheaper childcare, no expectation to work beyond your 8 hours a day into the evening, more affordable housing, all the usual things that everyone knows and wants.
For me, I dropped the career ball and it makes life easier. Not saying other women should do the same, just that something has to give.

Nothing to do with the pandemic. I’ve felt like that for two decades and so has everyone I know, be it woman or man. Workplace expectations are bad enough but stick a family on top and it goes over the edge of sanity and you just cling on by your fingertips. Most people I know start and climb out of it once kids settle in at uni.

It's amazing how much everyone's experience differs and yet everyone is also struggling in some way or another.

I have many, many things to be grateful for and as a family we have weathered Covid pretty well, with some highs and lows.

I've struggled personally since January when I found out I was pregnant with an unplanned 3rd baby. I've gone between denial, despair, guilt, shock, but I've never once felt happy or hopeful about the future. My DH has been supportive but without friends, events etc to distract me I've found it totally overwhelming and I've had many low days, mentally and physically where I struggled with what to do for the best.

A very unexpected low point of lockdown! I would never in a million years have dreamed I would be in this position.

@HoppingPavlova

Nothing to do with the pandemic. I’ve felt like that for two decades and so has everyone I know, be it woman or man. Workplace expectations are bad enough but stick a family on top and it goes over the edge of sanity and you just cling on by your fingertips. Most people I know start and climb out of it once kids settle in at uni.

Really?.I'd say if you felt like that for decades and have to wait till kids go.to uni to improve something is very wrong!

Sometimes I feel this way, and other times I feel ok, and other times on top of the world. Sometimes all three feelings within one day! But life doesn't change that much from day to day or moment to moment, so I know it's just my perspective that's changing and the despair is just in my head, does that make sense? It is so much more difficult when our usual coping mechanisms are less available.
Things that help me - going for a short walk alone. Talking to someone about things that are good/positive. When I feel 'bad', trying to remember that those feelings are not necessarily 'bad', I've just assigned them as bad. Trying to embrace how things are and how I feel, and accept it as if I had chosen for things to be exactly as they are in that moment. That sense of acceptance and embracing it helps.

for you all.

Teetering in the edge at the moment. I had time off after the first lockdown, for stress, which I’ve never had before, and was made to feel like I had failed myself. It was only a couple of weeks, but at the beginning of that, I wasn’t sleeping, eating, was shaking, and crying, totally unlike myself. Work (NHS) weren’t supportive, although they’ve since started a helpline for staff, as it’s such a big problem.

Permanently weary, intermittently fed up and hopeless, followed by sunny positivity. Dealing with all the backlog after each lockdown is just as stressful, if not more, than when everything is paused for Covid patients. Each time we have a lockdown, more staff go off long term sick, retire early, or just leave. I want to deliver a good service to my patients, they are not the problem, but the pressure of keeping everything together is sometimes more than I can bear.

Really?.I'd say if you felt like that for decades and have to wait till kids go.to uni to improve something is very wrong!

How so? As I said it’s not as though I was the Lone Ranger, it was common to everyone I knew. It also makes complete sense when you think that with some jobs, and when you only have yourself to worry about, you are just treading water and then stick a family on top ...... Doesn’t take Einstein to work out the water is going to go over your head in waves at times and the best you can hope for is a snorkel. At best you are lucky if your nose stays above water for the majority. A lot of people of my eta and in my profession decided not to have kids because they didn’t think it was worth going under. Others that chose to suffered through for that period. That’s the reality. The ‘something is very wrong’ is a weird concept when you are basically asking people to essentially choose between an extremely hard fought for career and a family.

I don’t think anyone can prepare you for the sheer amount of work that goes into managing a family and running a home. A friend without children tells me to lower my standards etc when I complain of burnout but my standards are already low enough and the basics are constant just to keep everyone fed and everything clean enough. Not to mention work etc! I am absolutely knackered 99% of the time. Being an adult is so bloody hard anyway, throw in a killer pandemic and it’s a perfect storm!

@SandysMam

I don’t think anyone can prepare you for the sheer amount of work that goes into managing a family and running a home. A friend without children tells me to lower my standards etc when I complain of burnout but my standards are already low enough and the basics are constant just to keep everyone fed and everything clean enough. Not to mention work etc! I am absolutely knackered 99% of the time. Being an adult is so bloody hard anyway, throw in a killer pandemic and it’s a perfect storm!

This really resonated with me! You're absolutely right, just keeping everyone fed, housed, clothed and clean is a full time commitment. By the time I add in the mum guilt to make sure they are at play groups, after school clubs, swimming, sport or even just making sure they are above water academically or socialising with their wee friends, I am burnt out. I sometimes look back at my life before kids and wonder what the hell I did with all that free leisure time, and the fact I never ever appreciated it will irk me until the end of my days!

@SomethingElse2 thanks. I Really appreciate that x

I'm really glad someone else said this. I have literally cried so much this year and last year. Been in and out of a job the whole of 2020, (literally 2 or 3 and being let go from one job and reinstated). Oh not working. Both had covid. Found out I had diabetes last year. List fil the year before in Spain and couldn't say goodbye. Have depression and anxiety anyway and struggling to get even the smallest task done. Struggling with the lpss of friends at last job, knowing I will never be accepted or as happy as I was in last job and never see that group of friends . Struggling with confidence and self esteem and dying my hair and trying to even do the simplest tasks like cleaning . Working in a temporary job and trying hard to count my blessings. I'm trying hard to be healthy because of the diabetes but I'm not doing very well at it. Holed up in a flat with no desire to go out or exercise or anything . On about the 5th argument with my oh in as many weeks . I've broken my toe and I'm struggling (also have adhd ) with all of it with no escape or way out .

Lost*

Oh had pneumonia and nearly died . Home schooling and now not and now I miss my son.