Posting here for traffic. Genuinely can't work out whether I'm being dramatic or not. Please be gentle and don't pile on!
My DS was diagnosed with 2 autoimmune diseases in May. It's turned our lives upside down, had a hospital stay while they stabilised him, he will be managing his conditions for the rest of his life. They are life changing and in the case of one life threatening, but people generally think they're not that bad (as I used to). We have to manage his conditions carefully for the rest of his life, we have an endless parade of clinics and appointments, and I seem to spend my life getting repeat prescriptions and trotting to the pharmacy - there is so much STUFF he needs to live a 'normal' life and bits and bobs run out every few days and the GP won't let us get a month's supply of ANYTHING. The admin on that alone is stupid.
At the same time DD has been on an endless round of isolations from school due to covid. She's had 4 days in school in the past month. I am working while home-schooling yet again. I had a terrible reaction to my second jab, which led to 2 conditions I suffer from getting very bad (they've not been bad for years). And I have a blood glucose disorder that has also gone haywire and I am in constant state of hypoglycemia, which is not very pleasant.
On top of that, I run a business. It's been very stressful for the past 18 months but we have got through. Before my DS's diagnosis I was trying to push through changes that would make how we work - currently very stressful - more sustainable. My business partner is not keen on any changes. He has not given me much support since my DS's diagnosis. He seems to be avoiding communicating with me; he's called me once in the past month (we are still WFH). But I have a lovely team, though even so I feel like I'm on my own when it comes to work.
I have various board commitments. I stepped down from 2 when my DS was diagnosed. I asked for support from the other and they said yes, but they meant no, as after 3 weeks of leaving me to it, I'm now working as hard as ever for them.
Every morning I go for a run and every morning while I'm running I cry. I spend a lot of time feeling very anxious. I'm not sleeping very well. I normally just get on with things, but I am finding it hard to focus. I can't work out what's going on with me - I get the feeling from work and from my board commitments that they think I've over-egged my DS's illnesses and that we should be back to normal by now, and that I should just crack on because he's fine. But he's not fine: yes, he's not at risk of imminent death (unless we really F up) but this isn't something that's ever going to go away. Poor kid is devastated, despite all my efforts to smooth things out for him.
But am I overreacting to my DS's diagnosis? Should I woman up and crack on? How can I stop myself crying, losing focus? I have a good life, a good family, a supportive DH. So why can't I be thankful for what I've got instead of falling apart slowly and so horribly?
Sorry for the essay. I don't feel like I say can this out loud to anyone because I think they will think I'm pathetic. My DH knows, he supports me, but when you're locked in a house together for so long and it's just us, it's hard to know whether how we feel is how the world feels, if you see what I mean?