To find modern life overwhelming?

[Angliski]

I’m looking for some help and inspiration.

I’m a mum of a 20 month ds. Extremely helpful house husband, do work I love, financially comfortable. And yet I feel continually stressed and overwhelmed. I seem to always take on too much, end up stress eating (food has always been my Achilles heel) and just shattered at end of day/week.

I realise i do need to find a way to take better care of myself. Ive got 5 stone to lose and terrified I can’t do it. I’ve recently joined a really posh spa gym for the first time, to just have a space that is kid free and relaxing, that isn’t my home. I’m mid forties and starting to feel that my self neglect hundred miles an hour style, just isn’t going to be sustainable.

What actions have you taken to reduce stress in your life? What’s really worked and how did you think it through?

TIA.

Kindly, it doesn’t sound like it’s the modernity of life you’re overwhelmed by, it sounds like it’s your own set of circumstances and the change in them that you’re finding overwhelming & struggling maybe to adjust to.
You mention you’re mid-40’s and have a toddler.
I imagine it may have come as a rude awakening/shock to your previous usual work/home schedule to now have a toddler.

I work full-time, am a lone parent to two children, have no support nor SAHD, but have am 41 and have been a parent for a decade already so have adjusted. Life isn’t easy (far from it) but it’s a case of learning to adjust & adapt to balancing being a parent alongside your previous life-style & your career. You have a lot of help at home so perhaps need to look at other ways you can manage your feeling of being overwhelmed by simply having a toddler. Maybe look at some CBT techniques, or some therapy for dealing with change.

@Ibizan @Cocomarine I had a blisteringly high bar set all the time as a child, love was very conditional. I agree that it is the response as well as the piling on of commitments… I’ve had all kinds of therapy but never really shrugged it off I guess.

@MuckyPlucky how do you manage the work juggle? If I didn’t own my own company and have a responsibility for other peoples jobs, I’d probably find it quite easy to stop working. This would then stop a lot of the overwhelm. But it’s not currently an option. I was pretty eyes open in terms of having a child. It’s the balance- when you had 💯 your time and how 75% is being a good parent, how do you fit the former 100 into 25%? What do you drop?

[quote Angliski]@MuckyPlucky how do you manage the work juggle? If I didn’t own my own company and have a responsibility for other peoples jobs, I’d probably find it quite easy to stop working. This would then stop a lot of the overwhelm. But it’s not currently an option. I was pretty eyes open in terms of having a child. It’s the balance- when you had 💯 your time and how 75% is being a good parent, how do you fit the former 100 into 25%? What do you drop?[/quote]
Angliski, you shouldn’t be putting 75% of your waking hours into being a good parent.

I expect - again, sorry it’s armchair psychology - you had such shit parents of your own that you’re real putting pressure on yourself to get parenting right.

Your child has a good SAHP. For at least a ‘standard’ 40 hour working week, you shouldn’t be parenting at all. Be that actually hands on caring, or the mental tasks like thinking about how to be a good parent.

You do have to drop things, yes. You can claw back a little time with lists and food deliveries yes, but fundamentally - a child eats into your time.

But you still have time for work.
Maybe you need to delegate to your staff more, or accept a slower turnover / rate of growth for a period. For example, if you manage your staff and see clients, maybe you don’t see clients, or see less. If you can afford that - and want to do it - that creates time.

Of course you obvious thing to suffer is “me time”. It’s inevitable. But it doesn’t have to go completely. Also relationship time. You must have time for that - but yes, it might be less.

It sounds to me like being on the receiving end of shitty parenting has given you the guilts about taking time away from your child to work AND to play. It’s OK to work, it’s OK to go to lunch with a friend! I expect you’re putting far too pressure on yourself.

it honestly does get easier!

Totally agree with pp but totally empathize too.

I justify some of the Mum guilt by remembering I’m a role model for my daughters and that as a family we can normalize mothers working ft and fathers staying home. I tell them that I love my work (mostly true) so that they don’t grow up thinking it’s a slog and that it is possible to enjoy it. But I make sure they also know that they are more important than work.

I would be a terrible SAHM because I cannot bear the drudge. So I also have to think that me working is the lesser of the evils.

It’s not perfect and I have some resentment issues with DH and other SAHMs who seem to cope fine with the drudge (and have time for coffees/Pilates/shopping) so I therefore feel a bit of a failure and/or narcissist for not being selfless enough to put “keeping house” above all else, or to enjoy it more.

It’s great that you are carving out some time. I recently started an early morning yoga class. I LOVE IT. I haven’t told anyone other than DH that I go (don’t want others to join me and to have to then discuss lifts, doing something together after etc) so it feels like a right treat.

Small things make a difference.

I plan to get better at booking a weekday off and doing something for myself like swim or go to cafes and sit there nonchalantly reading as if I was one of those people who had actual time to do such frivolous and carefree things.

I lack discipline though. But trying to work on that too.

Oh and I’m trying to think kindly of my body. My poor body who I neglect. It’s served me pretty bloody well over the last 40+ years and I feel quite sad that it’s not being looked after properly. Why wouldn’t I treat it with kindness and respect after all it’s done for me?

Sounds weird, but I think you have to love yourself to really feel that you can put yourself higher on the priority list.

I don't have time to fit everything in since starting a course with coursework with 2DC, work FT hours paid for PT, so I decided to drop ironing except minimal vital clothing just shake and hang everything else, and focus cleaning on areas that need it sinks and loo and rest has to be more spread out.

I also regularly have brown pasta/rice meals with veg cooked in the same water and a stock cube, then add pasata/bacon whatever in the fridge at the end. Leftovers for lunch.

I cut up fruit while the meal is cooking and that goes out at the same time as the meal so we automatically fill up on fruit after eating. Less hunger for sugary food afterwards. For some reason cut up fruit in a colourful bowl ready to eat goes down well with my DC, but if we eat and I say it's fruit next they don't fancy it.

If we are still hungry, pudding is then a yoghurt and often slice of toast later, basically to stop us all wanting cake or chocolate.