Everything feels like a chore

[Aibusadandhormonal]

Even choosing DDs Christmas presents, choosing mine, meeting friends, choosing a takeaway. All feels like a job to do. I think both me and DH are finding it hard to find things fun. Everything just feels like one more things to do. How do we change that?

This has resonated with me. No advice but you're not alone in thinking like this. I'll watch hoping others have some good ideas...

I think it’s because nothing is fun anymore. Going anywhere is expensive, ordering food is expensive and usually a let down. Nothing really feels the same as it used to.

I hear you OP. Sometimes it feels that way. One option, although a slow fix, is to see your GP and talk about depression. For many people it means that life is 'grey'. Depression is usually due to brain chemistry so drugs work well against it.

In a different direction, it can be helpful just to have a few days away from work whilst DD is elsewhere (nursery? grandparents?) so that you can enjoy not doing anything - just living your own life a bit: going to bed whenever or waking up whenever and maybe having a meal out or a takeaway.

I don't think it's necessarily depression. It's not that everything is miserable it's that it's just I'm fed up of decisions, and being in charge. Perhaps.
Or maybe it's depression 🫥

Like I'm looking at holidays for next year and all the decisions just feel like too much work. Work is too much work. Parenting is too much work...

I'm not depressed either, have Asperger's, no kids.
However.
I think other people create this feeling, people who feel entitled to your time, energy and life.
Obviously not dependant children.
Personally, if I live long enough to be on my own, in my own, ideally retired and can shut the door on the outside world, I think these feelings won't be there. Although there will be another chore to find, for sure. 😀

I am increasingly feeling this way about Christmas and present buying. I think a lot of it is down to overconsumption. I just try to focus on things that make me happy, hobbies, yummy food, animals and being in nature.

Absolutely get this. sometimes it’s all so 🙄

Give yourself some time off from big decisions, how about you give yourself 2 weeks off - tell anyone who asks you’re not making any superfluous decisions til November. Then for the boring day to day decisions make a game of it - have a family sit down and write a long list of possible meals for the week and everyone takes turns picking one for each day. Or flip a coin to choose a takeaway. Shut your eyes and reach into the closet to decide what to wear in the morning. Life is full of tedious decisions and sometimes you just have to be ridiculous in response.

Oh as an anecdote I once stood in the supermarket with complete decision paralysis and ended turning to a complete stranger and saying burger or sausages? They must have understood the assignment because the reply was “Sausage, mash, peas and gravy” 😀

To be fair that is a good answer always!

I think we work too much these days. People never used to work this much. In the Middle Ages work was not virtuous or looked highly upon. People worked when it was necessary, didn't when it wasn't, took days off when they felt like it, spent many hours socialising in the community etc. Then came the Protestant work ethic and capitalism, and here we are with our work-centred lives. Our free time feels like it needs to be spent recuperating ready for more work, but we have all this other stuff to do. Also, the work ethic seeps into our leisure time, and people feel compelled to spend their 'leisure' time doing something, preferably something productive. It would be shameful to admit that you spent your time doing nothing much, like relaxing and having a think.

Absolutely nothing helpful to add, but I absolutely feel this too. You're not alone. When there's too much to do, even things that should be pleasurable start to feel like a chore. It's overwhelm / burn out and I'm not sure what the solution is, as can't just stop the parenting / quit the job. I'm trying to half-arse some things, but find that even more stressful in some ways.

But on a positive note, you're doing well OP, and it gets easier as your daughter gets older!

I think it's the work/kids combo. Because it used to be work/downtime combo and now downtime is spent doing all the things I couldn't do before, never really relaxing and not really giving anything 100% focus.
I think I need to get off ny phone too..

It's nice not to feel alone! Although I'd rather we all didn't feel like this!

Can absolutely empathise with this. Am desperate for some time alone where the only decisions I make are for me, but on the rare occasions I get it, I waste it.

Life is basically a long list of things to do.

Part of the challenge is trying to make the to do list ness of it all as fun as possible.

Something like Christmas present buying, by making it a thing on the to do list two months before, you are inevitably making it a chore rather than something fun.

Just focus on not doing the to do list for three weeks, at all, and then you won't feel quite so overwhelmed.

Then in a month's time.when you have had a rest from making decisions hopefully you will feel more energised

Totally feel like this at the moment. I know the answer - I'm working too much. Trouble is, need the money as everything has got so expensive. So, no solutions....but I understand!