Has anyone got better after burnout?

[HoraceGoesBonkers]

Just that really - I've posted a fair bit on here over the last few years. My DF has an incurable condition (well, various things now) and hasn't been able to toilet himself, speak or see for the last couple of years and has been in a home.

My mum is really hard work - she actively made the whole situation with my Dad, a bereavement and another relative having cancer much, much worse.

I went through a period 4 years ago of putting on weight, ended up with prediabetes, stress, high blood pressure, trying to juggle driving up and down to see my parents with two small kids. No matter how much I did it was never enough.

I've worked really hard to get the weight off. pulled back and eventually went NC with my mum which I don't feel great about but I'd just had one too many incidents with her making already stressful situations worse.

I've tried counselling and found it helpful up to a point but think I've run out of things to say. I've also tried antidepressants but this hasn't been wholly successful - the Prozac made me put on weight and I'm finding beta blockers interfere with some of the fitness stuff I do to manage mental health.

I still feel really angry and it all goes round and round my head. I've been feeling really crappy about it over the holidays and get stressed and anxious about visiting my Dad.

Has anyone else had similar and how did they get better mentally? On one hand I've really sorted myself out and come a long way - on the other I still get negative, intrusive thoughts about it all.

When my mother died really and the main stressor was removed. Better still a couple of years later after my father had died and we had cleared and sold their house and I didn't have to speak to my brother (just like my mother, everything has to be made into a great big drama and all about them) any more unless I wanted to. Very very very low contact. It's much much better now but I'm still processing a lifetime of this stuff. I suspect I'm permanently damaged physically and mentally because of it and will never fully recover but so long as I can manage it and ensure history doesn't repeat itself with my DC then I'll settle for that.

@HoraceGoesBonkers I’m earlier on my journey than you so hoping for some reassuring posts, good thread! I did use my long car journeys to listen to lots of podcasts and some have helped me with perspective and understanding myself. I have some boundaries in place.

@CrotchetyQuaver thank you for sharing. I know that life will always present problems to solve and I’m still processing the last few years. Right now, I too would settle for not repeating history for my DC, that is my priority at this point. But I also know what I don’t want my old age to look like.

Hi again @HoraceGoesBonkers great thread and I will watch with interest. Still on the elderly difficult parent journey here. I veer between utter guilt that I should be doing more, but have to remember that, and I mean this it is not hyperbole, absolutely nothing we do for our mother is EVER right, ever accepted with grace. She permanently moves the goal posts. I have ‘good days’ where I put her out of my mind and try to reframe the situation but then I have bad days where I contact her and then everything overwhelms me.
Today for example is a better day. I have reframed the situation to take the ‘daughter’ part of my role out of the equation. I have visualised the vast number of lovely family and friends she has gradually upset and picked off over the years and pictured myself sat with them. Pictured us all saying how hard we tried to make things ok for her but that ultimately she always knew/knows better. Solidarity to anyone in this situation it’s exhausting but what has also helped me is realising in my case our mother has always been difficult. I recognised over the holidays that every single next door neighbour who has lived in the house next door she has eventually taken a dislike to and behaved badly towards them….except for a couple of doctors who lived there very briefly….make of that what you will.

For old times sake I will post my favourite site https://outofthefog.website
There is also an App recommended by my GP which is kind of useful - https://www.wysa.com/nhs

Thanks all. I bought a book on CBT which I've just started and one thing it suggested was meditation, so I did a 10 minute session after the school run which didn't dissipate everything but did make me feel slightly better.

I guess phase 1 was trying to get better physically now I'm stuck with trying to address some longstanding mental issues in constructive ways to stop the cycle repeating itself with my kids - obviously this involves better planning for old age too!

I did go through a phase of hoping it would get better when DF died but the flaws in this are he's, erm, not died in the 4.5 years since he became incapacitated and my mum shows every sign of expecting her own health to become the centre of attention when he does - in fact this is already happening.

I find exercise really helps as it means I'm tired enough to sleep.

@HoraceGoesBonkers I second the doing exercise helps. It definitely makes me use up the energy I tend to waste overthinking what I could try to do ‘better’ to help her. If you can get a referral via your GP to talking therapy - massive wait time but hear me out - they may well be able to do an assessment via a phone call with you about how you are feeling and then give you premium access (free of charge) to the Wysa app. It is very much stuff we all know but I have found the guidance to ‘reframe’ thoughts is incredibly useful. Reframing thoughts is something I have struggled with when trying to set boundaries. Work in progress . Meditation I struggle with but a swim, long walk/run really help, possibly endorphins kicking the negative energy away? I also do something which massively helps me. I split my day into hours so every hour I make sure I do something different. Bit like a timetable. In each hour I try to put all my focus into that ‘thing’. Be it reading, doing something creative etc. Nothing massive but goals I can achieve so that I end the day with some lovely positive vibes. Even doing housework or sorting a drawer out I find clears space in my head and I do not want the anxiety to mess up my tidy mind.

Obviously it doesn’t work all of the time but I am definitely getting better at it. As ever the great Philippa Perry’s quote….choose guilt over resentment every time.

I had a nervous breakdown about it last year - well no, 2023 now! Christmas 2023 was awful.

I don't want to jinx it but I'd say I've recovered. My relationship with mum has recovered. I do think part of the breakdown was also to do with lockdown.

I've talked about this on the mental health board but I'm careful as it isn't a popular view....something I think is key to recovery is not dissecting and analysing. As a society, I don't think we are in good habits there. Overthinking doesn't end well most of the time.

I've no idea what the future holds with mum of course but I have no control over that.

I'm surprised by both how much better I am and by the fact our relationship survived!

but I can't anticipate the next disaster so I just make the most of feeling okay. Don't get me wrong, the next hospitalisation is bound to leave me feeling irate about it all but I will cross that bridge then.

I had a breakdown 8 years ago. We were going through diagnosis process for asd with our son and massively struggling with him, my mum and my granddad were both dying and I was responsible for both of them and I worked in social services.

I ended up giving up work (luckily we could afford this just) it took 18mo this for me to start to feel normal. CBT therapy helped a lot.
I also did a mindfulness course through nhs and took up meditation which helped a lot. Meditation is about not reacting to your thoughts and emotions, if you can learn to do that they have less power over you.

I also went for hypnotherapy which was amazing, I felt significantly more relaxed after the first session.

Walking and yoga were also useful

I do weekly guided meditation with crystal bowls. It has helped me let go. If it doesn't serve you, push it away.

Sounds like your main issue is with your mum - with an elderly parent who goes into a home, the pressure does ease off a bit. It's very sad, but at the same time it's like ruling a line in their lives - this is how they live now, they're incapacitated, you barely recognise what they have become, and it all costs a bloody fortune besides, but there's nothing more can be done. And you just have to take a back seat and let the professional carers do their job.

At times I thought I was going to melt down, mentally and physically (menopause really helped obv) running between two houses, I did stupid things like start smoking again, now given up TG. And clearing my mother's clutter-ridden house and arranging repairs was stressful. Life is easier now, it's done, she's in the final furlong so to speak.

But you have a needy mother - I think I recall you from previous threads describing how your mum has intervened to keep your father alive when he would have succumbed to an infection?

Yoga has helped my mental health more than anything. I only do one class a week now but it still makes a difference. Finding the right class and teacher is absolutely key but I did it every day on my own in 2020/2021.

@EmeraldRoulette I realise what you say about over analysing but similar to @buttonousmaximous, after I'd started to sort myself out after the bereavement and series of DF crises my DC started displaying behavioural problems and went through an assessment for ASD. To make matters worse we'd started the assessment with the NHS and I'd gone through everything with them, then they outsourced the assessment to a private contractor and I had to to through a lot of the information about my family background again, which to be honest did not help at all with processing what had happened and moving on. And I think has a lot to do with feeling mentally stuck in a rut now.

@BlueLegume I've found the GP support to be pretty dire. I'll check our your app but our local online one is rubbish, I couldn't get a referral for counselling either so went private.

@AInightingale Yeah - I'm NC with her now. It was a relief when DF went into a home after the infection where he nearly died (it would have been more of a relief if he had actually died). But it's like she's determined to keep him going and carry on keeping his health at the top of everyone's agenda. I kept getting messages "consulting" me about whether or not he should have assorted healthcare interventions, both large and small, her behaving really weirdly towards healthcare providers if they weren't engaging satisfactorily with her drama, and any minor issue like a cold is turned into a major thing (one of the final straws was in fact her attempting to phone me on holiday because he had a cold - quite what I was meant to do about this I don't know). She's also started creating about her own health too. Again this stuff didn't really help me move on - I guess as well as dealing with a lot of actual shit, I've slowly had to grow tools to fend off someone who constantly wanted me in full on crisis mode because someone who is nearly 90 and in a vegetative state might die!

Anyway I did my meditation thing again this morning, I got up early before the kids were up. It does seem to be helping a bit.

You need CBT counselling. It’s highly unlikely you will achieve lasting results DIY style.

If you were able to reframe your father’s situation, you could say he is being well cared for and monthly visits are adequate with a twenty minute call a week on x day. It’s not your job to parent your parents, they are grown adults with health issues but nonetheless have the resources for support and care.

You could choose to say it’s too much to drive such a distance with young children, once a month I will have childcare and take a leisurely drive. Include some self care on the way home, whether it’s a quiet coffee and read for half an hour or something longer.

Basically we are choosing every day what we will do. Or what we don’t do. Taking that freedom to say I will or won’t. And never I ‘should’ be doing x, y and z. You recover from serious burnouts but putting yourself at the very top of your to do list for an extended period of time.

You build in time for you, to rest, to eat well, to do nice things just for you. To sleep. You can’t recover until that happens, no one else is going to do it for you.

Your situation sounds entirely manageable. It’s only your parents conditioning of expecting more and more that is creating guilt that is not yours.