Please help - am I heading for a breakdown? Does a nervous breakdown even exist anymore?

[Wormysquirmy]

I'm not depressed - I don't think. I can sleep. I eat well. My kids are fed and looked after and homework is done. I hold down a busy and stressful part-time job. I take on most of the childcare outside this as well as the "motherload" of the organising. I look fit and well.

I'm falling apart. I feel like I'm unravelling. It started at work with increasing anxiety about getting everything done. I'm constantly having to live at break neck speed to get everything done. I have stopped feeling joy like I used to. I'm on a never ending treadmill of constant slog. I have tried the usual "take time to yourself" things as much as I can but I'm unravelling like a ball of wool.

I feel like I'm hugely anxious. I want to cry and sob and scream. I fantasise about running away with the dog and a tent. I adore my children and hate myself for how I'm feeling. I hate that I'm not coping better when others have worse burdens to bear. The NHS can't help people like me - I know that. I'm terrified to take time off work as I will forever be labelled and then be made redundant. I feel I can't even tell my friends. I have tried to tell my husband who says helpful things like a couple hours out.

Even typing this I feel like a self indulgent idiot.

I'm taking St. John's wort and some evening primrose. Exercising. Trying to look after myself.

Any other thoughts?

I have a nice family who are dysfunctional. Parents divorced. Siblings anxious too. I don't want to tell them I'm cracking up. They talk about this stuff a lot and I don't want to be part of the negative spiral down.

Thanks to anyone who can help and for reading.

Yes I take your point, fundamentally you need to lighten your load. I think a 2 pronged approach reducing the pressure and giving your head a bit of a break might work. As for weight gain well I have put on weight but I couldn't honestly blame the pills for that! Well done for this morning.

I felt I made some progress this morning. I was meant to be dropping off this morning at two locations and DH was being a dick and told the older pair to take the dog out (at the same time I was trying to leave and get a train and drop the little one off). I ended up putting my foot down and just leaving him to drop the others off - I said I could no longer scream along the motorway late because of others choosing to do stupid things at leaving time. I felt better for it - like I had taken some control. DH had a real go at me but I just shrugged.

It sounds like you are trying to herd cats. It also sounds as though you may need to talk to your DH about how day to day household activities are handled and managed. There needs to be some organisation and time management here, and he needs to be on board.

I think you are going to need to be more strict about what goes on and when. Maybe something like a blackboard for the kitchen where times for activities and commitments to leaving the house are written down for everyone to see. And if people contravene these plans, then you leave them behind.

I know this sounds a bit harsh, but your household needs to work together in an efficient manner. You've got to put your foot down. You can't be constantly speeding down the motorway to get somewhere because your DCs and DH can't get their act together. It's not only making you ill, but it's dangerous.

I developed a system with DH where we not only share a diary on our smartphones, but we go through the week's activities on a Sunday morning and talk through the implications (stuff like when we need to leave the house to get somewhere, whether we will need change for parking, what we will need to take or what needs to be sorted beforehand, what routes are best etc). Often, talking about this allows us to realise that some actions can be doubled up (say, picking up x when returning from y). Then we delegate the jobs between us.

You are probably attempting to do this all by yourself, so you've become a kind of household project manager as well as everything else. This, again, is a huge source of stress and pressure. It just becomes more and more work piled on top of you.

You could, if you wanted, just go on strike for a week.

Thanks picking. I took a few days to reply as I was contemplating and certain things you said absolutely resonate. I am indeed household project manager and I do it well so DH actually has no idea of what I do (and even had the cheek to suggest there is no such role)

I'm trying, slowly, to introduce more changes such as talking through the night before the exact routine for the next day. I usually am up late every night getting everything ready for the next day (sometimes till 11pm if I have to cook etc) and I'm demanding more assistance. I'm still flipping project manager though.

I have given up coffee (not tea or chocolate!) and it's definitely taking the edge off things too. I feel slightly more in control.

I'm trying to handle work slightly more sensibly. I've never been a perfectionist but I'm lowering standards further.

I don't know if anyone else wants to keep talking about this or chipping in with ideas as I have to say I've found this a very helpful exercise and maybe someone else is now reading this and thinking it might help them.

I get you. Feeling similar at the moment, mainly work related, but unfortunately for me I have my own business and am my own boss! Work is hugely busy, so all the little things seem to be major stressors- someone calling in sick, someone announcing a pregnancy, someone else needing me to arrange holiday cover. Lights blowing, alarms going off in the middle of the night, computers crashing, paperwork mounting up.....at times like these I really wonder why I ever started this, and then feel guilty because it's been so successful and has made our family proud of me and much more financially secure.
I have 3 dc and a DH in the Forces, but my dad helps out a lot, and I really feel bad asking him to do any more. It's hard. I was on citalopram a couple of years ago, and it did help, but feel it would be a backward step to go back on them. I'm just hoping for the "this will pass" thing to be true, but then I feel guilty for wishing my life away....

I know that feeling platypus. I have moments of absolute clarity where I realise I haven't smiled for days and I'm missing lovely bits o the DCs growing up because I'm so miserable. What is the point of that?

The grass is greener to an extent as I feel that, from the outside, I would be envious of your own business and feel that it might come with it more control over your life but equally can understand why you might look at my job and think "at least she can get home at night". There is no perfect answer I guess. Could you get some more help in the business? Maybe your dad is OK helping you for now?

I wish I had more answers.

Still reading and listening and yes I recognise what you are saying too platypus. I also run my own business (with two other partners) but I seem to be in charge of all the housekeeping elements (I'm the only woman - go figure) and it's the relentless bits and pieces of rubbish that are dismantling me slowly. HR dramas over nothing, banking bureaucracy, regulatory burden, niggly bits of nonsense that are really wearing me down. I have spent the past two or three years thinking "this too will pass" but this actually seems to be the new normal and that's an unbearable prospect. I think we have to be wary of thinking "this too will pass" or we risk spending our lives just getting through the drudgery in the hope that things will get better one day.

One thing I have done and one thing I am thinking of doing:

a) I've basically ditched cooking other than as an occasional leisure activity. It's become a huge part of the drudgery burden and the pressure I was putting on myself to make sure the children eat something cooked from scratch every night was just an unnecessary burden. I know it's heresy on MN but basically they get a good lunch at school so if we have lots of soup and beans on toast / egg on toast / hummous and carrots for dinner then I'm saying that's fine. It's going to have to be anyway. Then I'll make more of an effort when I have time and space and I feel like it. At the weekend we might all cook together and it'll be for fun but cooking up a whole meal on a Tuesday night after a full day of work and homework wrangling and household admin is finished? Not fun

b. Although my children are still at full time school and I'd gone down to part time after school care, it's not working. I've had 7 people in the role since last Feb. Awful. Totally disruptive and unsustainable. This despite the fact that I pay really well and make few demands. Part of it is that it's hard to find people round here who want after school work - so I'm thinking of a year of a full time nanny again. Ridiculous expense but I can't go through another year like this. And as I said earlier, the holidays are killing me. Just the mental load of where the kids need to be and what time and with what kit. Obviously this is not an option for lots of people but I'm thinking it's this or a breakdown so in that context, it's worth exploring.

I actually just want to slow down and enjoy my life more. I'm liking this thread a lot - sorry we are all suffering but I'm glad to be sharing with you ladies.

I don't think you should feel bad about needing a nanny backing. I was thinking this morning that a HUGE part of my load is getting everyone up and out in the morning. If that could be done by someone else in your life then you should go for it. You simply cannot do it all and after school clubs and childminders only help so much.

Soup and eggs and beans etc sound perfectly fine to me. Probably far better than other options if you think about it.

Life for me has started to feel like a treadmill of tasks and duty. I know some people thrive on it but I really worry - really worry - that I will get to the end of my days, whenever that is, and have huge regrets that I didn't enjoy my time here through my sense of duty and responsibility. My worst nightmare when I was young was having some kind of issue and not finishing uni or getting sacked from my professional job. In hindsight, had that happened, I feel my life would have taken a different direction and I might be in a better place now. I wonder whether our upbringings - pre the "snowflake" generation (and I don't mean that scathingly) has made it worse in as much as there was a huge work ethic drummed into me and I had to take responsibility from a very young age. I feel exhausted by it all and wish I had just sat and watched a few sunsets and drunk beer!

Thanks wormy and backing. Sometimes it's good to vent to people that understand! I have reduced my hours, but things keep creeping into my "off" time. Everything is ultimately my responsibility, so I can't just shrug it off. I've thought about getting someone else in to do some of it, but that's another member of staff to manage/ sort out pensions for/ cover when they get sick etc etc. Plus, I am a bit of a control freak, and when I've tried to delegate tasks to others they don't get done to my liking , so I take them back on. I realise the reason that many business is so successful is mainly because of my diligence and dedication, so it's a double edged sword!!

I do have a cleaner and dad does dinners 3 times a week, bless him (I just leave out ingredients and instructions!) so I feel guilty moaning. I just seem to go to work in a grump every morning and come home in a grump every night! Can't even moan that I need a holiday, as I had one last month! Problem is you come back to all the things that piled up while you were away, and pretty soon you're knackered again!!

I keep thinking if I can do this for 10 more years I can retire early, but that is as but dismal, isn't it?! I'm really hoping this is a bad patch, and things will settle down again soon!