help me get through the next 12 hours

[legalalienindulwich]

This is the first post I've done and can't believe I' posting it - although I constantly feel at the end of my tether, now I really think I may be there.

By way of background (which is doubtless boring and somewhat narcissistic (SP?), but bear with me as I suspect that half the battle will be me writing this down and getting it off my chest:

I've suffered from clinical depression since my mid teens. I grew up in a small town where social connections were very important, my parents came from overseas and didn't fit in, I was a fairly bright but not very confident child, and did what I had to to adapt to the circumstances. Which meant, as a result of my perfectionist tendencies, succumbing to anorexia/bulimia. I dropped out of university after my first year in order to sort this out, had a break down of sorts (sent to counselling, which was completely hopeless as I managed to convince the counsellor that it was all my parents' fault - which it really wasn;t) - and after a year off was strong enough to take myself back to university and earn myself a really good law degree. Except that, instead of relying on my ability to control food, I just drank a lot and exercised obsessively. All of which qualified me nicely to be a highly successful work hard/play hard lawyer for the following decade, in the course of which I had a successful career and ended up in London with an equally successful partner. The depression, naturally, never wore off - it comes in bouts, but I've always worked on the basis that knowing your enemy gets you a long way - and if you keep busy your mind gets diverted into other things. I told my husband and he listened but I don't think you can really understand unless you've been there.

Anyway, we decided to start a family. Obviously we both had careers, and we agreed that his would come first but subject to some important parameters - he'd stay home until the nanny arrived in the morning - so that I could start really early if necessary - and that he'd come home one night a week (so that I could have some semblance of a social life). Neither of which has happened, and I;ve ended up in a job that I wouldn't have chosen, through necessity. I'm in a bigger house - something I've always made clear is not important to me - and am 12.000 miles from either of our families. None of our friends have children/ We've just moved house and I know no-one nearby. DH has been working on a project in a different city for the last nine months, home only from after bedtime Friday until before sun up on Monday. In that period I've had to move house completely solo, as well as working full time and taking responsibility for all chores, household admin etc (Poor me )

So far I'm surviving and putting the best show that I can on for DS (aged 2.5), but although I've coped with a hell of a lot of stuff for almost 20 years, I'm worried that I'm near breaking point. So if you can, just say something supportive. Don't bother to suggest that I ring some kind of helpline / speak to my GP because frankly, I've been there, done that several times now, and it ain't going to make a difference. I WILL cope, just that right now, I need someone to say something that indicates to me that I'm not a complete loser.

OK - rant over, feel slightly better already, but any comments welcomed, at the risk of reducing me to tears

[MintyDixCharrington]

legalalien you sound SPLENDID. if you go to a city meetup (and you should, they sound excellent fun with lovely people like blu and dinosaur and marina and motherinferior and issymum etc etc) I'd like to come too.
I hope you DID leave the PC on - perhaps you were being v clever subconsciously, giving him the information to process without having to have Deep Chats about it (or perhaps you just left the computer on ). Anyway glad this has given you food for thought and DH is doing a bit more.

Eleusis comment about the housekeeper might have sounded flippant, but if you can afford it then do it. I can't tell you how liberating it is not to have changed a bed or ironed a shirt or hoovered since.... um..... 2002

[legalalien]

MDC - if you go, I'll go (although I find the prospect of these things quite unnerving). And I am slightly concerned that I might find that I already know all the other attendees professionally. Oh well.

[eleusis]

Did I sound flippant???? Oh no!

[rebelmum1]

MrsMarvel I'm afraid your wasting your breath, I have been reading the theory of mass movements recently and it says that successful leadership qualities consist of unbounded confidence and a blatent disregard for others opinions. So leave the important people to run the world and get back into your little box. Haven't you got chores to do

[MrsMarvel]

Rebelmum - Little box !!!!- don't patronise me. Perhaps reading the thread would help, rather than the theory of mass movements.

There's funny and there's not so funny.

Haven't you got a job to do?

[Judy1234]

Yes, for some chores they're fun now because I don't usually do them. It's the Marie Antoinette school of housecraft and has much to recommend it but you can only practise it if you marry a rich man or you earn a lot of money yourself, sadly.

Even so we can exagerrate the differences too much. All parents whether male or female spend a lot of time loving and looking after their children. And even working mothers and fathers with long hours will be up in the night and also being with their children at weekends.

Yes, I might find it hard to understand why housewives enjoy their role but I also find it hard to understand why some people choose not to have children. In a sense the bigger divide is between being a parent and not. It's the biggest change in your life, having a baby. I am 22 years into parenthood, getting on for 23 years now. If the last 23 years had been without children what a hugely different life it would have been.

It's also interesting contrasting my siblings and me. My older children were almost grown up by the time they had their children in their late 30s. So they had this period of 15 - 20 years as an adult child free and I had none of that period at all. A different kind of early adulthood.