Does anyone else suffer from chronic, debilitating indecisiveness? What helps?

[MsGoodenough]

I have always struggled with decisions but right now I can barely get out of bed without agonising if it's the right thing to do. I am a head of department at a busy secondary school and need to make 100s of decisions a day and I am falling apart. A previous therapist said it sounded like a form of OCD, but I don't have a formal diagnosis. I am so scared I will lose my job. Working reduced hours right now but that just gives me more time to panic. Has anyone had this? What helped? I am seriously feeling suicidal at the thought of dealing with this forever more.

As always, knowing why this started is the best way of stopping it. Can you remember when you realised you were struggling to make decisions and what was going on in your life around that time?

It started when I was 18/19. I had been depressed and anorexic for a couple of years, then found myself having to justify every tiny decision. My mum was riddled with regret so might have been a ways of avoiding regret (which of course hasn't worked as what I really regret is the years lost to indecision). I also felt like I'd ruined her life by being born so wanted to make all the right choices to justify my existence. Otherwise what's the point of me being alive? Understanding why has never helped me to change though. I feel I'm on the brink of losing everything. (I am in touch with you by email btw and we are speaking on Thursday!).

Oops, sorry - didn't pick up on your user name! Will leave this thread now and see you Thursday :)

No worries. At least this gives you a bit of advanced info! I am not in a good way and things seem to be spiralling getting worse and worse.

I suffer from this and I think it stems from having made some bad decisions which had far reaching consequences. Ir made me afraid of getting it wrong again. I don’t know what the answer is .

I think it's similar for me. I think mine is particularly bad at the moment because it's hit me I should have split up with DP years ago but didn't due to indecisiveness. But it's also stopping me from correcting that mistake and splitting up with him now as I am so scared of losing my job.

Your thread title made me want to comment, having felt similar on many occasions. Then I saw your job description. I'm full of admiration. But are you subconsciously self sabotaging because this job is in fact too much? What has helped me in the past was to realise that we don't make mistakes as such from not doing things but from pushing ourselves too hard and being too critical and perfectionist about our goals.
If you think about it every single day we make a whole series of choices, to get up to get dressed to wear this instead of that to eat this instead of that to sit or stand and we don't judge ourselves usually for these things. But when even those things become hard you have to take it down a notch and be proud of yourself for every single foolhardy or imperfect choice you made to get through the day...and it doesn't matter if you do nothing else that day "important". Survival and your own mental wellbeing being is important, more than the other big goals, demands.
You are judging yourself.
This is what helps me. To recognise that even a few tiny decisions ARE being made, even to get comfy or open a window or pick up a leaf and you aren't a 'problem" that needs to sort yourself out, right now or the thought police the job police the debt collector will get you
It's fear and anxiety that make us so averse to decisions. Start small with things you can trust won't go wrong.

Phrases like 'correcting that mistake" show you look at your actions as right or wrong
They aren't necessarily either.
You made them, things may not have turned out the way you expected but you weren't necessarily to know based on the evidence that was available to you. How can we be so wise, all seeing all knowing that we have every single bit of evidence before us? We can't possibly.
We just do our best to pick the right choices. No one can do more.

I always knew I wasn't in love with DP though. I've known it for 20 years and yet here I am. I guess I thought being friends was enough though. I know I need to be kinder to myself. I am so angry with myself about everything.

You could look at it another way. What would happen if you took a decision that was difficult and hard, ie to split, now. Maybe other people will make decisions that affect you. Would you deal with that...? Probably very well. It's the sense of responsibility thats eroding your happiness. For a start you are not responsible for your parents or indeed anyone else's happiness (discounting children under 18...and even then it's s fine balance because your happiness feeds theirs). If you feel you ARE, that's at the root of your anxiety. It's an impossible task pleasing and helping everyone but yourself.

I had a good day; I started with a series of small decisions and it helped so so much to frame it like that, they were ordinary things not even a "list" list, but it's the difference between that mindset and paralysis/anxious rumination.
There are much bigger fearsome decisions I have to make to but I'm building up ,"muscle"again.
I wish you all the best, and therapy can help so so much.

Thank you. I've been having (very expensive) therapy since September and I'm getting worse and worse. I think I need to find a new therapist. But the thought of starting again with talking all about my childhood is exhausting.

If you are just focusing on getting "better" and being decisive so you can get back to work and make all those decisions again you might not find the therapy works as intended. Maybe it is working, but in a different way than you thought.
I did therapy to cure me of my driving phobia but what happened was I learnt that I wasn't just phobic about driving but tons of things.
So there was no quick fix in that sense.

But I am not really qualified to advise. Certainly different therapists approach things in different ways. Person centred therapy and psychodynamic therapy have worked for me better than CBT although tbh the time spent 'feeling worse" or "hitting a brick wall" was often the darkest hour just before dawn, and I magically did feel better, a lot better, acceptance, refreshed, problems seemed to shrink into manageable proportion, change occurred in my external circs...whatever. things improved..joy and happiness returned in small things and in everyday things..

Thank you. I think a CBT approach might work better for me. What I'm having is supposedly working towards EMDR but she won't do that until I'm more stable so it's just me spiralling down and down with no particular benefit.

I did about seven CBT sessions with a clinical psychologist 10 years ago but I wasn't suffering from indecision more just anxiety/fear. Actually it was a thyroid disorder and vit d deficiency that exacerbated things. I definitely felt I was spiraling. At the time I felt the sessions didn't help much. There was no big reveal just slowly feeling slightly less desperate (maybe just accepting I was ill helped)
But a lot of underlying beliefs never went away; I was functioning well but with a baseline of slightly maladaptive mechanisms." Doing what other people want" to stay safe was the most obvious one. So challenging that belief was a necessary stage in personal development. And when you talk at length to a therapist or a friend even (if they can stand it) or if life situations arise that causes discussion of this issue, it isn't even a solution based discussion, just being given some insight is enough to make your OWN solutions. If you want them - sometimes the solution is not what people want to hear.

So the therapist never solves things really - it's you that solves it. That can be a scary thought. More decisions.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/feeling_depressed/1275303-chronic-indecision-anxiety-obsessive-thinking-is-ruining-my-life-Does-anyone-else-relate-to-this?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

I found this old thread and it is full of helpful suggestions....OP in a different situation than you but many other posters too

I am becoming incapable of making decisions also. It is cripple my life. Literally everything I do now has become a minefield of anxiety and indecision.
I am terrified of making g the wrong choice.

Same. Mine is getting worse by the minute. Scared I will lose my job as just can't decide the most basic things.