anorak would be grateful for some friendly support

[anorak]

Further to chatting here I have realised that I am becoming depressed. I hope you don't mind my posting this thread asking for some day-to-day support for a little while. It would help me not to feel so alone. TIA xxx

Anorak - so sorry you've been feeling down. I can relate to much of what you say - the need to be productive all the time, the pressure to take full advantage of everything on offer or somehow you're missing out....

I think so much of the time we don't allow ourselves space. We also don't actively create space for ourselves either, until we emotionally/physically break down and have no choice. For me, it always seems so nebulous and non-urgent when we hear people talk about the need for making time for ourselves outside of our duties and responsibilities. Perhaps we need to be more disciplined about it, and actually build it into our diaries each week in order to preserve our sanity.

I think we all could learn a lesson from your friend who stares out the window. Her method sounds calming and therapeutic in a serene sort of way.

Take care of yourself, and know that many of us go through versions of what you are experiencing. You're not alone.

Anorack, like Earlybird, I too can relate to what you say about the need to feel 'productive'. I too berate myslef if I don't spend a holidy rushing around ticking all the boxes....dp is much better at just chillin' with a book.
Funny Earlybird mentioned space - I read an article on this only this morning (probably in the Metro as I was coming back from an interview) and the gist of it was that we don't give oursleves enough space (including time on our own) and we need to for our emotional, mental and physical health. Apparently men are better at it than women.... I know I feel guilty about having 'me' time (and also get stressed about not knowing what to do with it! - dp would have no problem at all...)
Not sure where this ramble is going, just wanted to say that a lot of what you have described is not uncommon....

AnorakI can so relate to the hyperactive mind. This is what makes us so unique you know! It can be a great personality quality in that you get superhuge amounts of things donefabulous accomplishments (great project managers and all..., but it is exhausting to live in my head. I can't just watch television, I have to have a book or a magazine to read also, just so that I don't waste the times during the commercials. I have a difficult time even watching problems where I am not "learning something". The only time I can really stop is when I am sleeping. Lately I am having terrible dreams where I am fighting with everyone--at least I defend myself in the dreams, but I wake up exhausted. I keep having these recurring thoughts that my life is more than half way over (nearing 50 I am) and that I should make a career change to do something that I really love. It is driving me over the edge!! I know that you don't really feel alone, but I wanted you to know that we are all going through this on some level.

I'm really glad I brought this up now, with so many people seemingly relating to what I said.

Yes, yes, sunny, it is totally exhausting at times. My parents were extremely critical and impossible to please and I know it is their attitude that trained me into thinking that my only worth lay in what I could acheive. I had that reinforced by a bullying former partner who made enormous trouble if I so much as sat down for five minutes when in the final stages of pregnancy. I'm constantly afraid that I won't measure up unless I work like a slave, even though I just don't have it in me to do so at the moment. Fortunately my dh never complains even if I acheive nothing all day. He's more likely to offer to get takeaway than to complain if he suspects I'm tired. I know I don't need to be like this to be loved, and I know it's not healthy, but in my emotions it is very difficult to stop doing it.

I'm the sort of person who wants to make something out of nothing all the time. I just took ds to the park and picked sloes and blackberries while there. I'm now going to make the sloe gin ready to give away at Christmas. Like you, sunny, I rarely ever watch tv without doing something else at the same time. I sew, read, sit with a tray in front of me crafting, or put on the tv in the kitchen and cook. It feels too self-indulgent to just sit unless I am totally exhausted, and then I fall asleep and miss the end.

When I go to the pub I want pool tables, quiz machines, free newspapers, tv, a juke box, live music...I am bored just sitting relaxing with my drink. I don't often watch sports - I want to go and play squash myself instead. I hardly ever go to the cinema, it's too passive for me. When I walk with my dh he has to make up quizzes and word puzzles for me to keep me busy. Am I going to drive myself crazy?

Nothing can ever be just for fun, it has to be improving in some way. I will kill myself with it. When I was in therapy, my psychiatrist once asked me, 'What would you be most afraid of thinking on your deathbed?' My reply was, 'that I hadn't finished yet'.

I used to be exactly like this Anorak, and funnily enough, I think it was either having DS, or getting depression - or bot - that has cured me. And it is true that I am now in a sort of bunker of intertia - I don't do anything that isn't actually pressing, urgent and vital.

Partly, I think I decided that having DS is enough of a thing to do, of itself.

Can you try some tricks on yourself - keep lists of things you have done, and never make a list of things to do, or not yet finished?

Make lists with far less than you could get done in a day, and just try it out to see how it feels to actually finish a list.

Spend a day pretending to be your 'stare from window' friend - a day 'as if' you were her. make a short and very achievable list, tick the things off it, and celebrate with a good sit down, or walk in fresh air, once ou have finished. Just try a day in someone elses shoes?

xxx

you can borrow my shoes
Day on mn, dinner, tv, bed?

I can do that. I frequently do not a lot after making all these blooming lists. I am not up to doing stuff really.

What I can't do is accept it in my heart. I feel inadequate all the time and can't stop mentally striving for the time when I am back up to speed.

sounds like you need to temporarily reverse things in your head so that an idle day = success
Maybe we can start a thread 'anorak's go slow diary' and berate you if there are more than a couple of items on it each day?

off now night anorak

Hmmm, but I think it is important to have some sense of achievement at the end of the day. A couple of things that you can actually feel pleased with yourself for.

maybe try thinking in terms of quality of task, rather than quantity? For instance, quality of time with your dds this am.That was a really good thing to have done. it was an achievement, and an important one.

I don't know anything at all about psychology, and self-improvement, and therapy, Anorak - clumsy amateur of the psyche, me, but it does seem to me that you (all of us, i mean) have to train yourself to make changes - like getting fit, we have to train, like controlled crying, sometimes we have to simply learn how to do it, before it comes naturally. To feel the results before we can start to change the way we behave or think spontaneously.

anorak your last line 'i've not finished yet' just rang such a cord with me...I always want more, once I've achieved something I look around for the next thing to do and, you know what, its knackering.... Also the nothing can ever be just fun - I envy my dp - he can just be with our son, for me theres always something else going on....
I think Blu is right about having to teach yourself the ability to stop and stare - this article mentioned trying to sit in a room for five minutes and just be, and said most people find it impossible, partly because of the lifes we live and the stresses we are under.
Rambling again - no answers,

I can really relate to "not feeling finished" - and feeling like there is something important I've forgotton when I'm doing something more pleasant than the usual chores/requirements of time. The only semi ME time I get is when I'm on the pc at night - and if I have that then my "hour off" is over - have to hurry to bed otherwise I'll never survive the next day on any less sleep than the often broken 4 hours that I normally get.

The thing is that I'm not depressed - I feel so blessed that my family life is just great and my kiddies happy - but my own personal one feels very squashed (which is probably just the stage of life tho).

The reason I'm saying this is that these feelings don't necessarily come with depression - I think their root is in our feminine nature.

I personally feel that Dr Phil advice is a great way to go and think you should persevere with your book. He has lots of great advice on his website too.

From watching his show, I think the two things he would say about this would be:
1.There is always some pay-off for choosing a particular behaviour - how do you benefit - even negatively - from doing what you do.
2. Go down the road of what the worst situation could be - ie: think about if you were not to have finished - what then? What would happen to you if you hadn't finished? Would it be so bad? How would you feel? What does it mean to you.

My theory on the pay-off point is that by staying busy, we don't have to feel the full brunt of our emotions (since becoming a mother, I empathise with everyone too closely) - but more than that - I don't have to face my own self-esteem. I have never believed I was truly good enough (even though all my actions said otherwise - it would never qualify for my impossible standards) - only learning to accept myself (which I'm still learning) - is that side allowing itself to be bared.

Message withdrawn

Hello all of you and sorry to hear you're not feeling good alibubbles. I think what you say about alcohol really is accurate. I also had a few glasses of wine last night and now I feel dreadful. Ordinarily I drink quite a lot and wear it well, but recently it has begun to make me feel very ill afterwards. I didn't drink wine for a couple of evenings previous to last night and now I'm even more sure that I will have to cut down drastically. I guess it is a combination of the depression and generally ageing and so my system is trying to tell me something I shouldn't ignore. I don't want to cut it out altogether but I know I have to mend my ways to a very large extent. Unfortunately I have always depended on alcohol as a relaxer and to help me sleep so I really will have to try harder with other methods now.

Thank you blackduck, Christie, blu, ninah and fairi for your comments. I found the issues we discussed here yesterday very very helpful. It really helps me think things through when I have feedback from all of you.

My dh read this thread last night. I find it easier to show him this than to explain things verbally sometimes. It helps him understand.

morning, anorak! just a hello, really
Wine and I are no longer friends either. Just as well in a way cos pregnant, but even before then instead of giving me warmth and relaxation it was giving me the jitters, so I replaced it with lots and lots of soft drinks (tonic water and stuff mixed in to give it a bite) Have to say, I do feel better. Would love the glowing skin etc that you are promised by the healthy living fascisti, but prob too far gone for that!
Your dh sounds a poppet

I use alcohol to relax too, but it really does disturb my sleep. I go to sleep ok, but never sleep deeply or without waking for long periods if I have taken a good bit on board. Then I feel ill and tired the next day - don't get much done - and fret about having got nothing done. And oops, straight into what my NCT teacher used to call a 'viscious circus'.

The very best thing for me is excercise. It sorts out my energy, my spirits, motivation - and for the years when I was properly fit and active, my insomnia disappeared completely.

Think you have to give yourself a 'firebreak' break from the wine, Anorak. Not permanently, obviously, but just as a way of creating a gap in one of the cycles you're struggling with.

XXXXX

I have a glass of wine with me now, blu. My teenage daughter was so rude and horrible to me and made me cry and I just went straight to the fridge. I don't care any more.

Oh Anorak, you poor thing.
I honestly can't imagine life with teenagers, I don't think i would have had the sensitivity to help my Mum if she had been all upset and poorly like you are at the moment, and I am sure they don't either.
I do sympathise.
You do so much for your daughters, and try so hard. Don't take it personally, it's a row, Anorak, teenagers seem to live on them as an alternative to beans on toast.
Don't cry, don't cry, you are warm and sweet and caring, and teenagers just aren't developed enough to reciprocate.
They haven't defeated you, tomorrow they will be sweet, and sorry, and you will be here and on your journey to make yourself well again.
Don't cry,
and above all, it's not your fault.
ok?

She's never sweet, blu. I'm lucky if she's merely civil. She abuses me day in, day out and I don't know how to make her stop. She bullies her little sister and manipulates all of us.

She got cross because I wouldn't let her borrow her sister's brand new bicycle (which DD2 hasn't even ridden yet, she only got it today) in the rain. She planned to come back at midnight on a main road without lights and I said no.

So has she gone out on it?
I hope not.
God, Anorak, you have the burdens of hercules to deal with (I expect that is classically innacurate but, hey) I am not surprised you are exhausted and ground down. It also must be SO hard to hold on to any self-esteem when you are treated so badly.
DD's behaviour was extremely selfish and unreasonable, wasn't it?
I don't know what to say, A, but i am so sorry you have this to cope with.
I honestly don't think I could cope at all if she's like that every day. But I guess you don't have a choice...another year?

No, she left the bike here. She shouted, well are you going to give me a lift then? And I said, well since you asked me so nicely, no. And she stormed out, slamming the door. I guess she will walk a mile back on her own in the dark like she did last night.

Can you believe she is loads better than this time last year!!

She is 16 next week. Our plan is to finish DIYing our house, sell and move nearby to a place (if we can find one) with an annexe or outbuilding that she can use as a bedsit. That way we can support her through 6th form without her driving us mad or getting so fed up she leaves. But atm I'm wondering if I can cope with her. I feel like saying, you're 16 years old. You can't be civil so get out into the world and see if you can hack it without our help. But I don't want to ruin her future.

Trouble is that I feel I'll never recover from this bout of depression if she doesn't ease up on me. It makes it all feel hopeless.

Anorak, well done for holding out over the bike and not being blackmailed into giving her a lift.

Is there any way you can have her at arms length during this bad patch? I know other members of your family are under tremendous pressure, so presumably a stay with an aunt for a few weeks is out of the question?

A friend of my little sisters stayed in our house as a sort of unofficial foster daughter / lodger for her A level year, as she and her Mum weren't happy under the same roof. They didn't lose contact, of course, and all was mutual, and it seemed to work well. The girl felt v grown up, rather than rejected, and largely, calmed down.

I would certainly have given her a lift if she hadn't been rude. She ruins things for herself.

No, there's no chance of farming her out. She starts school again on the 2nd and my family are too far away.

It makes me feel that all my efforts to overcome this depression are just a waste of time. I might as well drink, eat crap, lay down and die. She'll kill me sooner or later so I might as well stop struggling and adding to the difficulty.