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Not holding it together right now (very long)

73 replies

foundintranslation · 01/04/2006 02:23

Feeing Depressed is the wrong topic, I'm not depressed, I don't feel depressed, I'm usually fine, buoyant and sorted. I'm just such a mess tonight. Won't bother changing my name.
ds is 10 months old. He's never slept through, not that I'm aiming for it, he wakes between 2 and 6 times a night and cries immediately, and I feed (bf) him, and I don't mind, I work and I don't want to give up the feeding, the closeness, something that is exclusively mine and not dh's. And we had a real struggle stablishing bf, and I love it. He is such a light sleeper and wakes at the slightest thing. There is no way to keep him away from noise as we live in a one-bed flat, bedroom right next to living room. We don't get him off to bed/sleep until between 9.30 and 10. Again, usually I can live with this (it seems to be just the way he is, he needs relatively little sleep, he's perfectly fit and healthy, developing like a dream). He was asleep, I went to bed, he woke, I fed him, laid him in his cot (next to our bed), I was just drifting off and dh, who has an obsession with airing the rooms, banged the balcony door shut, waking ds. We had a row, I cried buckets, am now feeding ds back to sleep, he does this awful thing where he arches his back and cries and he's been doing it again tonight and it's just so upsetting. I'm so scared the neighbous will have heard ds crying, me crying and saying 'stop it, ds, please' and think I'm hurting him :( I already find it very difficult at nights as I'm always haunted by an irrational fear that someone has told lies about me/us and ds will be taken away, or we will be arrested. In the daytime I don't have this as I'm too busy, but at night it always haunts me and means, however tired I am, I sometimes have to really pluck up my courage to go to bed.
I work ft and dh is a sahd and is supposed to be doing his doctorate. Because I'm a lecturer and we live very close to uni I can do a lot of my work at home and am very flexible in the timing of it. My contact runs out in a year (it won't be renewed, my boss had to fight tooth and nail to et me a year's extension, it's an admin decision) and after that I don't know what we'll do. I'm just trying to be both, a SAHM to ds (after all, I am around most of the time) and a WOHM, and be as good as I can, becuase I need to be good so I can get another job. last semester I would rush to classes then rush home to bf ds. dh is supposed to be applying for funding - if he got some I could probably go part-time for a while, assuming my next job is on a similar level -, but needs permanent kicks up the ar*e. I give him plenty of time for his work, but a lot of it he tbh fritters away - and it's NOT always my job to sort out his work time, he should be coming to me and saying 'II need this and this time then and then'. We are thinking of ttc again soon and I'm saving like mad to support a period in which I could stay at home, but again all of the initiative to comes from me. Because of the way his studies are and the job situation over here is he couldn't earn nearly as much as me atm and also the doctorate fits in best with what he's done so far (it's in a very specialised area he got passionate about and did loads on during his degree). He is really great in so many ways, wonderful with ds, great with housework etc, supportive, adores me, but there are some things he's just so ostrich-like on and he has a habit, which I find really hard to handle, of interpreting me wrongly, or over-interpreting, if I ever criticise him or something even a bit, which I almost see as an attempt to head the criticism off - for example, if I say he really needs to be getting down to his work, we've only a year before my job runs out etc he'll immediately say 'oh, I'll get a job' - meaning any old job, both in the way he means it and in practice due to the job market here, and he knows I don't want or even mean that - it's almost like he says these things so he doesn't have to engage with my point. I'm often unfair to him too, I know it. But I really do feel like I'm holding it all together, mapping out our future, and he just doesn't take this or indeed me seriously (he knows how scared I am that the doorbell will ring in the night, and yet he finds it funny - suggested that as an April fool's joke he'd go downstairs at night and ring the bell Angry). FWIW, I love him very much, and I could and would not contemplate leaving him. But how to get through to someone who can do such a good impression of a brick wall. I'm not like that; I'm very communicative and (over-?) engage with everything he or others say. Bu he never, ever, or very seldom, lets me know how he receives anything I tell him that I feel is not right between us.
And I do my best to support friends and other people and know I can't do enough, and there are a couple of MNers I've promised to do things for and I just haven't got round to it (if you're reading this - so sorry!). I wish I could be there more for other people, be wiser than I am, be of more use to them.
I am happy, I'm certain I don't have PND or similar, know how very very lucky I am and it's almost like I feel it's not my right, it's been too much luck, it's all going to go wrong. That's where the fear of being unjustly accused comes from, I think. I never seem to stop trying to hold it together, be good and better, be all things to all people. I've dealt with OCD and keep a firm lid on it usually, but occasionally it starts (as it were) crawling out of the bin. I always have a lot of energy and can usually deal with these things, but there are times I just can't, and I fail, and I don't have to, tonight I just let go far too easily.
This is hideously long, thanks for staying with it if you have :)

OP posts:
foundintranslation · 03/04/2006 11:40

Blush roosmum.
I'm sorry to hear about your dad. Do you still have contact with your mum? How long did it take you to get to the 'acceptance'/'getting-on-with-it' stage iyswim (where I thought I was at too)?
I do wonder why academic seems to be extreme for this kind of angst and self-doubt thing? Is it because of the extreme emphasis on 'talent' (for want of a better word)/'excellence'?

OP posts:
Ellbell · 03/04/2006 13:15

Yes, FIT, I think that there is so much emphasis on 'talent' and you are judged (or feel that you are judged) so much by what you produce... Have been quite unproductive recently, and am struggling with the notion that that makes me 'crap'. Don't think I am crap really... but could so easily fall into thinking that.

If you did your DPhil in less than 3 years I am full of admiration. I took Blush over 7 years...(oops, mistyped then and put 'over 87 years' - not quite, but it felt like it at times).

Will (virtually) wave at you from the Autobahn, as we'll be skirting Stuttgart, I think as we head south.

foundintranslation · 03/04/2006 13:17

Blush I was able to concentrate on it full time, which helped.

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roosmum · 03/04/2006 13:23

fit, yes my mum is fab (parents divorced), & realising that my dad's actually not a great person (sad but true) meant that not having contact with him hasn't troubled me too much tbh - that sounds callous, i'm not, but don't want to create hassle for myself either, iyswim.

academia - it's so damn competitive i guess, & so easy to imagine that other people are more gifted/harder working/plain luckier (!) than you - to the extent that (i at least) feel like 'what's the point'?! anyway, still Shock at your ultra fast phd, it's gonna take me ages, 4/5/more? (please no!) years?? i blame ds for that a bit tho Wink

foundintranslation · 04/04/2006 08:52

Glad your mum's great, roosmum. That must make all the difference.
I was just really lucky with the DPhil, to be able to concentrate on it full time (apart from stress with my parents and money hassles) - it was before children too. Also had great support and (tip alert!) wrote right from the beginning, so the writing was an ongoing process - it's easier ime than doing all the research and then finding oneself faced with a huge mountain of writing-up. It did mean I had enough material for 2 of the things at the end, and editing and cutting down was a horrendous process, but it's also a confidence booster to have actually written something at most stages. Of course there are some subjects where this isn't quite so easy.
Feeling better and calmer. Got a friend (actually one of my (mature) students, who's turned into a friend) coming at 10 - will be nice to sit and talk.

OP posts:
ItalianJob · 04/04/2006 08:56

don't underestimate yourself FIT! getting a PHD done in 3 years or less is a major achievement! Most of the people I was aware of doing PHDs had no domestic ties either!

Ellbell · 04/04/2006 12:47

Can you use some of the extraneous material to screw some additional publications out of it? (Don't believe in 'wasted words' myself!) In fact, did you ever do any more about finding a publisher for your thesis?

So glad you're feeling better. I hope things keep on improving for you. Keep getting those early nights!

foundintranslation · 05/04/2006 22:14

Ellbell - I didn't Blush I know, I know...
The thesis is in German, which means finding a publisher here. I would need to add a chapter as it's about a particular author and there's a work (which I didn't include in the thesis, not least due to the word limit) which would really need to be included in a book for over here.
Anyway, had a conversation today which has indirectly led to me doing a lot of thinking about all these things. Plus dh's department has potentially offered him a project. Will probably come on this thread and witter on at more or less regular intervals. :)

OP posts:
Ellbell · 05/04/2006 22:33

Aha, FIT... that's why I like my authors well dead (you can't get deader than 685 years!). They can't come back at you and write something else.

Which is worse... writing another chapter on the new work in German, or traslating the whole thing into English as you revise it for publication (which you'd probably need to do anyway... even if only minor revisions to make it less 'thesis-y')? Have a look \linnk{http://www.legenda.mhra.org.uk/\here} for a good ML publisher, based in Oxford. (They did my book, very efficiently... out soon!)

I'm off on holiday on Saturday and have a zillion things to do in the meantime, but will come back and chat soon. Meanwhile, stay positive, eh?

Ellbell · 05/04/2006 22:35

Oops, link went wrong... \link{http://www.legenda.mhra.org.uk/\Try again!}

foundintranslation · 06/04/2006 16:28

Thanks Ellbell... have a nice holiday Envy

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emkana · 06/04/2006 19:09

FIT, just curious really... which author is your thesis about?

foundintranslation · 06/04/2006 21:09

Heinrich von Kleist!

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emkana · 06/04/2006 23:03

Wow!
Which work did you leave out in your thesis?

ItalianJob · 07/04/2006 09:31

is that your PHD thesis your wrote in German Shock am seriously impressed if so!

Oliviab · 07/04/2006 11:50

Now you've perked up a little, why don't you print out your OP and show your DH how you were feeling? As long as you're feeling confident when you show him you'll be able to deal with any hurt feelings on his part in a kind and constructive way (though I don't think you wrote anything hurtful but they do tend to flip out and go hide for a while when told they're not perfect Grin.

milward · 07/04/2006 12:07

foundintranslation - hope you're ok. Reading your first post I feel you need a rest. A full nights sleep & then a day to do what you want with another full nights sleep after. I say this as I'm now sleeping at night since monday when after months of constant childcare day & night I told dh I couldn't cope any more doing it all. So now dh has been putting ds4 to bed & getting up in the night. Don't know how long he'll do this for but I just needed a rest to be able to function in the day. best wishes xxx

foundintranslation · 07/04/2006 17:18

em - Michael Kohlhaas, so only one of the major ones Grin
Thanks for more posts. Been out today with ds, at a library I help at [hi HF :) ) and taking a friend out to lunch. Am knackered, as it was an hour's public transport each way again (can you tell I live in the sticks? :) ), but not in a bad way. It's glorious weather and that really helps - spring is always a long time coming here. I feel a bit more balanced compared to last week, and part of that is having had a conversation this week which has indirectly led me to be having a lot of thoughts about what comes next for both me and dh job-wise - part of it is also definitely that things are moving a bit more with dh - he seems, at least for the time being, to have taken on board what I've said.

milward, I appreciate the thought but reckon I can forget the full night's sleep - I have been sleeping in a bit in the mornings this week, though (dh has been getting up with ds), which has also helped.

OP posts:
Hausfrau · 07/04/2006 17:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

foundintranslation · 07/04/2006 17:32

HF Blush Blush
So are you!

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Hausfrau · 07/04/2006 17:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

foundintranslation · 07/04/2006 17:47

You're lovely and seem very together!

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lionhearted · 07/04/2006 22:32

Glad you're feeling brighter, FIT.

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