Rotten day at the office

[whirlygirly]

Struggling a bit at the moment. I have a high pressure job - 32 hours a week - and am a single mum with dcs now at 2 different schools. I get home from work and it's immediately on to cleaning, homework, cooking etc. One dc in particular needs a lot of support.

I just feel like my brain is going to explode. I've been doing this 5 years now but have recently taken on more responsibility at work which I think I may need to hand back. I'm just too shattered to be any use to the dcs.

It's such a tough one - if I don't progress in my career now, I'll be stuffed financially when I lose my maintenance. I want to work but am so worried about the cost it comes at.

That sounds tough. In your shoes I would probably try to ride it out for the long term plan. How old are your DC?

It may be that with time, the new responsibilities become easier to handle as you grow in the role and become more confident.

However, only you know if you can go on. For what it's worth you sound like you are doing amazingly.

Thank you, that's lovely of you to say.

Dcs are year 7 and 4. We've had the transition to secondary to manage for the eldest.

I've previously loved my job but am considered the go-to person for lots of different things without a great deal of support. It's very like being at home! I have an extremely demanding boss (think the devil meets Prada) and have to handle her too. She's been particularly bad this week.

I do agree riding it out is probably the way but nearly lost the plot yesterday when she was yelling at me for something utterly ridiculous. The temptation to tell her to stick it starts to make me twitch

Heading exploding doesn't sound good! Are you well? Sleeping? Whilst you need the job and sticking with it makes sense it cannot sure be at the expense of your health. Perhaps you need a bit of breathing space to reevaluate and decide on an exit strategy or just get your head together.

I'm waking up at night a lot. I feel like I'm a bit of a stressed out harridan and am trying to be calmer with the dcs as I realised they were reflecting it back at me.
My boss pulled me aside today and said she realised I'd had a bad week and was planning to try and help me. So that's progress. I have a lot of tricky characters to manage and I think the balance between leading them, managing my own workload and sorting the dcs just gets a bit much at times.

I need to get some rest, fresh air and exercise I think. It will pass.

To be honest, I think you may well regret it later if you pull back on the job now. You certainly seem calmer in your most recent post

Instead of reducing responsibility / money at work, can you look at outsourcing some of the tasks at home instead? Can you pay a cleaner to come once a week to take care of the bigger housework tasks? Can you buy more ready prepared food so you're not spending as much time on cooking? At least these are easy things to throw money at now, then cut back when the children are less reliant on you x