Absolutely sick of being told 'don't get stressed'!

[Rangelife]

I've been a lone mother most of my DC's lives. I've not done a terrible job (DS1 is away at uni and doing well) but I've certainly not aced it either. Unfortunately my DC are pretty traumatised after witnessing me being physically abused and severely coercively controlled & financially abused in my marriage to the younger two's DC Dad.

To mitigate against this trauma I've set up my life to be pretty stressful in two ways. One, I work a lot of hours with a FT job and freelance on top to protect myself against financial vulnerability. Secondly, I take my second & third DC to school and pick them up X3 days a week. They hate the school bus. They say it's violent and risky and I suspect the shouting & unpredictability of it scares them. They are 16 & 12.

This week has been difficult, DS2 has bombed in his mocks, we've all been ill, had parents evening which was terrible for DS2 (year 11) and I've had two massive deadlines at work. I have been so stressed I scraped my car. My watch keeps beeping at me to calm down. I accept my life is stressful. Once the school run is out of my life and I've covered the amount the DC's need for HE/training I can take my foot off the peddle.

But I keep being told 'stop stressing'. By people in my life who have no responsibilities and who have managed their life so it isn't stressful (they are very clever, I salute them). DH said it this morning, he has no DC, stood there in his PJ's ready for a day WFH. Then got wounded when I pointed out it's impossible for me not to be stressed, my life is stressful and telling me not to be stressed is unhelpful. My DP's said it last night, both retired enjoying life on the coast. My boss said it. He's on over £150k a year and has a wife running his life at home. I can't unfeel a feeling can I? I feel stressed, it's a feeling. How on earth do I stop feeling a feeling? I'm so fed up of people telling me not to be stressed whilst watching me deal with lots of stressful stuff. I don't want help, I just want them to understand. I don't know why I'm writing this. I'm not being a martyr honestly, just trying to refrain from telling them to fuck off. How can I communicate to them that I'm accepting of being stressed and I can't really not feel it??

As a very stressed person myself, I absolutely get where you're coming from.
However, I've had to come to terms with a few things myself, because my stress was stressing everyone else out.

There's a difference between living a high-paced life, and being stressed.
There's a difference between feeling stressful emotions and projecting them all around you
There's a massive difference between managing/regulating your stress and putting a burden on your loved ones to do that for you.

Stress is not a situation you're in. It's an emotion. And emotions CAN be regulated. You can learn to still work as hard and carry as much, without the constant feeling of stress. Not to mention, it's incredibly bad for your physical and mental health to be chronically stressed.

And most stressful people will now automatically think: "I don't have time to learn to regulate my emotions."
That's the stress talking. It's absolutely not true. If I could learn, so can you. Did take me a bit of therapy though.

I know people that like being busy, in is in their nature since the day they were born to be busy and always on the move and it totally works for them

I also know people who live in a state of panic and are stressed but this is used as plaster, like people who smoke or go on a crazy fad diet maybe and they burn out it is not healthy and I couldn't imagine living in a house like that

Yes, you life is stressful, and yes, telling you to be less stressed is not helpful.

However, underneath this, people are trying to tell you something that you don't want to hear, probably driven by love, care or concern. Or just being fed up of having their heads bitten off!

A lot of stress is self-created. At the moment you're embracing it as part of your identity, no? Are you scared to slow down and stop, and thing about making changes? Are you aware of how it's impacting others?

I've been stressed, depressed, burnt out at various times and it's very hard to step off the treadmill. However I'm a better employee, wife and mother when I'm not stressed. Might that be what your boss and partner are trying to suggest - that it might be time to consider what could change for things to be less stressful? You've probably not got the energy or time to do the thinking that would enable you to do that, though. Would it be possible to take a week off work (self certify as sick) and do some resting and reflecting?

It is from a place of concern and I really appreciate that they care but just telling me not to feel it is provoking a discomfort in me I'm confused about. I understand why they are worried, I had a car accident last September where I was injured and wrote off my car so I know that my stress is causing tangible risks to my safety. It's my responsibility to manage that and my emotions and I don't tend to externalise but internalise so I'm not snapping (yet). That's definitely why the people closest to me are worried. But the two things that are stressing me out (the amount of work and the school run and my children's slow pace in the morning) I just have no idea how to change? They are my problem alone, I can't contract them out to anyone else and for the next 5 years I can't pass them on. It's just feels so overwhelming.

To me they are a problem that I just have to accept rather than change. Having to change myself once again (I've done shed loads of therapy due to my response to a childhood traumatic event and the DV) just seems really unfair 😭 like I once again have to do the work to make other people's lives easier. Why can't people just let me be stressed? Stress is not my identity - I have tools that I use to relieve stress (I walk up mountains or go for long walks, that's more my identity) but those tools take a chunk of time and when I don't have space to utilise those tools, immediately pointing out that I'm not managing stress and I need to work on that and I shouldn't be this way just makes me feel worse, it's another thing for me to feel like I'm failing at. I think that's what I'm upset about. It's just another responsibility for me to sort out. God, what a moan fest. You are all right, I need to go back and work on this. I just don't want to. But I will. Thank you everyone for being so gentle