Just one thought from my couple of years of really enjoying all your posts here chicken lady – I feel like you’re a friend, in fact!
you always have a massive to do list. All of us are different, but if I had that it would depress me on a daily basis. Is there a way that you can change that and just live each day as it unfolds? Just do the things that are in front of you to do and forget about the long list?
I echo having some professional therapy. While I understand cost and travel, a professional can give you much needed tools that are right for you.
RE: Hubby: he can't give you what you need unless you give him direction on what you need. To get ready for that conversation, record a few of those scenarios that occurred recently. Write down what he did and how if affected you. Write down what you needed and how it would be most helpful to your wellness.
When you are ready, sit down with him to have the conversation based on "this is what I need from you to help me feel healthier and successful". It's not about him being wrong because in his eyes he was being helpful, it's about him helping you in a way that IS helpful for you.
I have two decades of therapy, two decades, I went to therapy from about age 20-40, not all the same therapist, two main ones but also tried others. And yes it's quite possible, in fact likely, they weren't very good! But that's a risk inherent in going to therapy. What I wouldn't give to have the money I spent instead probably.
But if you are going to therapy I would just do it to have someone to talk to. That's a real benefit in the now (and it either is or isn't or some benefit to helping you cope in the now) not a lot of promises. (oh and I'm not saying you don't have people to talk to now maybe, but it may not be enough).
Trees don't grow on money
Gardner, I basically did that the other night:
these are things I did that I feel good about.
this is why they were hard.
this is how you reacted when I told you.
because I don’t trust my judgement I need external feedback on my actions. I need you to recognize that it was hard for me and confirm that what I did was a genuine step forward, even if the action itself is not important to you. When I feel like this, it is very easy for me to assume that nothing I do matters, and if you react with indifference, it confirms that for me. Then maybe tomorrow I stay in bed all day, because who cares, it’s all the same.
he didn’t get it.
but then last night when I wasn’t doing well, I told him the things he was doing that were good and helpful, and that he was really good at “support” but not so much on “encouragement” and he heard me. But he still hasn’t responded to my note about my consignment appointment this morning. He is really busy at work though. And dd2 and ds both sent me a short cheer on the family message thread, so he knows i’m not being ignored.
anyway - right now i’m feeling pretty good - shots of adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin that I may pay for later.... but maybe not.
CL, sounds to me like you are missing your students and experiencing a kind of grieving.
OK, maybe that's projection: I am missing MY students! I retired a year ago, but I taught after school reading classes 4 days a week from Feb through May this year. It served to give my days structure (and pay that made it worth driving there), AND I also realized just how much I like having kids around me. Kids are different than adults; kids know they are busy working their way through their own learning and there is a kind of connecting in, then fading out, that allows me not to feel drained (I am an introvert), yet there is a kind of companionship in learning that I really enjoy.
This was a successful teaching experience in that I felt really complete with them at the end: they had achieved their goals and they knew it. And I was ready to let them go. But I miss them, I miss the companionship in learning together.
I have "always" had depression in mid June, and I always thought it was this end of school thing, grieving "losing" my students. But this year I ended in May, before Memorial Day, and I was fine for almost 3 weeks, then it hit me like a ton of bricks, depression like I have not had in many years, could barely get out of bed to let the dogs out.
So I had to sit back and really take stock- work was done, weather was glorious, no particularly heavy time commitments, wonderful just-right vacation plans... arg! What else happens in early/mid June? Then my daughter mentioned that while her friends were starting to make July 4th plans, she was starting to feel sad, because it is 20 years this July 4th since her grandmother died. All of a sudden, I realized I didn't know the date my Grandma died, called my mom and asked her--- Guess What? June 10. That is the exact day I couldn't get out of bed this year. It has often been the last day of school, and I have dragged myself through it, collapsing when it was done.
I called a friend who is a retired school psychologist and told her my story. I could "hear" her nodding her head on the phone. When I stopped talking she paused, then said, "yes. Cellular Memory." Huh? "Your body remembers, it's in your cells, even when your brain doesn't know, your body does... time of year, length of the day, weather... We see it in kids. My trainer uses it with the dogs."
Ah, now that made some sense. I am very connected to the natural world, and I did not get to really grieve my grandmother's death. I was still in school, had finals to take that would make or break college choices, my parents couldn't really afford to fly me to another state...
So I took my dogs and drove 2 hours out to the coast, sat on the beach in the fog and cried all afternoon. Next year I will plan a different June 10. For now, I am journaling about my grandparents everyday. We are at once complicated and simple beings.
I definitely miss my kids, graduation was especially hard this year. but I also needed a break from them - they lift me up and wear me out. The rest of my life was falling apart.
dh sent me a digital rose.
i got some cleaning and organizing done in my studio, and I think if I give it another half hour tomorrow I can actually do some clay work in there.
my friend came over and brought me half a gallon of blueberries from her yard (not the one I invited for next week who hasn’t answered yet, I actually have several friends. I last saw this one at Christmas time.) - I found her in my kitchen writing a note on a paper bag because the door was unlocked and she figured I was in the studio, and she didn’t want to come out and bother me.
i made dinner. It is done too early. Fortunately it is soup - aaand, between “for” and “tunately” dh called to say he is working late. So I guess we will just eat. (He left for work a little more than 12 hours ago.)
CL, many of us really care about you and wish you peace and happiness.
I get it, and I know that we need to respect the changes in our lives, seasons, and ups and downs.
I realized from reading the other posters that I just had my last kid move out, I ended the school year and am doing summer without any kids or staff I know, and then made a major move.
Dealing with pretty much daily depression for so long, but also being single and needing to get the basics done, I get how tiring it can be. But as others have pointed out you get a lot of things done.
Zoe Girl, you are doing ok. I have so many fewer responsibilities and so much more support than you do. I literally don’t have to make a living. If I never went back to work, we would have to make some changes, but none of them would be awful. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be trapped in the job you have, and I wish all the time that you would find something better.
Tammy, my “massive to do list” is in part an effort to not lose each day as it unfolds. If I don’t think through my day and plan what I want to accomplish, I will literally forget things and wander around doing what is in front of me. I am great at “in the moment.” I spent half my children’s childhoods terrified that I would get involved in something and forget to pick them up. I have missed events I wanted to attend because “I forgot it was Tuesday” (not that I forgot the event was Tuesday, I forgot that I was experiencing Tuesday.) I am not someone who can have food and clean underwear and live pets without planning to buy the food and do the wash and feed the pet. Without a todo list, I become a four year old. And not a four year old in a nice, well structured home - the kind who spends her day wearing half a costume, leaves her toys scattered throughout the house, eats nothing but a box of graham crackers, and falls asleep on the couch covered in crumbs and stained with red juice and then “has an accident” because she was so tired and forgot to go potty.
i write “make dh breakfast” on my list every day. If I need to shower, I write that too.
dh brought me real flowers when he got home last night. It makes me smile when I look at them.
Wishing you well.
(I see that you like flowers...)
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