Depression, self talk, and asking for what you need

[Tammy]

That’s a huge amount of work for one day.

You need to lower your expectations.

[Tammy]

Let’s compare days -

I slept til 8 cause this past week exhausted me. I ate breakfast. I cut my husbands hair. I swiffered the whole house. I washed dishes. We went out for dinner. I took a nap. Watched 3-4 episodes of Star Trek. Read a book. Took a bag of trash to the alley. Talked with my aunt on the phone cause her friend had surgery and she wanted to tell me all about it cause I’m a nurse.

That’s a normal day when I don’t work,

[Chicken lady]

I’m trying to get my head around that.

Is your house big? Were you really sitting down most of the day? What do you do when you work? (Do you sit down - or are you making rounds/in and out of exam rooms all day?). Do you have any goals? Hobbies? Projects? Is your house clean all the time?

I am confident I am not ADHD. The jury is still out on autism.

[Teacher Terry]

Most people don’t have a farm or lots of land to maintain so much of the work you do goes away. Our yard is mostly maintenance free with plants on automatic sprinklers and Astro-turf. Because of the lack of rain this is necessary. Cleaning inside is much faster since I got rid of my collections of dolls, Hummel, etc. Taking care of 3 dogs takes some time.

[Chicken lady]

So, if I didn’t have the farm, I would reallocate the time to something else - pottery, working on the dollhouse i’d like to get to some day....

but I can’t imagine not having some kind of garden to work in. I would hate that. The only time I didn’t have a garden was in college - and I actually used to stop and pull weeds in the park or on campus.

it is 9:00. Heartfamily is due any minute.

i have read the paper, consumed the coffee, made dh breakfast, packed lunch, done chores, tidied up, run a load of laundry, emptied the dishwasher, brought the Legos upstairs and put popovers in the oven.

i feel good today.

[Teacher Terry]

We do have a garden with automatic sprinklers of course. My son will come over and pick what is ripe during the 5 weeks we are gone. DH does the garden because it is not my thing.

[Tybee]

Reading over this thread again, CL, it sounds to me like you are experiencing distress because your activities do not always meet your needs, and you are feeling some conflict between "must-do" (possibly defined by others) and "want to do" (self-define.)

I am thinking maybe more goats and less cleaning house, for a quick example of what might make you happier? More pottery, less pots and pans?

So what would your ideal day look like?

[Tammy]

I’m a nurse manager. About 150 people report to me. I run my butt off during the week. Yes I sat down much of the day that was my used as my example. Rest is a good thing.

[Tammy]

My house is 950 sq ft. Our outdoor area is a city lot typical sized, with as mush shaded sitting area outside as inside. My house is usually very clean. I wash dishes by hand - no dishwasher which doesn’t bother me at all. My hobbies are riding bike and reading and Star Trek and grandkids. I rest more in the summer cause it’s triple digits for 3 months in the desert.

[Tammy]

Having nothing on my to do list is glorious. But I usually have about 2-5 things to do each day at home. Pay a bill, check if deposit made it to an account, do a load of laundry, that sort of thing.

You do too much in my opinion. But then that’s just my opinion.