From thecannonballz: I hurt more often than not and nothing makes it go away.
I’m in my 40’s and I have a great kid and I have been in a relationship with a wonder woman for over 3 years now. I have a home business that has steadily grown over the last several years. I finally moved into a great house last year that is everything I need from a home at this point in my life. “On paper” everything should feel great.
Last year I spent fighting my ex in family court which was utterly soul crushing. The last six months I’ve been dealing with a new neighbor from hell. I can’t catch up financially and am in debt and just can’t seem to catch up. I have no friends in the state I live in, only long distance and we barely have time together because of conflicting schedules. I haven’t seen my parents since before the pandemic because I can’t offord the time or money to travel out of state and they keep making excuses not to visit me and my daughter. I only get to see the two people I love the most, my daughter and girlfriend a handful of days a week.
I constantly have to work to stay remotely afloat financially(and still get behind most of the time) and when I take any of my time alone to decompress I can’t relax because I’m either missing one of my favorite people, or feeling guilty and stressing over the fact “I could be/should be working more right now,” despite knowing I should have down time.
Over the last year I’ve worked with my very patient doctor to find a medication to help with any depression/anxiety. Unfortunately we’ve come to the conclusion that with the side effects I’ve had being significantly worse than the original issues the meds were treating, meds aren’t going to work for me, and we basically ran out of options. The only thing that helps is my ADHD meds.
I think that it is definitely a great thing to have the daughter and girlfriend you have in your life. I can relate to feeling guilty when not working, and not doing the things I want to do, because of the feeling of the things that I know I need to do. I am not sure an answer to how to help relieve these feelings, but I do relate to them. Since I do not have the context of what your home business is, or what all it encompasses. Is there any way that you could also have personal time with the people you care about, while still doing some of your work. So that you can have more time with your loved ones, but still get stuff done?
I hope that you can have enough success to be a bit more free from the financial stress you are in, but I think its completely valid to feel pressure, and stress from this. Which I can only assume adds to the pressure and thoughts of what you should be working on, instead of decompressing. I only feel completely relaxed when I am entirely caught up on stuff. Which usually only happens when I am nearly ready for bed. It’s a very hard situation to find balance in, and I wish I also knew better answers for how to separate my work and personal life enough to actually be present in my decompression time more. But I will read and respond to posts about it, regardless of if I have the answers. I think sometimes just getting it out and talking about it can bring a lot of relief.
I am someone who has been on tons of medications of multiple kinds for my mental/physical health. 10+ years of “clinical experimentation” from psychiatrist to find what works for me. I have over time come to the conclusion that, for me anyways, medication is only a tool, and that there is still a lot of underlying work to my personality/perspective/coping strategies… and so on that I need to do. To truly get to the point where I can feel wellness more often. I am not sure what type of Dr. it is that you are currently interacting with, but I have found that the greatest success/changes, in my journey of mental health recovery, have come from the mental health professionals that don’t prescribe me medication. Such as the good interactions with counselors/therapists/psychologist that I have had. I have also had my fair share of bad experiences in searching for the right professionals, but once I find the ones that are right for me, I experience much more growth then I do from just medication.
It’s unfortunate that your friends and family are long distance. I’m sure that is not helping the overworked situation you are in the midst of. When you do connect with them, how do you do it? Have you tried facetiming people? or getting in a video call?
I’m sorry to hear about some of the things you are currently struggling with. However, I am also happy to hear about some of the positive things in your life as well. Though I do understand how sometimes when so many things seem to be going wrong all at once it can be overpowering. I too have multiple long distance friendships and am currently in a long distance relationship. So I can relate to the feeling of loneliness that can occur and the desire for wanting to be able to see and be with them more.
To touch a little bit on what you expressed regarding your alone time. This is a feeling that I experience as well. I find it helps me when I encourage myself to rest because, not resting will impact my health negatively, and if my health declines…I’ll get even less work done than if I had just relaxed. I also try to spend my downtime with others. I’m not quite sure what your working situation allows you to do, but if you are capable, maybe the use of video streaming apps such as Rave can help to spend some time with your girlfriend and daughter even when you are away from them.
Thank you for reaching out for support. I am rooting for you and I hope that this load starts to lighten for you soon.
I am sorry to hear about all the overwhelming things you are experiencing right now. It seems like you’ve got a lot on your plate, and I have no doubt it must be tough to deal with. I am proud of you for pushing through everything though! All I can say is I think everything is a matter of perspective. I know, it’s a simple saying, but remembering this has personally helped me through much of my hardships. There will always be something positive to turn to and outshine the negativity one may be going through. You’ve listed many great things such as wonderful people in your life, and I think practicing shifting your attention towards them may be helpful when everything else gets to be a bit too much. I don’t doubt that you already think about them lots, but just trying to catch yourself in difficult times and turning towards what you are grateful for will, with time, make that act more automatic. It might not be much, but it is something that has helped me through many situations, alleviated much of my distress, and has become a more innate part of me. Perhaps it may be of some use to you. I truly wish you and your family the best, and please feel free to reach out again for anything and everything<3