A random stream of consciousness - apologies in advance!

SootySweep1

Hi

I just wanted to mention that there is an online service called Together All that offers online anonymous support & an opportunity to talk anonymously to other people that are feeling the same as you & your wife. It can help you process your thoughts & feelings & help put them into some order rather than overwhelm you. There may be other services that you can access in your area without a referral from your GP.
As others have said you're handling so many things at the moment its no wonder that you're feeling overwhelmed. I don't think you're silly I think you're very brave admitting & facing how you feel.
In terms of the children are there any holiday clubs locally that you could consider ? They were a godsend when my children were younger !
Enjoy your holiday !

Jen

maurice28

Hello all - just wanted to say thank you again to everyone who replied to this. I find it mildly unsatisfying when threads disappear without any update or resolution so thought I'd revisit this one four months on - not sure if anyone will find it of interest or not, maybe it's a just a way for me to look back in the future and track my feelings!

The caveat from my initial post remains - life is good. The kids are back at school and thriving, my work is going well and we all have our health (touch wood!). 

The main cause of stress currently is the extension, which I mentioned in the my initial post. It's pretty much done, and we are due to have a new kitchen fitted in a couple of weeks. All is in place but there's a lot of moving parts to chase up and plan and over the past six months, it has certainly taken a toll! Our electrician doesn't always help by not being the most reliable in turning up and we absolutely need him to next Monday to sort things for the kitchen, so nervously waiting until then! 

Anyway, I feel on edge about it all but of course, being able to afford an extension and new kitchen during a cost of living crisis makes us extremely lucky, and I try not to lose sight of that! It is also making my wife anxious, but we are trying to focus on the positives!

My mum has also been through a recent period of bad anxiety, which also took a toll. She was undergoing some medication changes (she has suffered with anxiety for a while) so almost daily she was on the phone to me in tears but seems much better now.

Anyway, no real purpose to this post except to just jot down some feelings. How is everyone else doing?

Jude57

maurice28 said:

Hello all - just wanted to say thank you again to everyone who replied to this. I find it mildly unsatisfying when threads disappear without any update or resolution so thought I'd revisit this one four months on - not sure if anyone will find it of interest or not, maybe it's a just a way for me to look back in the future and track my feelings!

The caveat from my initial post remains - life is good. The kids are back at school and thriving, my work is going well and we all have our health (touch wood!). 

The main cause of stress currently is the extension, which I mentioned in the my initial post. It's pretty much done, and we are due to have a new kitchen fitted in a couple of weeks. All is in place but there's a lot of moving parts to chase up and plan and over the past six months, it has certainly taken a toll! Our electrician doesn't always help by not being the most reliable in turning up and we absolutely need him to next Monday to sort things for the kitchen, so nervously waiting until then! 

Anyway, I feel on edge about it all but of course, being able to afford an extension and new kitchen during a cost of living crisis makes us extremely lucky, and I try not to lose sight of that! It is also making my wife anxious, but we are trying to focus on the positives!

My mum has also been through a recent period of bad anxiety, which also took a toll. She was undergoing some medication changes (she has suffered with anxiety for a while) so almost daily she was on the phone to me in tears but seems much better now.

Anyway, no real purpose to this post except to just jot down some feelings. How is everyone else doing?

Good to hear from you, Maurice, thank you for updating. It sounds as though the practical issues you've been dealing with on the extension are almost resolved and fingers crossed your electrician turns up as promised.

I'm glad to hear your wife recovered from her illness, it's hard enough coping with building work when you're physically fit. And it's good to hear that your Mum is adjusting to her new medication so positively. 

I'm guessing that you haven't sought any help for your own stress and anxiety? That has to be your decision but it could really help give you coping strategies which could support you in dealing with your wife's anxiety. Unfortunately, once we get into an anxiety mindset, it's often very difficult to see that we need help and then there's the embarrassment we feel that, with all the material advantages we may have, we're still anxious, as though we have no right to our valid feelings. I don't think your wife will change her mind about seeking help for her issues but please don't let that stop you. If you have a few sessions with a qualified counsellor and don't find it helpful, you've lost nothing really, but you might find it really does help, if only to give you a real world safety valve.

Very best wishes to you and your family. 

HRH_MUngo

Roxburgh_rose said:

Hey there from a fellow generally laid back and resilient one. I don't think any of this sounds silly. It does seem as though you have a generally great and happy life but you have some really big issues to deal with at the moment that you'll know, certainly in the case of your dad, will need more input from you at some stage.

If you're anything like me, the big things, your wife's anxiety, your dad's dementia are things you HAVE to deal with, so you do. But somehow in doing that, some of the small things become overwhelming. As an example, I had a pretty rubbish year in which I had to move my mum into residential care, clear and sell her house, had my husband up and leave, clear and sell my own house and find somewhere new, all topped off with mum dying after which I to make arrangements, manage all the paperwork, execute her will, distribute the bequest...you know, all that stuff. Somehow that was all dealable with, probably because everything came one after the other and there just wasn't time to think or dwell.

The thing that got me sobbing - at some point after everything was all 'sorted' the hoover blew up and then the piece of comfort toast I made to get over it split apart when I buttered it. I was an absolute blubbering wreck for hours - no exaggeration.

Obviously it wasn't the hoover or the toast, I think it was finally, subconsciously, giving in to the crapness of all the other stuff. I had a good think about everything, realised I'd actually dealt with an enormous amount and 'gave myself permission' (I think the expression is) to be really really flippin' upset about it. 

Give yourself a break. You're dealing with a lots at the moment. You are managing the important things and to keep doing that your mind is focussing on the wee niggles. Let it do that, have a good sob, have a good scream (somewhere you'll not terrify anyone) and on no account try buttering any toast!  

I agree absolutely with this post.  I too am usually the laid back and resilient one.  I agree that we deal with the big things because we have no choice and then the little things like shoes being left in the sitting room really get to you if you are feeling in any way 'low' yourself.

Give yourself permission to be sad and cry, you have a lot to deal with and, just like your physical body reacts to negative stimuli, so does your mental state.

Find yourself something you like to do and take yourself off for  a few hours.  I'm sure your family/work can manage without you for that long.

I would also try to get your wife to see the GP.  It's not fair of her  to not do anything about it and then expect you to be upbeat all the time.

Enjoy your toast

maurice28

Hi all – it seems like this has become an unofficial diary of sorts, if you can call it a diary if you only update every four months. 

Things are, it’s fair to say, a mixed bag. On the plus side, the extension is done! Finally no more building work, no more planning and solution finding and pushing things through. Now we can actually enjoy the space and it’s already making a positive difference to family life. 

But as one stress passes, others come more to the fore and honestly, I don’t think I’m handling these all that well. First, my father’s dementia. Overall, it’s actually quite under control – he takes medication which are keeping things fairly stable. He will forget words, and lose his train of thought mid-sentence and is sometimes withdrawn a little during social occasions, but on the whole things could be a lot worse. 

And yet, you can see it frustrates him when he loses his train of thought. He has less patience, and is also suffering with a few other things for which he is receiving treatment. He has macular degeneration which affects his vision – he is currently receiving regular injections for this. It had got fairly advanced by the time he flagged it as an issue – apparently if he had gone earlier they could potentially have made it better, now the treatment is just to stop it getting worse. He also suffers from dizziness and is prone to almost losing his balance – the doctors are investigating if this is blood pressure related or something else. 

Now the guilt – I don’t think I spend enough time with my parents. Part of it is having so much of my time taken up with other things – work, my own family, the kids having clubs almost every weeknight and half of the weekend. Yet if I’m brutally honest with myself, I don’t push myself to see them as much as I should because, although things could be a lot worse, it upsets me to see dad changing. 

He has always had a love of computing since the early 90s, and we had a PC in the house for as long as I remember. He was an expert for so long and the reason I developed an interest and literacy in technology – he would be the one to fix any PC issues I had and would even build them for me. Now, needs help with even the simplest of tasks, such as resetting the internet router or connecting the Sky box to the TV. It seems silly, but it’s one of the changes that has affected me the most. I’m happy to help with anything they need and regardless of any dementia diagnosis, parents need more support as they get older of course, but I don’t know, I feel guilty that I’m not doing enough and I’ll regret it later. 

But another large area of discontent is my wife. I mentioned previously she is anxious but does not want to investigate any kind of help. This is another area where I feel I’m handling things all wrong. 

Over Christmas, she was feeling anxious. At its worst, it’s anxiousness about ‘everything’ – an all consuming negativity about everything and not always with a specific cause. We’ve talked about this previously and one of the things I suggested was talking to the GP or someone else but it was shut down, as I’ve mentioned in another post – “not even if I directly asked her to” was the response.

During the Christmas break when we talking about it she was saying she was doing everything to cope with it and I, probably not kindly enough, said that I didn’t think she was doing everything and wasn’t sure she was really trying anything. 

I regret saying it, especially as she took it badly and has now taken it to mean I don’t care she feels this way and won’t really talk to me about it in a meaningful way any more. 

We are currently going through another period of anxiety – she has said she knows she is ‘overreacting’ to things but can’t help it. It manifests itself in bad temper, snapping and periods where it feels I can’t do anything right. This has been going on for a week or so, and there’s a distance between us and I’m more and more at a loss about what to do. It feels like it is starting to be a bigger issue and, as much as I dislike the fact, I’m losing patience and starting to think in a more selfish way ‘but what about me?’ 

I’m sorry for such a wall of text. I don’t really have anyone else to speak to in a meaningful way about this so it helps to put this down, particularly the thoughts and feelings I’m not proud of. I have registered for the Employee Assistance Programme at work and am just waiting for that to progress and I think I’d benefit from speaking to someone for my own benefit. 

Again, not expecting any kind of response to this, but just putting it down has helped a little!

Savvy_Sue

Hard to know how to respond, but with your wife, would it help to write something down, where you explain that you love her, and want her to feel well etc.?

RAS

maurice28

I wouldn't suggest love-bombing, but do you know what actions your wife finds affirming? Buy me the cheapest bunch of daffs, and I find it a lot easier to hear difficult news. Gold jewellery and I know you don't know me.

So what are her good triggers? Hopefully not bullion.

Make a point of using a good trigger regularly, and occasionally tuck in some difficult news. She may find it easier to hear you.

cjdew

Exercise personally was brilliant for me with keeping anxiety in check. Is it something you could do together? Anything from a run to a gym class.

It really does help release, control, alleviate it.