Posted by dazedandconfused on September 21, 2004, at 18:18:57
In reply to Guilt and contributions in marriage, posted by Racer on September 20, 2004, at 12:55:38
What a fantastic thread! I echo many of the sentiments of the others. Please don't beat yourself up. My therapist calls it flogging yourself...and I am a world champ. I have not worked in almost 5 years, and quite frankly, don't envision going back very soon. I was a highly functioning majorly depressed person, now I am a barely functioning dysthymic person.
I struggle with this to the extent that I really think I may have ADD. Coupled with a little obsessive compulisve personality disorder (If I can't do it right...I won't do it at all!). I feel busy all day, get nothing done. Get lost for hours on Psychobabble. I do have motivation to go out and do things, and I enjoy doing things. But I tend to not go out and do much because I feel so guilty about what is left undone at home.
I have questioned whether or not I am just being lazy. But I honestly think if we were lazy, we wouldn't be so hard on ourselves and beat ourselves up.
Two things have helped me:
1. Flylady.net - hokey, but actually helpful
2. A cleaning person - Yes, I feel very fortunate to have a cleaning person come on occassion. I can honestly say it has been more helpful to me in some ways than therapy. Its really a cost-benefit analysis - I pay my therapist $100 hour and spend a great deal of time maligning myself about how little I get done and how I can't keep up with the pace of daily living, or spend $40 to have the place cleaned by someone else. From a strictly financial standpoint, it makes sense.
3. Realizing my job is to recover my health. My husband is a very understanding person (thank god!). Quite frankly, I am now a much more pleasant person to be around than when I was working a very stressful career. We both miss my income, but I try to remember that my health is my number one priorty because without it the other stuff doesn't seem to matter very much.Good luck!
dazed
poster:dazedandconfused
thread:393000
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20040917/msgs/393439.html