Reality Check!

[bright sparks]

Wow I am so glad everyone is posting about this today! Glad because I am struggling with similar feelings. ( check my post in Torontokids thread). I too have to be careful with my mental health. I have never been diagnosed but know that I can slip into a depression where all I want to do is stay in bed all day for no apparent reason...and I am starting to feel very much that way lately. I am torn between going back to work and losing my independence or staying and being bored and bummed out. I feel that with daycare I WANT to do more but don't always have the energy/ creativity to come up with new things to do and even then, my group is so young it's not always worth it or difficult to come up with something age appropriate so the days become long especially lately with the cold....

But I do want to say thank you ladies for simply posting your own thoughts as it helps others out there like me suffering too!

With my PTSD chronic fatigue is my biggest roadblocks which sounds to me what you are describing. It is debilitating and is like a mental barrier to being able to function, sometimes even basic personal care and household chores can be the hardest task of the day. I am coming up to my 4th year anniversary of being in therapy. It's a taboo subject still I know, not like saying you went to the dentist or chiropractor. I chose to go to therapy as I got to the point where I couldn't move and over my dead body were my kids going to grow up with the memory of seeing mum have a nervous breakdown. It has helped tremendously but needless to say after a life of neglect and abuse it is not a quick process but I now manage my depression much better and have a greater handle on my PTSD and am working steadily, mostly, through it. When I get a wave of depression or go through a period of CF it is triggered by one of two things.PMS which is strongly linked with trauma and also the fact that I have endo so have a major hormone imbalance, or the job. I feel at this point my work is inhibiting my recovery. Intermittently I have to stop trauma therapy and work on day to day coping because my job has me trapped in a box. I use all my mental strength to lock all this baggage down so I can give my best to the daycare kids, which I honestly do a great job at, but it doesn't take a genius to guess what happens whenever I am off the clock?? I crash and burn, and as time goes on it happens more and more often and the harder I fall. Since September I dropped to M-Th and that has helped so much. I also take about 4-5 weeks a year vacation plus every Thursday before a long weekend for that 5 day break. It is an absolute must that I do this.

I no longer put pressure on myself for programming. I do much better with a schedule and good planning so that's exactly what I do to save myself from boredom. This year I am now trying to put myself first before the kids. I have my policies and parents in check. But I do more for the kids than for myself and look where it has gotten me. For example, I always prided myself on providing organic non processed meals. Now I no longer buy organic although we still don't have processed foods or refined carbs, and I put less effort into their meals. They are still healthy but I am all about the freezer meals. Anything that frees up time and energy to make that healthy wholesome meal for ME!

I am human, not superwoman.