Dealing with stress / anxiety / depression

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

First, best of luck with the eye issue. IME, eye issues are rather inherently scary.

I don’t have a lot to offer that hasn’t been thoughtfully and compassionately offered already, but will endorse the notions of meditation and exercise.

Nothing has ever been better for my overall well being than exercise – tilted heavily toward aerobic stuff (running, cycling, etc.), but I did get more into strength training and yoga as time marched on and my body requested some concessions.

I also had to leave work abruptly (disability). After a 24/7, high-intensity career, I was worried about the sudden stop. I spent ten days at a Vipassana course, and then the next two weeks at a Buddhist monastery.

I think the benefits, for me, were huge.

Did I become a ‘skilled’ meditator? No. Did I develop a lifelong practice that has stayed with me and nurtured me every day since? No.

But I got another arrow in my quiver, and I still reach for it rather frequently.

My health dictates that my exercise options are woefully limited now. I feel the distinct difference for what I can no longer do. Now, I manage by brute force. It’s … suboptimal.

With life and job and family, not everybody can regularly do any kind of exercise they want, but if you can find something that you enjoy – particularly if there are minimal barriers to entry (eg, running is generally just ‘lace up your shoes and go’) – it may pay big dividends.

And if things like exercise and meditation aren’t already habitual for you, if you can manage the discipline to keep at either/both for a while, they may very well become habitual.

Good luck with all of it. I suspect your OP resonated with lots of us to some degree.

22

This was me when I had two little kids at home and working a demanding job. I’d get home from work and my wife needed a break and just handed the kids over to me. Never got a break myself. I was heavy and unhappy and got no exercise. I look at pictures of me from that time and it was a low point for my health.

My neighbor and I started bicycling occasionally on the weekends, and then started going in the early morning before work, sometimes in the dark with headlights. For me it was time before the family woke up and when I was “needed”, and for my neighbor he was escaping his future ex-wife. Having a buddy was a motivator. I carved out some time from the day just for me, for self-care. And being a morning person anyway it worked, and enabled me to start a healthy excercise routine to feel better both physically and mentally. You dont need a bike, just walking daily for 30-60 minutes can help, too.

23

Thank you. I saw a retina specialist yesterday. I have a minor retinal occlusion that he doesn’t think needs surgery and should hopefully clear up on its own.

But it’s still affecting my vision in my right eye. While it’s manageable, it’s still scary and frustrating. What if it doesn’t get better? What if it gets worse? What if there is some underlying health problem that’s causing it? So on and so forth.

It’s actually a good metaphor for most aspects of my life - career, marriage, children, relationships. Like everything seems ok but I see something is slightly off that I can’t put my finger on. At some point that “offness” becomes all I see and all I can focus on.

24

Doesn’t this already have the seed of an approach in it? You don’t know what you want (only what you don’t want), you are focusing on stuff that makes you feel bad and you are asking yourself stupid questions.
What you focus on you get more of and which questions you ask determines what you focus on.
And yes, you have control over which questions to ask yourself or find answers for. It’s just practice.
So, if you wanted to use ChatGPT, prompt it to help you to determine what it is you want and help you figure out useful/empowering/positive questions, so you can (hopefully) practice noticing more useful answers than you are getting at the moment.
If you are still bothered by the negative questions you are asking yourself out of habit, write them down. That way you can tell yourself that you have dealt with them and you won’t have to continue having them running around in your head.

25

I guess mostly is the realization that what you want or wish for isn’t even among the priorities.
that’s what suffocates you sometimes. Don’t ignore it, do something for yourself and involve your partner in it, no one survives alone.

26

You describe your perception of your life, your family, your job, etc. from the perspective of the inside looking out, i.e. you see your life situation through the lens of your inner feelings. How we perceive the world around us is, strictly speaking, a projection of our inner emotional world outwards into our environment. In other words, if our inner feelings are good, the outside world looks good, we feel good on the inside and then project this on the outside. The same applies in reverse: you don’t feel well inside and see your environment through these glasses.
The approach here would be to find out where the problem lies within yourself. Depressed, sad moods are common in mid-life, you might have the feeling that you have passed your zenith, that nothing new or important is coming. As already described in another post, it can be very helpful to get closer to the reason for this sadness and anxiety through contemplation or meditation. This should be done under the guidance of an experienced meditator; without prior experience, it is not easy to do on your own. Talking therapy can support this, writing down your feelings is also a help, you put the burden on the outside and feel lighter. A temporary retreat from everyday life, job and family such as a meditation retreat, can be very helpful.

27

My mom had this happen a couple years ago, caught by a vigilant optometrist during a routine exam.

The only problem she experienced was the worry. Your odds are pretty good for a totally favorable outcome. If your retinal specialist isn’t worried, try not to worry too much either.

Yeah. I know. Easier said than done…

28

Something like that.

I think it’s the feeling that what I want or wish for is either being taken away or made unavailable to me. I don’t mean material stuff, other than our home. Or maybe fear of not being able to adapt to those sort of changes, since that’s part of life. Or possibly fear of not being “good enough” to achieve those things I want or wish for myself and my family.

I have some more thoughts on the matter…

29

Yeah I understand that.
I suggest starting with small things you want to do or have and spread across different weeks, don’t try to do it all within a small period of time. it should give you some comfort and a sense of achievement.

30

Do you live a cluttered life?
Is home a refuge or a place to dread?

Are kids succeeding in school and doing well at home? Healthy?

Is wife employed or happy in her life.

Parents alive and healthy?

All these things and more can break a spirit, if not going well.

Clean up the edges first. Work your way into the center. Cleaning and purging as you must. Same way you clean a sink. Clean up your psyche.

Good luck. Feel better soon.

31

Our homes used to be places of refuge but now they are places of dread. We actually maintain two homes which is a source of frustration as my wife unilaterally bought a second home down the street from her parents out in the country about 90 minutes from the city where we have a condo.

When we go to the country, we have space but it’s quiet and boring and lonely. Even when the neighbors invite us over for “movie night” with the kids, it’s always just me and the kids. The only people my wife wants to socialize with are her elderly relatives and they are around CONSTANTLY.

And both places are always cluttered. And any attempt by me to straighten up leads to a fight.

Are kids do ok at school, but it always feels like a struggle. My son (age 10) is on the autism spectrum and doesn’t really have any interests outside Lego and Fortnite. He plays some sports (mostly at my wife’s forcing him) but he’s not very good, which is ok. He doesn’t really socialize with kids his own age outside of online videogame play where he has a few online friends. But he’s a nice, thoughtful, and curious kid who is just a bit odd so I worry about him.

We think there might be something with my daughter (age 8). She social and high energy but is constantly butting heads with my wife about anything you can think of.

My Dad is in his 80s and seems to be living his best life (my mom passed away 10 years ago soon after my son was born).

My wife’s family is all alive and also in their 80s but in various constant states of terrible health. Which I’m sure causes stress for her and is part of her compulsion to spend so much time with them.

And no, I don’t think my wife is happy in her life. She works constantly probably as a compulsion to make this “perfect” life in her mind. She never “shuts off” so she’s either working or pushing the kids at school or sports. Rarely do we seem to actually enjoy anything as a married couple. It’s more like two co-project managers running a project.

And me? I went to my doctor over lunch yesterday to get some blood work done related to my eye issue. My blood pressure was so high they put me on an EKG and sent me to the hospital. After some tests they released me and the good news there appears to be nothing wrong with me other than my blood pressure (which is likely the cause of the retinal occlusion).

So I think the plan is to get myself a home blood pressure kit (they’re pretty cheap). Take some readings over the next week and follow up with my primary care doctor for how to get my blood pressure down and manage my streess before my next appointment with the eye doctor in a few weeks.

32

Out of the many professional development workshops/seminars/presentations I have attended, maybe the best one was on the subject of stress. Stress is a reality of life, but how you approach it can make all the difference in the world.

Unhealthy Approach - You are a dot inside a very large circle. That circle is full of things that produce stress for one reason or another. If you let the contents of that entire circle stress you personally and be constantly on your mind, you will probably die an early death because sustained stress is truly a killer.

Healthy Approach - You are a dot inside a very large circle. That circle is full of things that produce stress for one reason or another. However, inside your own mind, you create a much smaller circle that contains the dot that is you. The big circle contains anything and everything you find worrisome, but the much smaller circle contains only the things THAT YOU CAN DIRECTLY AFFECT AND CHANGE!

For example, if you are concerned about job security, you can widen your skill base and desirability as a potential employee and update your resume. If you are concerned about your health, you can implement an exercise regimen that is suitable to your lifestyle and implement a diet that is healthier for your body. That is inner circle stuff because you can affect it, and it is less stressful stuff for exactly the same reason.

This is outer circle stuff. Outside of voting and supporting the people you believe will be good for the nation, there is nothing else you can do. I could list example after example of outer circle stuff that represents things you cannot affect and, because of that, are very stressful if you allow it.

If you can discipline your mind to create and stay within the much smaller circle, it will have a definite effect on how much stress you are feeling.

33

One thing I’ve recommended to a friend is low level tragus stimulation.

The sympathetic nervous system controls the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. The parasympathetic nervous system counteracts it and controls the rest and digest response.
There is a branch of the vagus nerve that runs through a part of the ear called the tragus. If you use a TENS unit with earclips attached to the tragus, it activates the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system.

If you do use it, make sure you pick a low setting. TENS units are painful if you turn them up too high.

But when I use it, it makes me sleepy and relaxed. Other people said they got the same response. Its being looked at for a treatment for borderline personality disorder, PTSD, anxiety, depression, POTS.

34

I don’t know. I think those might be good techniques for reducing stress from more abstract external stuff like the economy or politics or dealing with specific stressful events.

I would describe the feeling I have as closer to being trapped inside the circle and being crushed by it.

35

IDK, man, if my life with my spouse and kids were like this I’d be depressed too. Is marriage counseling something that your wife would be open to?

36

I think the benefit you could find from therapy is that a therapist does want to hear you bitch about your life so if you can’t talk about it easily with your friends and family, a therapist is who you can talk to. It’s very helpful just to get it out there.

37

I feel stressed just reading about the multiple stresses in your life, and strongly second the suggestion to talk to a therapist.

If you haven’t found therapy helpful, it could be, as @ThelmaLou and @DocCathode say above, because there are unhelpful therapists out there. But a good one can make you feel like someone has your back and you don’t have to deal with all the stress alone.

If it feels like too much to go out and find someone, especially with your commute and two-home situation, there are more and more remote / video therapists nowadays.
Here’s a couple of sites with recommendations. Good luck!

38

I love tele-therapy! It is all the benefits of therapy without my having to spend time and money going to an office. I also needed a regular weekly appointment that was not during my work hours. That was not a problem and I have my tele-therapy Mondays at 7 pm.

39

This bit is very well said by both of you …

But …

IMO…

There is a difference between being inappropriately miserable in otherwise benign situations, and being appropriately miserable in miserable situations. Therapy is great for the former. And does next to nothing in the latter.

The latter situation can only be corrected by changing the situation. I often comment that many (fake of course) letters to Dear Abby amount to

Hi Abby. I have this, that, and this other problem in my life. I cannot change any of them because reasons. How do I solve all my problems?

The OP is married to a difficult person and has difficult in-laws. And has difficult kids. And maybe live in superficially luxo conditions, but those living arrangements too have major difficulties built in that give the OP struggle.

At some point each of us has to decide whether our life is meant to be a lousy unfulfilling experience in the service of sorta-improving a few other people’s lives, OR our life is meant to be lived for its satisfaction to ourselves.

I am not advocating mere shallow selfish hedonism. We are social creatures and derive benefit from good relationships with other good people.

After my first wife died I too-quickly married somebody else. partly to be of service to her as I had been to my long-failing late wife, but also with the expectation that the gift of service was going to be reciprocated in ways my late wife simply was unable to do.

What happened instead was that from my POV my gifts were not reciprocated hardly at all. Nor did she see any problem with that. After 2 years of dead-ended conversations and no changes I eventually decided I was done and separated. One of my main statements to her was “I have no desire to hurt you. But I’ve got to stop hurting me.”

The OP’s wife is certainly economically more than self-sufficient. The kids are a tougher problem. But if the OP finds his wife isolating him from the kids, what he’s giving up may be a lot smaller from the kids’ POVs than he presently realizes.

I think this formulation has a lot of applicability to a lot of people made miserable by their situations:

I have no desire to hurt you. But I’ve got to stop hurting me.

40

Merits being embroidered on pillows, t shirts, hats, phone wallpaper, etc.