Don’t forget my career, which also feels fucked.
As always, you puts things very well and succinctly.
msmith what has stood out to me from both this thread and your prior posts on the subject, is a growing feeling of resentment and a decrease of respect towards your wife. IMHO, experiencing either of those things is very difficult to overcome in order to have a healthy relationship. Both together makes it even more so. It takes real work (usually by both parties) to change these dynamics, and sticking your head in the sand and slogging along is just going to make everyone involved more and more miserable. Being tied to someone you resent and don’t respect is going to make anyone depressed and anxious.
To be clear, I am not advocating for a separation or divorce and a lot of issues can be worked through. But I do think you should consider what type of relationship you are modeling for your children - this is their blueprint for their future selves, and kids pick up on way more than anyone realizes. Don’t stay miserable “for the kids” - you are doing no one any favors.
One or two or three o’clock in the morning.
That’s when it hits me.
Put very well and succinctly.
The rest of your post that talks about about resentment rings very true. Once that corrosion cancer sets in it is very hard to eradicate.
Ultimately, if you resent who your spouse is as a personality that’s almost impossible to overcome. In late middle age they cannot become a different personality. They are (trying to) live their authentic life too. And have that right. Them in effect forcing you to live an inauthentic life to compensate sorta kinda but not really isn’t going to leave you as anything but a mess.
A lot of people have said very wise things. I started out my adult life with severe mental difficulties, including depression and anxiety, that at one point, required hospitalization. I thought that was going to be the rest of my life, forever. Over the last twenty-odd years I have worked very hard to get things together and have seen incremental progress that has resulted in me being both mentally stable and quite happy. So these are things that helped me.
Happiness, for me, is something I do. Or rather, a lot of things I do, on a regular basis. It isn’t therapy, or exercise, or medication, or good friends, or meditation, it’s all of those things. I realize that might sound overwhelming but I’m going to try to flip it around: There are always little things you can do, at any given moment, to nudge things in a slightly positive direction. It could be as simple as getting off the couch and getting a glass of water, or as difficult as making that phone call to a therapist. But since it all works together, there’s always something to choose from, and it doesn’t have to always be the same thing. I don’t always meditate, I don’t always remember my meds, I don’t always get enough sleep, but since I’m attacking things on multiple fronts, it all sort of hangs together for general well-being.
Lately I’ve been trying to ask myself, if I’m feeling overwhelmed in the moment: What can I do? Maybe working on this project feels impossible, or I wasted half the day, but when I ask myself, “What can I do?” There is always something.
Another point: Emerging research has shown that depression and anxiety are driven by rumination. CBT is an excellent evidence-based therapy but “classic” CBT where you refute your thoughts is starting to give way to a greater body of research that indicates it’s better not to even engage with your thoughts at all. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but: You are not required to think about any of this. If these problems could be solved by thinking about them, you would have figured it out by now. The best rule of thumb I’ve heard is give yourself ten minutes to think about something, and if you haven’t figured it out by the end of ten minutes, you’re probably ruminating.
So maybe give yourself a certain time of day, say a fifteen minute window of time each day, where you get to think about this stuff, and set it aside for the rest of the day. You WILL find yourself returning to your troubles, at which point you can pick something more useful or interesting to think about. Being able to stop the thought train and refocus on something else is a skill you practice.
What this will do, ideally, is clear your mind, relieve some of that pressure, and then you can approach these very tough issues not from a place of despair but a place of clarity.
Here’s an interesting podcast about this, metacognitive therapy:
As for meditation, I think it’s good advice, it has helped me considerably, but try not to pressure yourself not to move in the beginning, and if five minutes is too much, do one minute. In fact, that’s my advice for all of these habits: just lower the fucking bar, man. If calling a therapist feels like an ordeal, just set a goal to do one Google search. If you don’t have time for exercise, find something you can do for one minute. I know it doesn’t seem like this stuff adds up, but it adds up so fast, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to keep doing the thing that felt impossible two minutes ago.
Because of my ADHD I frequently get overwhelmed and recently I figured out I can get through the day if I write down just three goals at a time. I truly cannot handle any more than that. And that’s fine. Whatever works, you know?
I get a sense that there are so many issues you have right now that you need to find a sense of general well-being regardless of whether any of this gets fixed. And that’s the best way I know to do it. Focus on what you can do, and if all else fails, train yourself to stop thinking about it. If you are meditating, the natural return to focus is on the present moment. If you do it enough, it will carry on throughout the rest of your day and you’ll find it easier to return to the present.
Those are my general tips. It all takes time. There are no quick fixes. But those things have really helped me. Best of luck.
I read A LOT of telehealth records. I regularly acknowledge that teletherapy might be useful for some people. And I realize that the individuals whose files I see are not a cross section of all people receiving therapy. And, of course, there are good and bad therapists - whether in person or not. But I often question whether folk using teletherapy have “enough skin in the game.”
Sure, some folk have some social anxiety, agoraphobia, etc which does not suit them well for in person therapy. But is sure seems like at least some folk appreciate the ability to just pick up the phone and have someone listen supportively and “validate” the patient’s complaints. Which - in my non-medical professional’s mind, seems to fall somewhat short of what therapy ought to be.
I would be interested in seeing what studies have been made concerning the efficacy of tele vs in person counseling. My limited experience with tele heath for physical matters is that it can be a poor substitute for actually being in the same room.
Too late for edit: “I READILY acknowledge…”
So you’re saying that telehealth / teletherapy often provides a way for both parties to just phone it in? 
I’m 64yo. I’ve had plenty of rough patches in my life. Near death stuff. Family stuff, just about all of it.
I’m now buying a new house in the middle of Trumps shit show. The train was on the tracks. We have to move forward. Can’t stop it and don’t want to. To hell with that asshole. I’m 1000 times stronger then he could ever hope to be.
If I have a ‘motto’, it would be no regrets. What ever has happened has. You can learn from those experiences, but do not regret them. There is no changing the past - it has made today, and your future.
I suppose that future is what I’m afraid of.
I’m not a man made of steel. Uncertainty will always cause anxiety. We all have different ways to cope and approach change. Change is always there. We are time travelers.
My best friend is going through this period. Health issues, selling some real estate. Not sure what she will be able to afford. She seems afraid, but I try to nudge her forward. I have a room in my new house for her it things go to pieces.
This is just plain fucking brilliant.
And this.
Thanks for this whole post. I needed it today. 
I’ve tried it a couple times through Better Help and that sort of thing, it sucked both times. Teletherapy for one of these big organizations is basically the gig economy for therapists. They are not well-regulated, they are not equipped to deal with serious issues, they are limited in what they can do and how they engage with clients, they are poorly paid and subject to a number of restrictions. The one I recall most vividly was sending my tele-therapist something I wrote (like a page and a half) about my trauma and she informed me she wasn’t allowed to read it.
I have, however, had teletherapy with local therapists who have established private practices or group practices with tremendously good results. For a while I had two therapists, one for EMDR/trauma and then I had one for dealing with parenting issues for children with autism, both excellent resources and both telehealth throughout COVID.
My husband does both in-person and telehealth (as he launched his business in January 2020, lucky us, he had to figure out how to switch to hybrid immediately.) Now he gives clients the option either way, and I see no indication he’s less successful with telehealth clients.
That’s the thing. I’m having trouble getting back to my normal sense of well-being where I just live my life and just take care of various problems and challenges as they come up. A few months ago, I was in a relatively good place. Now I have all this medical stuff and work has gone to shit and I’m suffering from a Major Depressive Disorder.
Meditation, therapy, exercise, or really anything don’t seem to help because my problems don’t just go away. At least the problems that keep me up at night don’t.
So it’s like this sensation of being trapped.
And what if they never go away? What if every single problem you have right now never goes away?
How do you make peace with that?
I can’t tell you how to do it, only what helped me. But I think it’s worth trying to figure it out. I don’t really know how better to learn to accept reality than just… practice.
As far as what got me out of Major Depressive Disorder, it was classic CBT. But you sound like you could benefit from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is good for chronic illness. One of the defining moments of my life came from ACT. My therapist said to me, “You know, this probably isn’t ever going away. All signs point to you having a biologically-based mental illness.”
Sweet freedom, that was the day I stopped looking for a cure and started living my life.
How well are you functioning right now? By which I mean, are you bathing and brushing your teeth, getting dressed, attending your job, cooking meals? Where is this most affecting you in terms of how your life plays out?
I’m in a weird place in my life right now where I’m behaving as if severely depressed but I don’t feel much depression. Usually I can gauge my mood by how much I’m doing or not doing. I don’t know if it’s burnout or worsening ADHD or whatever the hell. This has been going on since October. I didn’t shower until noon today and I didn’t start work until 1pm. That’s depressive behavior, right? This has been so distressing I started getting depressed for real. I spent months and months trying everything I could think of to increase my productivity.
Eventually I got sick of trying to solve it and accepted it’s just my life right now. And it helped. I’ve still got the same problems, just decided not to focus on it too much. I figured if I could fix it, I would have by now. And I haven’t. So here I am.
ASMR videos help me relax. Example.
My view is the OP has a couple smallish problems that must be accepted as @Spice_Weasel says. And a large dollop of other problems that do not need to be accepted; they are utterly changeable and can be overcome as soon as the OP has the 'nads to do so.
Choosing to meekly accept the readily changeable is choosing to live your life in misery on your knees. Don’t do that.
Choosing to tilt at the windmills of the unchangeable is choosing to live your life in perpetual conflict leading only to defeat. Don’t do that.
How to tell them apart? Aye, there’s the rub.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit and I don’t think it’s the specific problems that bother me. As you say, some problems are changeable, some are not and must be accepted.
That said, feelings of anxiety and depression are not always rationale nor do they reflect reality. Often they reflect fears of things that “might” happen, not what is actually happening. But you still feel them.
Can you see the link between your thoughts and your feelings?
These things reinforce one another in a perpetual cycle.
Chances are good that what’s making you feel so bad are your thoughts. This shouldn’t be happening, I shouldn’t be feeling this way, it’s bad that I feel this way, that’s why I think awareness is so important. You’ve got to become aware of the inner workings of your own mind and exactly what it’s doing to make you so miserable.
Some ASMR videos help me fall asleep. Though I prefer no talking, something about prolonged whispering sets me on edge. And no boobs or men in skivvies throwing hands about I’m tRNA sleep here!
Give me gentle layered sounds like fires crackling, waves,rain, distant thunder, a chiming clock, a low fan. 