A year against stress

2025. This year, I'm going all Global Thermonuclear War on my stress.

2025 Stress Battle - 1

 So, after my last post crying into a blog post, I made an appointment with my therapist, who I saw yesterday.

It was a weird experience, because I was feeling rather fine yesterday, but I knew I needed to be a good advocate for me in my dark times, so I read aloud the previous blog post, and it did the trick!

Here are some takeaways:

- Some more structure with my kids would help on the day-to-day

- I started to stress about money because money can be turned into time and energy

- Jessi is awesome and my therapist loves hearing me talk about how great she is

- Telling my therapist "my views on gender and masculinity are hella evolved" does not immediately impress her

- She is more than willing to look into medication, but she'd like to try other things first

- There's a kind of ADHD that just stunts emotional responses?

I think my brain has just spent five years reinforcing a constant stress response. So even after my kids are in school, and my brain isn't going up in sad flames, when I'm introduced to a stressful situation, it knows what to do: freak out and make things worse.

I have better control over my stress response, but it's exhausting to make myself express a certain way, to act calm when I'm angry, to play the referee when I just need to be left alone. And that's what's burning me out.

I don't know how I can get my brain to follow a different path. I've got another session with my therapist, Andi, in a couple weeks.

The good news is, my life is more than just stress! I do fun things, I promise, even with a brain that kind of sucks sometimes!

Got to see Tortilla in person and the house that I built for her!

Went sledding at our local hill! (I love this sign.)

Working out four times a week!

The boys have been playing Scrabble! Daniel loves it!

Made apple crisp! (And a la moded it!)

Five years of chronic painful stress (and counting!)

 I remember when it started getting bad.

December 2019, I found an excuse to get out of the house, for half an hour. I drove out, I met with some friends, and for some reason, my stomach hurt. It was the first time that stress had lingered on me. I wasn't in a stressful situation anymore. I was out of my kids' earshot, they couldn't call to me anymore.

I went home, and I asked for help. I talked to a therapist. I tried to make a plan.

But after five years, it's clear I have chronic stress. I haven't felt well-rested since then. I have been able to leave stressful situations and feel good, but when I return home to my children, the familiar stress comes back.

Sometimes it's my stomach. Sometimes it's my chest, feeling tight. Sometimes I'll just cry, unprovoked.

I am burnt out and still running myself raw, to the point where I feel like I'm going to look back at this part of my life and feel trauma.

The other day, I helped a new neighbor move, bringing three new kids to our little cousin cult compound. During the move, she asked me why we never went out with them to concerts. I told her that it cost money, and that we don't have people to look after the kids. Meanwhile, her three kids were at the zoo, being taken by their new grandmother, along with the other three step-siblings.

I'm trying to put all my thoughts down before they can fester in my brain, and they're not good thoughts.

For five years, I have made no secret of my stress, of how it hurts me, of how I need help. I know that it's my problem to solve, but I'm burnt out. I've been burnt out.

But I can't keep asking for help when nothing seems to work. Asking my brother for a favor, getting a night off, and coming back only to feel stressed again, it's not fair.

We make enough money to pay the bills and be comfortable, but we don't have the kind of money to spend on babysitters and concerts and housecleaners and summer camps.

And besides all the money, we just don't have the energy. I see my boys' cousins going to clubs, being a part of the scouts, playing soccer, and it leaves me with only guilt, because it feels like we just can't afford this, in money, time, or energy.

Every day, when our kids are upstairs, Jessi and I are wiped out. We've both got burnout, and we can't seem to gain ground. We just don't have any energy left in the day.

And I can feel anxiety creeping in. The kids go to school, but even when I sleep all day, I don't get any energy back. Even when I look for editing work, I can't find any. Even with time away from my kids, I'm still unhealthy, I'm still stressed, and everyone knows.

I feel like we're barely managing our kids' behavior, but they still fight, bicker, and argue. We're spent. We're running on no energy. I've been struggling with chronic stress for five years now, and there's no end in sight.

I feel unsupported, and I feel hopeless that any support now could heal the last five years. I feel guilty that my wonderful kids deserve a healthy dad who can keep himself together, but instead they've got me.