Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 21:57     Subject: Re:What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Op here: thank you again...
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 21:08     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

OP - what do you do for you? I'd imagine your husband's long hours make for very little "you time". What do you do that isn't kid-related, marriage-related, house-related?

By all means, see a doctor. Maybe you need meds on a long-term basis, or maybe just some short-term meds can help. Consider your diet, if you'd like. I've not found any link between my depression and my diet, but YMMV. I'd strongly suggest a counselor. Getting to the root of what made me angry (a lack of time to myself and identity outside of mother/wife) was more helpful than any other remedy. Yes, you have nice things. Yes, you're "doing it all right". That doesn't mean that's enough to make you happy.


Hi, this is OP. I have very little for me. I haven't physically seen my husband since Sunday, and won't tonight either. I know it's a HUGE part of it. Admittedly he does nothing besides work and pay bills, I do EVERYTHING from grill to clean to take out the trash to everything, and he would agree. I think 95% of the time I can deal, the other 5% I lose my shit.


Sounded familiar, hence my question. Hopefully his crazy-long work hours provide enough income that you can outsource some of your least favorite chores. While I agree with the poster above who advised against running for a "mother's little helper", a *mothers helper* might be a good idea for you. Any local kids looking for some summer money? Even just getting a break for a couple hours a day can help. A bit of contract renegotiation with your husband might be in order, too. There's probably not much he can do about the long hours, but there's probably a lot he can do to make things easier for you when he's home.

Again, I really do recommend counseling. Coming to terms with your anger is important, and having another pair of eyes to help you see solutions can be a great help.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 20:44     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
It sounds like you are resentful already OP and I would be too. It's not worth the money to have someone else dictate your life.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 19:44     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm angry all the time, and I can't identify why. I'm married with a 7 and 4 year old, a SAHM. Thankfully my kids are healthy, DH has a good job (tho with really very long hours - counsel at a big firm). We have a nice home. Etc.

But the last few weeks (months?) I've been really angry and I don't know why. Like for ex., taking the kids to the grocery store today when the kids are "can I have this?" and grabbing stuff when that's annoying to everyone, it makes me almost shake with anger but also sadness, like tears in my eyes. Like I can't deal, I'm losing it. I'm snappy with kids, sometimes DH. It's like my rope is FRIED. But I can't figure out what I feel angry at.

I exercise a few times a week, eat pretty healthily. I try to sleep well but often wake up multiple times per night (though fall asleep ok). I even got bloodowrk checking thyroid and that's fine, as are other things like Vit D. I seem healthy. Please help me, I don't know what's wrong with me.


OP - what do you do for you? I'd imagine your husband's long hours make for very little "you time". What do you do that isn't kid-related, marriage-related, house-related?

By all means, see a doctor. Maybe you need meds on a long-term basis, or maybe just some short-term meds can help. Consider your diet, if you'd like. I've not found any link between my depression and my diet, but YMMV. I'd strongly suggest a counselor. Getting to the root of what made me angry (a lack of time to myself and identity outside of mother/wife) was more helpful than any other remedy. Yes, you have nice things. Yes, you're "doing it all right". That doesn't mean that's enough to make you happy.


Hi, this is OP. I have very little for me. I haven't physically seen my husband since Sunday, and won't tonight either. I know it's a HUGE part of it. Admittedly he does nothing besides work and pay bills, I do EVERYTHING from grill to clean to take out the trash to everything, and he would agree. I think 95% of the time I can deal, the other 5% I lose my shit.


PP who tried to tread carefully. I figured as much. It's completely understandable that you would feel like this, and it sounds like you need to figure out how to make the situation work better for you - whether that be taking a weekend and going away with friends, finding more time for yourself while the kids are at school, hiring people to help with household tasks, assigning DH tasks to do while at work (like make phone calls or order food from peapod or whatever can be done remotely), getting help during the week from a teenager or babysitter, talking to DH about cutting back on his hours (or at least coming home at x o'clock y days a week), or instituting a weekly date night. My guess is that even if you do nothing it will get better as the kids get older, but you owe it to yourself (and your family) to try to address the issue now before you become majorly resentful. Good luck.

Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 18:55     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:BTDT, DEPRESSION. I knew miracles still happen withon a few days of taking an antidepressant. Perimenopause symptom #1 is depression.



Op here. Again, I'm 36 with regular periods. Thanks though.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 18:11     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
BTDT, DEPRESSION. I knew miracles still happen withon a few days of taking an antidepressant. Perimenopause symptom #1 is depression.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 18:02     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Don't go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper just yet. You are justifiably angry that you two have chosen lawyer-wife mode and it turns out that except for the money it sucks ass. Also you need to get laid more.

Maybe you aren't depressed, you just need a few days away at some kind of mommy-spirit-lift boot camp like a weekend away with friends or something like that health resort in Hilton Head where you run on the beach, exercise, get massages and do yoga or whatever?) You need a chance to miss your family. I'd say it's time to force the issue with Mr. Big.

For a laugh you might read The Onion article that's up this week, "sources close to local resident Karl Brewster said Thursday they are at a loss to explain his day-to-day cheerfulness in the face of such a bleak existence."
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 18:02     Subject: Re:What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
I was the same way. Angry with crippling anxiety. Wellbutrin has helped tremendously with the anger. Still trying to figure out what to do about the anxiety.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 17:52     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm angry all the time, and I can't identify why. I'm married with a 7 and 4 year old, a SAHM. Thankfully my kids are healthy, DH has a good job (tho with really very long hours - counsel at a big firm). We have a nice home. Etc.

But the last few weeks (months?) I've been really angry and I don't know why. Like for ex., taking the kids to the grocery store today when the kids are "can I have this?" and grabbing stuff when that's annoying to everyone, it makes me almost shake with anger but also sadness, like tears in my eyes. Like I can't deal, I'm losing it. I'm snappy with kids, sometimes DH. It's like my rope is FRIED. But I can't figure out what I feel angry at.

I exercise a few times a week, eat pretty healthily. I try to sleep well but often wake up multiple times per night (though fall asleep ok). I even got bloodowrk checking thyroid and that's fine, as are other things like Vit D. I seem healthy. Please help me, I don't know what's wrong with me.


OP - what do you do for you? I'd imagine your husband's long hours make for very little "you time". What do you do that isn't kid-related, marriage-related, house-related?

By all means, see a doctor. Maybe you need meds on a long-term basis, or maybe just some short-term meds can help. Consider your diet, if you'd like. I've not found any link between my depression and my diet, but YMMV. I'd strongly suggest a counselor. Getting to the root of what made me angry (a lack of time to myself and identity outside of mother/wife) was more helpful than any other remedy. Yes, you have nice things. Yes, you're "doing it all right". That doesn't mean that's enough to make you happy.


Hi, this is OP. I have very little for me. I haven't physically seen my husband since Sunday, and won't tonight either. I know it's a HUGE part of it. Admittedly he does nothing besides work and pay bills, I do EVERYTHING from grill to clean to take out the trash to everything, and he would agree. I think 95% of the time I can deal, the other 5% I lose my shit.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 17:31     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
The other thing I wonder is how her spouse is treating her. Too many type-a career focused people sh't all over their spouses, check out emotionally, denigrate the other's accomplishments, etc. and kids pick up on this and act out because they want attention from the absentee parent and aren't important enough to get it. Distance and power imbalances are bad for family.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 17:18     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Dehydrated


??


Somebody told me that when you hit an extreme point in an emotion (not like PMS, but like getting impatient all the time, yelling at the kids for minor things, feeling angry...similar to what OP is experiencing) is linked to dehydration. Unless your pee is clear, you're dehydrated.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 15:28     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:I started taking Zoloft for anxiety and it never occurred to me- but I was super angry and irritable beforehand so perhaps that was depression that has now been mitigated with the meds. Very interesting.


This was me, too. One of the major ways I know that Zoloft is working is that in situations were I previously would have been ANGRY, now I am somewhere between mildly annoyed and amused.

I also never found a type of birth control pill that didn't make me feel like I was crazy.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 15:02     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:I'm angry all the time, and I can't identify why. I'm married with a 7 and 4 year old, a SAHM. Thankfully my kids are healthy, DH has a good job (tho with really very long hours - counsel at a big firm). We have a nice home. Etc.

But the last few weeks (months?) I've been really angry and I don't know why. Like for ex., taking the kids to the grocery store today when the kids are "can I have this?" and grabbing stuff when that's annoying to everyone, it makes me almost shake with anger but also sadness, like tears in my eyes. Like I can't deal, I'm losing it. I'm snappy with kids, sometimes DH. It's like my rope is FRIED. But I can't figure out what I feel angry at.

I exercise a few times a week, eat pretty healthily. I try to sleep well but often wake up multiple times per night (though fall asleep ok). I even got bloodowrk checking thyroid and that's fine, as are other things like Vit D. I seem healthy. Please help me, I don't know what's wrong with me.


OP - what do you do for you? I'd imagine your husband's long hours make for very little "you time". What do you do that isn't kid-related, marriage-related, house-related?

By all means, see a doctor. Maybe you need meds on a long-term basis, or maybe just some short-term meds can help. Consider your diet, if you'd like. I've not found any link between my depression and my diet, but YMMV. I'd strongly suggest a counselor. Getting to the root of what made me angry (a lack of time to myself and identity outside of mother/wife) was more helpful than any other remedy. Yes, you have nice things. Yes, you're "doing it all right". That doesn't mean that's enough to make you happy.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 14:16     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I work in mental health and I always cringe when people use the chemical imbalance line. Fine if you have a simplistic understanding and need to call it that to differentiate it from being a character flaw but from a professional. I cringe. Chemical imbalance isn't used in the health field in talking about mental illness. As others have said it was a theory that had two intentions - decrease stigma by making mental illness physiological (even if oversimplified and not correct) rather than personal flaw, and 2) to sell medications that 'fix' chemical imbalances.


Thank you. I'm not a mental health professional, but I also always cringe when people throw out the "chemical imbalance" argument in order to give the impression that all you need to do is pop a pill. Diet, however, isn't the answer either.


I am the poster you are responding to and I agree diet can't cure depression, although health living choices (diet, exercise and decreased stress) are all important in recovery and managing any illness. I also don't want to sound like I am anti-meds. I am not. They play a useful role for some people with depression and in many cases are worth a trial to see if they lead to decreased symptoms, higher functioning, and more motivation to engage in other treatment options. They are not a cure-all or fix all though and about 40% of people with depression don't get any positive response from taking an anti-depressant. We have a very rudimentary understanding of the causes of mental illness compared to many other illnesses and the neurobiology of mental illness is in its infancy although much further ahead then a few decades ago. The medications we have now primarily target symptoms in the hopes of alleviating them but they don't address the root causes.
Anonymous
Post 06/26/2013 14:03     Subject: What's wrong with me - help me please. (I'm angry...)
Anonymous wrote:I work in mental health and I always cringe when people use the chemical imbalance line. Fine if you have a simplistic understanding and need to call it that to differentiate it from being a character flaw but from a professional. I cringe. Chemical imbalance isn't used in the health field in talking about mental illness. As others have said it was a theory that had two intentions - decrease stigma by making mental illness physiological (even if oversimplified and not correct) rather than personal flaw, and 2) to sell medications that 'fix' chemical imbalances.


Thank you. I'm not a mental health professional, but I also always cringe when people throw out the "chemical imbalance" argument in order to give the impression that all you need to do is pop a pill. Diet, however, isn't the answer either.