confused, tired, and depressed?

bwill040 · 07-06-2010, 07:19 PM

Please forgive me if this story is all over the place. I am still trying to get my thoughts together.

A little background about my life. I have had some significant things happen - good and bad. The good - I'm almost finished my PhD. Whoo! The bad - I'm still looking for job. Anyway, my parents have a huge age gap - 27 years apart. I guess she liked older men. :-) She died from cancer at 53 yr old back in 2006. Very crappy year for me and makes me wish I could completely skip the month of June every year of my life. So my dad has been doing his best living alone since then. He is 85 yr old now and has dementia. Even though he has other kids (who are way older than me) from his previous marriage they don't help at all with his care. So I have been going back in forth between school, being a newlywed (married since Sept 2009), and taking care of my dad. My father can be really mean and trying at times, and gets mad about his care (he doesn't want anyone to come into the house). I'm trying to get him some in-home care. But that is a battle I have yet to win!

So I admit I have been battling caregiver depression. I'm only 27 yrs old and I want to enjoy something out of my life besides going to school for a good 10 years. I'm tired from the constant driving back and forth - 3 hours both ways. And I'm absolutely confused why my husband won't speak to me. Before he stormed out of the house earlier today, he said it was because of my attitude towards him. I guess he wants my attention and love, but its hard to give when I honestly feel like I have nothing else to give to another person. I feel like I can't have one minute to myself. I will admit that I am moody person. My thoughts go all over the place lately and I get angry. It varies from looking for a job, wishing I knew where I was going after graduation, wishing my father wasn't so combative, right back to wishing I could just go in a closet and forget the world. Right about now I really want to go into a closet and shoot myself. The stress is so overbearing. Let me tell you, I'm tired of people telling me that school is easy. Not at the PhD level it isn't!!!

So while he stormed out mad at me. I sent him a text message and said that if I was to storm out on him he wouldn't speak to me. So he came back home, but still isn't speaking to me. How can I tell him that beyond stretched thin right now with life. In all honestly I just want to give up on my life. I want to rekindle things, but I can't get my mood swings under my control. e

Blanca · 07-06-2010, 09:17 PM

counseling is always a good start. many schools offer it for free. you might want to check that out.

im finishing up with school, too. it is stressful but its more stressful wondering if you'll have a good job after all that hard work. i freak myself out thinking after all this hard work i'm going to end up working at starbucks. that's incredibly depressing. so im trying to find a different way to think about it. there's a great book called "Feeling Good" by David Burns that has been very helpful for me.

The frustrations and emotional exhaustion are just your internal way of telling yourself that you are taking on too much. You'll have to reallocate some of the care-taking with your dad. Ive worked with dementia patients. i know they are a handful. Its a horrible time in their life. but it is still their life to live and you cant take away what they will inevitably have to deal with. If you step down maybe some of his other kids will step up. But you cant continue doing what you're doing. you'll have to back off some how.