Kimmy,

I think the some of the problems with self-care come from the guilty feeling. It's hard to explain, but I know exactly what you're talking about. It's a circle basically.

Christmas shopping for example. I HATE crowds, I get anxiety attacks and I'm generally not good company to be be around in these situations. But my husband likes to get out and go on a moments notice. Anyway, he said he was running to Green Bay to pick up some things (It was a Packer weekend, so in addition to the holiday shoppers, the town is crowded with football fans) and he asked if I wanted to go. That simple "Honey, I'm going to run to Green Bay, I'd like you to come along if you would." I said no I'd rather not.

In reality the conversation ended there, but in my mind, I hear him saying things like "you never want to go anywhere anymore" and of course I'm responding with "duh, you've known that for years." Over and over. So I'm sitting there getting really irritated. He ended up not going, which made me even more angry. I assumed it was because I didn't want to go, and I knew that he'd ask me to go again the next day.

Sure enough, the next day comes, he asks and I say no (and since I knew this was coming I was not very pleasant). He asks what's wrong. I say "I think it's really messed up that you made plans to go somewhere and just because I don't want to go, you won't go. I see it as emotional blackmail." (Remember I've been fighting with him mentally for the past 24 hours getting more and more worked up.)

Turns out, the reason he didn't go the day before was because he'd called Baskin Robbins and the kind of ice cream I like was not in stock, but they'd have it the next day. He didn't stay home because I didn't go, he stayed home because he wanted to surpise me with ice cream.

So now I feel like a total ***! 1) I'd been mentally screaming at him for a day 2) I'd been snapping his head off anytime he said anything to me because I thought he was annoyed that I wouldn't go with him. 3)He's sitting there with NO clue why I'm so mad at him and 4)Generally being an ungrateful b with an ich.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that we tend to project what WE think those around us expect from us. And we set that bar pretty high, too high to reach. So it's a combination of our own frustration at not being able to be our own idea of Supermom, Superwife, Superemployee (which none of them really expected to begin with) and the imagined disappointment in us, then we throw in the "how dare they..." When they didn't dare to begin with.