You do have a lot going on, @Have Hope, and your job is obviously quite intense. It sounds like you really analyse your day and your life situation in quite a lot of detail.

Do you find that you are unable to “switch off” from that level of intensity? I ask because I’m someone who over analyses everything, and it can get quite wearing and exhausting. I’ve got better at reducing this over the past few years, but having distractions helps. By distractions I mean things like reading, listening to music, getting involved in a hobby, or even stuff like going out to the theatre or the movies. All of this can be done on your own, it doesn’t require someone else to be there with you, but it can help bring a level of calm and perspective into life.

At work, I found myself in situations very similar to yours, and put myself under a tremendous amount of stress dealing with it all. Now, when I very occasionally look back on past problems, they seem so pointless and trivial. I can’t believe some of the stuff I used to get worked up over that seemed like a really big issue at the time, but when viewed with hindsight I just wish I’d switched off from it more and stopped worrying about it on my own time. That’s not to belittle what you, or I for that matter, experienced, it’s just I wish I could go back and talk to myself and say “just stop for a while, think about something else, or do something else, and go with the flow.” All the worrying and over analysing I did changed nothing - other than cause me a as lot of unnecessary suffering and angst. It was like trying to divert the flow of a river with a spoon. Does this make sense?

I read a great book that helped me to begin to transform my mindset this year, called “The Happiness Trap” by Russ Harris. Have you come across this book? If you haven’t, it might be worth a read.

It’s interesting reading the detail about what you’re going through, and how you’re dealing and processing it all. Life’s not easy for any of us, and we’re all in such different situations and circumstances.