Struggling with expectations

My own expectations, not anyone else's...

I came back from my business trip and launched into trying to manage a full-load of client work. 40-45 hours a week. I'm not sure I want to work 40-45 hours a week. (Because that also actually means about 50 hours a week since I run my own business and need to spend another 5-10 hours managing business tasks.)

I'm okay with full-time work, really. But I am trying to build a work-life balance that suits me, and I work from home and as a consultant so I can have flexibility of my schedule. Right now I have a schedule I've developed (although not exactly executing) that makes time for everything I want to do. I work every day, I take the breaks I want to go hiking, ride my bike, work on my art, etc...except...so far I get my work done, and I have been able to get a few hikes in with my dogs, but that's it.

I know it's a matter of building up endurance, especially since I still deal with some agoraphobia and A LOT of fatigue in relationship to my anxiety and depression.

I think, I'm in a place where I have to very carefully schedule things out. Like every hour on my calendar is scheduled, and it could be a personal thing or a work thing - like riding my bike is scheduled, and work tasks are scheduled, because it's the only way I can manage multiple projects and my work-life balance together. But the thing is, is that right now there are just times when my window for going to ride my bike comes up and I'm just not into right now, I need a nap instead.

The other thing is that I want to do two other things this year: I want to apply to PhD programs in the fall, so I need to get on the requirements for doing that and I want to finish my art collection this spring and show it in the summer, maybe sell some pieces (I don't care about making money, I just want to connect with people with my art). I'm kind of torn between these two things and the conflicts they may present to each other.

I don't know, am I doing too much? Am I too ambitious? When I think of all the things I just typed that I'm trying to do, I'm kind of like, um...when do I sleep? And I mentioned the naps because I have a sleep disorder, so I don't see the naps changing any time soon, and I have created a sort of process with the naps to make them effective and not an all day thing (I only nap for 30-90 minutes-at most-and often I don't even sleep, I just relax and close my eyes and hold my dog and it's quite restorative.)

I dunno what I want or need to hear right now. Anyone ever been here? I'm just, I'm trying to create the life that I want, not the scraps that someone else will give me.

Seesaw

I mean, take anything I'm going to say with a grain of salt, but it might be worth it to take a step back and do less.

I was going into a double major with Computer Science and Physics and a minor in German. I've dropped the German minor at this point because it was simply too much, and I'm considering dropping Physics or CS as well. There's no shame in having limits, everyone has them and they're all at different levels. The last thing you want to do is burn yourself out, because that just makes things seem even worse.

That's really all I have to offer, hopefully that helps(?)

Yeah, frankly, I have to ask what I'm willing to cut. This sounds terrible but I think I'd like to cut back my hours working, which I can do, it's not a problem financially at this point. Or I just need to temper my expectations for how long it will take to do things, like my art collection.

Does it seem like I'm trying to do a lot or too much?

To me, seesaws, it sounds like you're in danger of burning yourself out. Your expecting yourself to be able to do too much.

I agree that if you can do it, cutting your hours back a bit is a good idea and just take your time with what you replace those hours with. Don't try and do everything at a hundred miles an hour, you'll only burn yourself out.

(((((seesaws)))))

yes burn out is what caused par of my illness i tell myself. I remember when i was working and was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. which way do i go?which way do i go? you don't want that so if i were you i'd cut out a class or work less, you'll be more relaxed in the end even though you may have to do things slower or less of something.

How many things are you trying to do in a day? I had a neighbor who did that successfully (i guess) - she was like, well, i can swim for 17 minutes, because i want to bike for 22 minutes, because otherwise i cant do everuthing i want to do in a day. She WAS very fit, and she was a t, so she was also pretty much her own boss. I felt bad for her because i was like, how can you bear to leave this gorgeous pool on such a beautiful evening? But she was all business and discipline.

Anyway i read somewhere, i think, you can have 1 major project, 1 minor project, and 1 fill-in thingie going at the same time, but dont try to have like 3 major projects going at the same time. My major project has been napping, im about ready to move that to fill-in status

So, I'm super type A. I used to compete in triathlons. I woke up at 5am for an hour swim...then biked to work across town. Worked for 8 hours, then ran 8-10 miles after work, then biked home. 3 times a week I took ballet class. I hung out with friends at least once a week. I went out on weekends.

That was before my mental health went to hell. I guess I am under the impression that I can have that kind of mental stamina again. And maybe I can. But I guess I just have to build up to it. So I think your suggestion is good. A major thing, a minor thing, and a fill in. And then continue building up over time.

I called the university about applying for the PhD program today. I am super excited. I know I can do all this stuff, I just have to build up my stamina. And I need help. Like, I live alone, I have two dogs. I need help keeping my house clean. I may need help walking my dogs...so I just need to pay for those things if I need them. And I have a great sitter/walker now, so, might as well do it. I need to be okay with reaching out to others.

Seesaw

Seesaw;
I trust that you can do all these things... if not more. One of my questions, as you stated, is the following: do you have to do all these things (almost) at the same time? In order to determine this, may be you can create four lists: prioritize your needs; prioritize your wants; prioritize your expectations from life; and list the reasons as to why you want to do the things mentioned above.

I think the last list is the most important one as these reasons will shed a light on why you want to accomplish each goal. I suggest that you be 100 percent and brutally honest with yourself when making this list because self reflection, as you very well know from your accomplished voyage to personal development, can lead the path to the hidden reasons, including pain, suffering and joy, for our needs and wants.

Sorry if this sounded very philosophical but when it comes to our ambitions, I am a firm believer of digging into them and figuring out the treasure reasons that lie beyond the chaos of our mind and ego.

I hope this makes sense.

Good advice. It's funny that you mentioned this because I decided my goal for the weekend is to do some long term planning.

I think it's all doable, I just have to prioritize how and when.

How busy have you been the last couple years? This busy? When did you recover from your illness and how long did that take?

I am no help. I keep myself extremely busy my whole life and I don’t function well when not busy. It has its cons though. Too tired and life moves too fast. I don’t know how to balance at all. My T offers suggestions how to slow down but I just can’t. I can only offer you my understanding.

PS It’s perfectly fine to pay someone. I used to have a cleaning lady when I had a bigger place.

Temporarily disregard all of the external circumstances that you just mentioned. Take them out of the picture - the details/specifics are not the heart of the matter...

What do you feel is the actual source of these particular expectations that you hold and keep for yourself? What is it that you feel you will ultimately gain/secure by holding onto these expectations and maintaining the same relationship/orientation/attachment to these expectations? When I say 'the actual source', it's something which transcends the practical matters of everyday 'human life' (like earning a paycheck and paying living expenses)... What do you feel that is? What is the driving force behind this?
(I don't want to influence your answer by giving any examples at this time)

Really interested in the questions FallDuskTrain and wolfgaze have posted. I struggle with similar issues around wanting to do more than I actually can. Right now I don't work full time and still can't fit it all in.

I find it easy to procrastinate if I am not busy enough but I can't bring myself to go back to being too busy after burning out some years ago. I am more idle than I would like but busy by other people's standards.

You mention wanting to build up endurance, but is that what you really want?

I find this post about time thought provoking but also terrifying: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html

So, responding to you, FallDuskTrain, and wolfgaze here:

Here is the analogy with my expectations...before I got sick, before my MI knocked me down, I was like Divine described. Busy all the time, accomplishing loads of stuff. Highly accomplished in my field, working towards big goals, training for an Ironman, hanging out with friends, still dancing professionally from time to time, just going gangbusters on everything I wanted to do...

So think of this: if you were a professional athlete, who was suddenly paralyzed, and spent a few years that way, and then medical science cured you so you could do everything you wanted again, but all your muscles atrophied, but your brain is telling you that you can pick up where you left off, but you can't, because you don't have the physical endurance or stamina anymore...that's where I am, and that's where my expectations come from. I get that it's unrealistic to think I can just jump in. I have to build back up my stamina for the kind of activity level I want.

I am doing some planning this weekend to figure out how to prioritize. The PhD program doesn't start until FAll 2019, I just need to get my application done by the end of this fall, and in the meantime take the few pre-reqs I need. I found out I don't need to retake the GRE, yay. As for work, I just need to accept that I need to pace myself for now. I am working in specific time blocks to work on my art and go to meetups during the week to be sociable.

You seem to have a lot of insight into yourself, into what you'd like to do and into how to do it. I admire you for committing to your goals.

(((((( seesaw ))))))

I used to be a lot like you -- into sports, academics, friends. I'd love to be able to do it all once again. I support you in your endeavors. How exciting!


WC

Yes. Same situation. Except you seem a bit more stable overall, which is cool I think. For me, I can't keep the schedules, because I keep falling apart. It is funny though, I really do have the same approach as you and some of my goals are very similar too.

My answer to the issue you brought up tends to be: "Slow down. You have time to do all this gradually building yourself up." This is what I tell myself... I'd have gone mad otherwise I guess. lol

Another thing that helps me with slowing down with those expectations and goals and all that is when I compare my current state to how I was a year ago, two years ago and so on... It has to be a big enough time frame to really see the progress, I guess.

As for the conflicting goals, I find that I work best if I give myself time until the insight just comes to me about how to reconcile some of that stuff or how to arrange the goals, their timing and all that. I find it helps if I manage to access how I feel about the goals, but of course the practical aspects matter too.

But yeah it's striking to me how similar your situation is in many aspects to mine. I saw some of your earlier posts, I think it's really great, the progress you've made. Keep going!

Oh one more thing... I am curious, are you trying to rebuild yourself to return to your previous functional life or you are younger than that and it's all new to you to do all this (work, sports, all these goals etc)? For me it's the former, I try to rebuild... I just keep falling apart. I've come so far from psychosis, so I guess I should be happy and not expect too much too hard too fast. I don't know where you are coming from, but I know from some of your other posts that you've gone a long way too! So yeah, again, keep going.

EDIT: Sorry, I read your other posts now, I see you are the same as me with this too, being very high functional in many things (except socially... I didn't have friends like you did and I never went out) and then boom, mental illness. So yeah we really are very similar here and I totally get your struggle here.

Reading the rest of the thread now.

So yeah, same. Umm, I actually am starting to feel like now that I'd like to work full time, but this is funny because at the same time I am most unable to work lately. But I at least have genuinely started feeling like I'd be up for full time work if only I didn't keep falling apart, while in the past, if I'm honest, I did dread the idea.

I know what you mean by it sounding terrible. I just had to accept it myself, and I did cut back before when it was too much. Yes, financially it was possible too. Right now I can't afford cutting back though (long story). It's really better when you can afford that. And yeah, don't beat up yourself over it.

Give it time, yes, like I said in my other post too.

The thing though is, I find it was not good to cut back TOO MUCH either. It would make me fall back to a worse state. It's just about finding that sweet spot of challenge, but not too much challenge, I guess. This was never a problem before I became mentally ill, it still can take me unprepared to discover that my work capacity - and capacity for doing anything, for going outside my head, instead of getting stuck in my inner stuff going on and/or falling apart etc - is unavailable. It's just hard to figure out when I am able to do something and when I'm not able to. Seems like you have managed that part already, great!

But again, the solution to this whole issue is keep challenging yourself, don't step back too much, while also not overloading yourself too much. It's much like sports training, I guess. Do it harder than usual sometimes to extend your limits, and overall keep up a consistent tolerable load.

EDIT: yeah, I read the whole thread now, and I see you used the same sports analogy lol.

Do you feel like your 'sense of self' (identity) could have been entangled in all those things you were previously engaged in - prior to the major change? And could that be what's fueling your admittedly 'unrealistic' expectations of being able to resume that level of activity so quickly?

@Seesaw

I realized I left this important thing out... I had this with needing to take unexplicable rests etc. And not feeling like wanting to work full time yeah. And getting stuck on a level of functioning for a long time which would be lower than what I wanted. I think I had (have) this issue because I still had unresolved issues lingering somewhere in my mind/brain taking resources (issues from past + circumstances not improved enough/no good enough and believable vision for improving them). I'm not 100% sure on this but I think this makes the most sense so far. However I do want to say, even if this is true, and if it is true for you too, do not stop and let yourself fall back much, I do think you doing other things (like work and your other projects) to get better is helpful. I just am not sure if that's the only thing you need to be doing here. Again, I'm not sure on all this, I might be completely wrong really. Just a note for you. I think if you are able to improve smoothly and continuously, and not feeling like you are getting too stressed with the same workload that is fine at other times etc, so if overall your capability to function isn't fluctuating too much over time, and your body/mind is able to take a realistic amount of "training load" (like in sports), I would think that my note here is not really relevant then. Even then I hope there was something in my posts in this thread that helps.

Seesaw, apologies for not particularly helpful reply I'm not doing too well at the moment but wanted to add "I hear you" to this.

I am no where near as accomplished as you but I built a lot of my recovery from a bad depression around certain structure, a chunk being exercise and was a pretty hard task master on myself.

In my case I think a bit of this 'driven thing was part of my identity like Wolfgaze says. Also, and this may or may not be true of you, I was afraid to let anything drop because if that happened I feared the chasm of depression would open up again. With me it was fear governing a lot of my schedule.

I would say you are doing a lot, and maybe you want to build some slack in. Maybe schedule free time in which may or may not mean a bike or hike but could equally mean a nap if you need it.

I am seriously in awe of how you do it all, I work pt and still get crashing fatigue from just a bit of overtime, my stamina is not great and my physical fitness not as it was either. You do great, and I think a bit of slack and you'll still do great, and most importantly avoid burn out.

Sometimes less is more if you know what I mean.

@Seesaw

I thought more about this.

You say you are not able to do all you want to do right now. But you have very ambitious plans compared to that. I'm the same, yeah, but I'm thinking now that while I can't see how I've actually REALLY moved from my current level of functionality, I shouldn't jump into too many ambitious goals.

I did that recently and now I'm very near crash and burn right now. Maybe you were following my "unsolvable situation" thread, you've seen my crisis in that case. Oh wait, crises because the first crisis was soon followed by a second one. And between the two crises, I was feeling like I was more functional than before but even that was not actually true, I was deluding myself a bit but I noticed that pretty soon.

And now, I'm past the crises but I've not recovered yet mentally and I've (right now) just gone through a very stressful hour trying to work (I did complete the job but just with luck!).

(And lol I can forget about training hard (sports) this week. Oh man, I already had to let go of that last Friday. Again. Not for the first time. Now I just want to do very easy 20-30 mins a day, or not even that.)

Do you ever have this issue when working? If not then I hope you won't run into this, if you try to take on more according to your cool ambitious goals.

Don't do the same stupidity I did... Stupid because I saw before that if I push myself a bit more by taking on a bit bigger project, I fall apart temporarily and is very hard to complete it then. I did complete them though but still... So why on earth did I think that simply by choosing an otherwise very motivating goal will fix it all?!?! Yeah, please, I don't think for you it will magically fix all of it, either.

Also now I recall you said somewhere that you have to schedule everything incredibly strictly and have to pay incredibly close attention to working according to your current capacities. Sounds like a carefully set up balance which could be overloaded if you step ahead too fast now.

So yeah, my suggestion: get proof that you are able to move beyond your current functionality level. Then when you have that, take on the ambitious goals.

Btw I calculated my functionality level to be fluctuating between a GAF score of 51-60 and 41-50. To be honest, I'm only over 50 if a part-time job counts lol. I still cannot hold a full time job, no (even though I've finally got the desire for it). So basically I am over 50 when I am able to work. If I do not take on too much I am consistently able to work. It used to be worse. I dipped below 40 with the crises now and it was pretty bad trying to get to work this way... lol and I have to try and do way more work now because I got too ambitious recently and took on too much for my goals. (I come from a level below 30, btw. So I should be happy with 50+ for now, I mean, if the part time job counts for that.)

So again... I really suggest you stop a bit and think and be patient before you possibly get f***cked like this. I'm going back to trying to work now on another project now.... After a bit of management of myself to feel a bit calmer mentally and all. Because this piece of work even though easy normally, was incredibly stressful mentally and emotionally.

I wish you luck!!

Same, except for me the fear is the chasm of schizoaffective-psychotic depths again. Though ironically enough, I've almost fallen back into it when trying to not let things drop now.

Hm, as for the identity thing, for me it's more like, I just do not want to be stuck in the mental illness anymore. (Also the goals as explained below.)

I know you weren't asking me but since my situation is so similar, maybe you don't mind this... My driving force: go on with life, achieve the old almost forgotten goals, they are definitely part of ME. Like I said in my thread to you recently, I don't really have a "transcendent" mind, but this thing makes me feel like I transcend everything with it. These goals.

The other, more negative driving force: do not slip back into the depths of mental illness.

It sounds like you have a lot going on. Are you intending to work outside of the University if you start a PhD program? I’m not sure what discipline you’re in, but when I did my PhD, i put in 80 hours/week between coursework, dissertation, conferences, publishing, and teaching. I literally had no time for a life outside of academia. It is INTENSE. I do not have a mental illness, but many of peers who did ended up not finishing or taking time off because the stress exacerbated their symptoms. And, unfortunately, Universities are notoriously bad at accommodating for mental health. What do you want to do professionally that requires a PhD? If academia is the only place you see yourself (as it is for me), it can be worth it. But I caution prospective students about the challenges, long hours, low pay, and poor job prospects so they go in with their eyes open. Its 5-8 years of nothing but living and breathing your program 24/7. It’s a completely different animal than a BA or MA. I finished on time with a 4.0– but I truly had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started (and I say this having done all the research and preparation, including meeting with several profs before I began and doing campus visits everywhere I was accepted). Programs can also be cut-throat and everyone is up for the same grants and awards, so it’s not like you’re part of a team; it’s everyone for themselves.

Yeah PhD is entirely different kind of animal. My daughter got accepted and decided against it (I kind of hoped she wouldn’t but I understand her), she’d have to continue working and it would be just too much, but it wasn’t affordable not to work full time. The offer still stands, they gave her time to think but I doubt she’ll go for it. I have a colleague who is in PhD program and it’s very very time consuming if you continue working at the same time. It’s hard to afford not to work though

It’s hard. But then again. It’s absolutely necessary or desired for certain lines of work.

I can't speak specifically about my situation, but yes I will work, and yes it will be possible due to the nature of the work and it's relationship to the program. The PhD I'm planning will lead to outside work, the study I want to do and resulting dissertation have direct results on the field and will set me up for future employment and continuing my private business. Please don't question me on this. I don't need arguments. I know the field and I know what I'm talking about.