progress? Long post/lost and tired

I could post this on the ptsd board too but it fits here as well. I have ptsd as a result of childhood torture, neglect. I have had a wonderful therapist for a long time. I have worked at the same job, from which I am now on a leave of absence, for 15 years. It's a job advocating for people and coordinating services. It has become very bureocratic as the state takes more and more power. I feel like I ma in the trences working on solutions and they are counting pennies. I help people die with dignity and the care they want. I lose a lot of clients. I have job burnout. I have the worst depression I have ever experienced. I have no energy, am wanting to be in bed a lot. I don't know if I can go back to work. I feel afraid of the world. I am trying hard to do the right things. Had a slip up last night and was following advice I had seen in other posts to say the positives and not beat myself up for the negatives. I am still adjusting meds. I am not sleeping as well. I am staring at the ceiling a lot. I rode 4 miles on the bike today hoping that would help and I will do it regularly. I am so sad, so depressed, so without the most simple energy. I don't even really want to talk. I am not doing all that well. I want everyone to leave me alone and let me stay in bed or swim or play with the critters or stuff i want to do. My foster daughter of 12 years died 5 years ago next month. My son had cancer and is free now three years. My husband got into major legal trouble around sending two of our kids to a different school and faking residence. 5 years probation and we have to pay 16,000 to that town. I can't not work. My son's in college and daughter getting ready to go. I can't find a job that pays close and when I look at the job listings I just feel a sense of doom. I am scrutinized under a microscope daily by not my employers, but the frreakin state and the paperwork. All I want to do is help people who have been marginalized to live with dignity and pride. My husband has had a few breakdowns with hospitalizations. Through all of the life crap I have picked myself up, brushed myself off and gone back to work. My youngest daughter developed ocd when she was 7 and it was 4 months of hell. NO SLEEP> I plugged along doing my job and holding my chaotic family together. I went back to0 work 2 weeks after our foster daughter died. Picked up and continued to carry all of this responsibility for other people's lives. Coordinating, begging, making up services, called out at all hours with dying people and a need for comfort. No one ever thanks me except my clients and they all die. Families take it forgranted. I was with a family as their mom died, brought them a hospital bed on a saturday so they could bring her home to die. Transferred her into the bed, cleaned her up, gave them info and supplies and got hospice in the next morning. Draining work. And they assume it's all part of the job but it's me and my desire that people be comforted and feel cared about. So, I need to work on boundaries and figure out when to say no and how to grieve my kids death and the daily deaths of people I have known for many years. I need to fight this darned depression. I need to be functioning and I do not feel like doing so at all. I want to feel better but see little hope right now. I am almost numb. it sucks too much.

{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

You are so very burned out from giving to everyone around you. You do a commendable job - you help people everyday, from all areas of life. That is a hard thing to do, yet you continue to manage it despite your own personal tragedies.

If you don't grieve, if you don't take time for yourself, it won't get better. You aren't selfish for wanting this - it is something you really need. If you can't take the time away from your job (any vacation time coming?), try to do something for yourself each day.

You can't be on call 24/7 and not break down along the way. Your body just isn't working well that way, nor is your emotional well being.

Please try to find time for you - doing what you want to do. I admire you tremendously for your job - I couldn't do it. I was a CNA for awhile and to see that all the time hurt too much.


<font color=red>Don't you just hate it when life doesn't follow the manuals? - Author Unknown</font color=red>

thanks, i am actually on my last two weeks of a leave of absence. Worried that I am not better enough. Up most of the night with anxiety. Thanks for your response.

Thinking of you, (((((Wisewoman)))))...

If we don't pay attention to what our bodies are trying to tell us, (that we can't do it all), then they will rebel and lay us out flat.

Please do whatever is necessary to take care of your own needs first, or you won't be able to be any good for anyone else.

Warmest regards, Peanut

<font color=blue>HI FROM PEANUT</font color=blue>

There is a book you may want to read. I understand it is wonderful though I have not read it myself. It is call Burn Brightly without Burning Out by Richard Biggs. You can find it on Amazon.com. The reviews there support what I have heard about it.
Zen

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft

Thanks guys, my big supervisor just called me which was sorta a trigger but she had gotten the note about me extending my leave to the 12th. She and the office manager figured out that I have yet another week of paid time. So, I am back to work on the 19th of July, left the tues of the last week of may. It will be 8 weeks total I think. T and doc spoke today and I need to go pick up Wellbutrin to add to the mix. I just don't know. I want to bet on a sure thing and there don't appear to be any here. I need to work and it scares the hell out of me. So, Keep feeding me courage, suggestions and support. Zen, can't afford a book but I will send my daughter to the library and have her order it for me, thanks. Today I went to my t, dropped off my two teenage girls in town to find Gypsie clothes for my friend's grandchildren for a parade, picked up the girls, stopped at my friends house to drop stuff off. My youngest 16 year old got sick, low blood sugar I think. Gave her apple sauce. Stopped by some people's house to whom I had given an angora rabbit last summer or the summer before. They had called and asked me to take it. Well, I have never seen an animal in worse shape. 2/3 of it's body weight was matts. I clipped her up, cut her a few times and treated her wounds. Clipped her toe nails and stuck her in an empty cage till I can get to my friend who will take her. She is so beautiful, poor baby. I felt good helping her and wasn't overwhelmed. Just sick when I cut her. However, I have to go to the drug store and that's overwhelming. I also haven't spent my time in nature today so I need to go swimming. It's good when AI get in but getting there is a bear. Enough rambling. Thanks all.