Hi Bookgirl
Such an overwhelming situation for you, with so many combined challenges seemingly all rolled into one at the moment. The fact that you're feeling overwhelmed is completely understandable. Sometimes I think it's not always obvious to what degree we are the 'go to' person for everyone. When you start to really wake up to it, there can come a number of revelations that can bring about a lot of very mixed emotions.
I'm married to an 'It'll be alright, don't worry' guy and have been for a couple of decades or so. While I understand the reassurance behind such words, I found one of my greatest revelations in my marriage involved me waking up to the fact that the reason it's usually all right for my husband and there's no need to worry is because the 'go to' person for challenges is me. Imagine how much easier it would be for you if every time there was some depressing or highly stressful challenge you just handed that challenge over to the one person who fixes all things to make them all right. Easy peasy, hey. No longer a worry in the world for you. I've found that being the fix it person or the go to person comes with a set of scales. Stress can be balanced with a sense of peace. Upset can be balanced with a sense of joy. Serving others can be balanced with being served by others. The problems come when the scales can begin to tip towards nothing but stress, nothing but upset and nothing but serving others etc etc. One weight or challenge after another with no sense of balance produces a tipping point, one we can truly feel in so many ways. I've found tipping the scales back in our favour can also come with consequences. You can be accused of being self serving, be accused of not caring enough, be accused of shirking responsibility and the accusations continue. But at the end of the day, truth be told, you can say 'When I give some of your responsibility back to you, you now understand just how much weight I've been carrying because now you can feel a part of it, just a portion of the entire amount I've been struggling with'.
You sound so exhausted, so fed up, so overwhelmed and something needs to change. Do you feel one of the biggest challenges in this case involves working out how to best serve yourself, in ways that can make a difference to you, ways you desperately need?
