On a scale of one to ten, my stress levels are at a Gordon Ramsay ‘ten’ at the moment.
Work has gone into overdrive recently and once I’ve done my duties as a mother, domestic slave and family therapist, there is no time left for ME.
And I resent it. There, I said it.
I need ME-TIME. I need time to offload on my blog, watch a trashy movie, drink more than two glasses of wine and fantasise about hot, young men. At the moment I’m having to donate precious ME-TIME to the impossible task of matching socks, cooking uninspiring food and refereeing between the rest of the dysfunctionals.
Why can’t my work/life balance stay at a level I’m comfortable with? I’ve resigned myself to the hours I initially agreed (as employee, wife, mother, aka Super-Slave) to designate to each different department of my life, but the minute one area begins to demand overtime I begin to crumble with the stress.
I never pretended to be a fucking saint!
And meltdown is not a pretty sight in my case. Put it this way, I make Ange in ‘Girl Interrupted’ look normal.
When I begin to crumble mentally, the symptoms and abstract behaviour can become very disconcerting. Particularly for the dog. I become completely non-tactile (except with wine bottles and chocolate), monosyllabic and I have a tendency to curl up in the foetal position either under my desk or preferably with the Princess in her dog bed, and rock. If the phone rings I begin to shake uncontrollably and I do crazy, irresponsible things like pretend I’m taking the Princess for a walk when really I’m going down for a quick Chardy at the local bar.
Not really, but I would if I could get away with it.
I don’t manage stress and anxiety very well, so when I get up early to work BEFORE my first fucking 8am meeting (WTF!) and the old man mentions that he hasn’t got any clean socks, it takes all my patience not to ram his dirty ones down his throat until he chokes on his own vomit and dies.
Too far???
Remedies I have found to have some success include:
Wine
Wine
Chocolate
And then there’s wine….
Oh, and sobbing loudly in the car along to Michael Buble’s ‘Hold On’.
How do you cope when your work/life balance gets screwed up?
My Midlife Mayhem 
I’ve found that hugging a dog or a cat ALWAYS HELPS (whilst holding a glass on wine in the other hand and eating a large slab of chocolate, of course)
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That’s on a normal day. When I’m stressed I need medication too.
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I use a medication call Margarita. Works great! After two you can dance to La Bamba!
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I hear you sista! I write my blog for the week, because I can say whatever I want and no one answers me back. I then try and schedule a Friday night champagne catch up with a few friends to forget the week that was and remind myself for the first and possibly the last time that week to laugh, breathe and believe….that next week will be a little better and maybe I will win lotto! Hang in there Louisa!
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Yes, I need to get a bit more organised and schedule some time with the girls. Since we moved it’s a bit more difficult, but no such word as ‘can’t’.
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How do I cope? I don’t! Instead I swing between passive-aggressive mumblings and outright rage. Rage followed by outright guilt if I’ve taken it out on the smallest kids and made them cry with my ‘what a bug voice you’ve got’ ranting. No guilt if it’s been aimed at Husband.
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That’s the main role of ‘Husband’ – punchbag. They deserve it.
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I quit my job when it interfered with my work life balance recently, I quit. Drastic measures but it was time for change. Hope you find balance again soon.
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I’ve done that a few times but it doesn’t get any easier getting re-employed as you get older and to be honest, I enjoy work. Sometimes I just get a bit overwhelmed.
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