What skills or lessons have you learned recently?

Recently, I have learned that a lot of my inaction in life has come from a lack of support that I felt from my family. When you are constantly having to repeat yourself or remind everyone about everything, your feeling of self worth really takes a tumble.

Everyone has been talking to me about caregiver burnout for years and while that may be true. I think I just reached a place where nobody seemed to value me and my contributions, so it just became more difficult to take care of things that were once my domain.

Everyone is constantly making a mess of my house and I just stopped caring. Occasionally, I have a spurt of drive and will completely clean a room or two, but by the next weekend the rooms are trashed again and I find it difficult to move forward.

Last week, I realized I felt invisible in my own home. I am the person who spends the most time in my home, but I do not feel like it is my space. I constantly manage everyone’s schedules and make sure they take the things they need to the places they need to be. I am the in home therapist that is on call 24/7 and I do not get to choose to ignore my clients.

Trying to be everything for everyone has left me a shell of who I was before I had kids or a partner. Now I am treated as an accessory even though I am the one making everything happen. After I realized that last week, I had a huge burst of energy and have gotten more done in the last week than I have in probably months.

I am only noticed when I am not who they expect me to be or if I fail to live up to their expectations of me. Has anyone seen that new Michelle Pfeiffer mover, “Oh. What. Fun.”? It looks like how I feel. I think I am going to have that be our family holiday movie and see if anyone besides me gets something out of it.