How to cope with severe, possibly long-term stress

Post date: 2024-10-27 02:16:36

I've currently got a couple of very stressful situations going on simultaneously and I am stressed the fuck out. One is an ongoing problem with my mentally ill adult child that could blow up spectacularly at any time, and meanwhile is draining us financially; the other is a coworker's impending maternity leave, during which I will be insanely busy working long hours. I've done it before and it was horrible.

The work situation is what it is, I've already talked to my bosses and gotten some backup but I'm not confident it will be enough. I'm sure everyone will do what they can but there is very little chance it's not going to be a zoo. The adult child situation is just hard and there is no good solution at the moment.

Currently I am extremely stressed out and anxious. The bad days are way outnumbering the good ones right now, and I'm worried about a few things: how to keep functioning through the stress when dropping the ball is not an option (I need both the job and the kid); how to lower the anxiety level so it's more tolerable; and what if anything can be done to help prevent the stress from wrecking my health. I'm already in therapy, but I need more ideas for how to cope than we've been able to come up with so far. The recent escalation of stress was unexpected so we're just beginning to address how to cope when you can't fix the situation or escape from it.

Currently my symptoms are severe anxiety attacks: tightness in chest, nervous sensation in the pit of my stomach, nausea to the point of nearly throwing up, trouble sleeping, constant worrying, having a hard time focusing. When I'm not in the middle of one of these attacks, there is always a baseline of uncomfortable anxiety in the background.

So... what have you got for me? What can I do from a self-help standpoint to make this more tolerable and protect my health as much as possible?

I KNOW it's not a good situation, and I know that ideally I'd be able to take steps to improve the situations themselves rather than trying to white-knuckle through. Believe me, steps have BEEN taken and this is what I'm left with.

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