Feeling overwhelmed

Summersun - I'm glad you came here to vent. But, I'm sorry you've got so very much to deal with now.

I think our husbands (well mine does anyway) see this lyme 'stuff' as something that doesn't involve them...and see it as a big part of our lives...that doesn't include them.

Can you sit down with him and just explain calmly everything you've got going on now...and that when the finance issues you're having are all worked out...then you'll have some more time for the two of you?

(I know - Easy for me to say...I usually react in a way that just adds fuel to the fire...)


I think our husbands just want everything to go back to 'normal' again...I can't blame them...so do I!!!

Hi Summersun,

I just joined this forum today! Your post was the first I read and I felt the need to reply!

I have been feeling the same way with my husband lately. He has always been very supportive of me, but the last few weeks I can see it is starting to wear him out. We have two young children (3 and 18 mos), he works 50 hours a week and I have had to leave my job because of Lyme. I feel like I have watched a lot of our life crumble around us, its been hard. It's like a bomb that just keeps going off. Over and over.

I feel so guilty that I can just make everything go away, and take care of things like I used to. I haven't been myself since my second daughter was born in December 2014, but I started to really get sick From July 2015 and went undiagnosed until March 2016. I've been in treatment since then with no improvement. (Which is why I decided to stop stalking posts and join :))

It has been really challenging, I always just try to remind him that although I know he is not suffering from this in the same way that I am, that doesn't mean his experience as my husband and a father is not difficult. His problems and feelings still matter to me, even though they don't seem as bad as mine.

Sometimes as much as it sucks, I just don't think others can understand what chronic illness is like unless they have lived it!

Thanks for all your replies.

Girlie - I tried to explain everything the best I could but I got super emotional. I had been holding it together up until then but it was the last straw and I just started crying and I couldn't stop. It did not help that he started the conversation off in a snarky way which just made me defensive. If he would have said, "I would like to spend more time with you" as opposed to being snarky about it, things would have been so much better. Then he started questioning all the things I was doing with others. You see I missed an important family event on his side because I got really sick that day - basically I totally crashed and was bedridden. This was the worst day I had in over a year! It was terrible timing, but this is how it goes with Lyme. You never know when it's going to happen. I think he couldn't quite believe this was happening to me as I had been doing better lately. Even though he knows there are ups and downs with Lyme I don't think he still really gets it because he is always so disappointed when it happens. When he sees me doing better he thinks it will keep getting better. He seems to forget about the dips in the road.

And I so hear ya Girlie. When someone asks me what I am doing tomorrow my answer is usually "I don't know yet" (unless I have an appointment or definite plan). It's basically I will see how I feel and take it from there. One day at a time as they say. My hubby is a planner so this is also difficult.

I just felt so frustrated as I had to explain what I was doing and why and then had to explain why I was so upset when I thought that was obvious. I guess it's hard for an extrovert who is very tough emotionally to understand the emotions of an introvert who is highly sensitive with Lyme disease.

Krimpet - Agreed - our significant others do get lonely for the old us, and understandably so. They find it hard when we are doing so much and then suddenly can't when we crash. I know my adrenals are a problem and I am taking something for that. Thanks.

Momma-Fuchs - Welcome to the forum and thanks for your very first message! I am honored. Wow - you are going through so much, especially when you have small children to take care of. It must be very challenging indeed. I know the guilt just eats away at you, but we have to remember that it is not our fault. I am just realizing as I am replying to you that our husbands just go through ups and downs like we do. It's so hard on everyone involved. Its great that you remind him that you are aware of his feelings and difficulties during this difficult time. That will certainly help your relationship. I guess I should do that more often.

Momma_Fuchs - you mentioned 'breakdowns' once a week. I can honestly tell you that for the first while - when my symptoms started..they were daily...for several weeks.
My husband was driving home from work on his half hour lunch break (because of the drive, he would have 5-10 minutes at home and then have to leave) - because he was so worried about my emotional state.
I was really 'out of it'.
He'd walk in the door and I'd grab on to him...sobbing...almost hysterical.
I thought I was losing my mind...on top of so many other symptoms...


Summersun - I've had to learn not to react when my husband is being 'unreasonable' in my opinion...he usually realizes that he is...eventually. If I argue...defend...it usually gets me more upset...so I wait it out...and then he 'comes around' in most cases.
But, sometimes, I'm not patient and I get into it with him...which usually leaves me in tears. I've always cried easily anyway...so you can imagine how many tears I shed now....

Aww girlie ur so sweet!!!! Its ok honey remind yourself this is temporary!! You will get better <3

Thanks Momma-Fuchs! It looks like we have even more in common. I will talk to you anytime. I just want you to know that I was like you at the beginning of my illness too. I cried a lot and had to grieve the loss of my old self. It's a process and it takes time, but eventually acceptance and healing begins to occur.

Girlie and Momma-F I am the same. I have always cried easily and when I start I can't stop for the longest time. It's like I don't have an off switch for tears! The next day I have horrible swollen painful red eye lids and I now find it lasts even 2 days! Uggghhh! I think it must be some type of drainage issue due to Lyme.

Girlie - Wow, thanks for sharing your story about what it was like for you at the beginning. You have come a long way. Thanks for your advice on trying not to react when he is "unreasonable" but it's super difficult. He always wants to talk...and talk...and talk everything to death! Communication is good at times but since I got Lyme I don't always want to talk about troubling things because I feel the need to protect my feelings, (or stress level). Like you said, if we get into it, it just increases my stress and then I don't sleep well and then all my symptoms get ramped up.

I guess I get very upset when I feel I have to defend myself, but it's also when I know that he is suffering and that I am hurting him...inadvertently of course...due to my not being able to live a normal life.

I am sorry that you are going through this. When we are at our worst, it would be so nice to just be able to have a soft landing spot, instead of having to struggle to care for everyone else.

I had an experience with my normally pretty consistent and somewhat supportive husband that may or may not have anything to do with your husband...but it is what happened here. I don't know if this is helpful or not.

My first round of lyme, I had been sick with symptoms for about 7 years before being diagnosed. I got treated and on the 5th day I basically lost my brain. I had traveled to 4 hours to Connecticut to see a new lyme doc and after the appointment, I was alone in a hotel room .... when I basically lost my ability to form words, I had NO idea where I was, I looked in the mirror and actually did not recognize my own face, and stood up for five hours because I "forgot" how to sit down. I was just crying and crying. It came out of nowhere. Needless to say I was terrified, never having been through anything like this ever before. I also believe the inflammation that I was experiencing in my brain caused me that day to think that it would make much more sense to die than to live. This came on in a matter of hours.

I called my husband, who had my young kids at his family's lake house.
I was sobbing, told him what was happening and asked him to come get me. He refused, telling me that he did not "get many vacations" and did not get to "spend much time with his family". I was terrified, horrified, and alone. I did not know how to take care of myself and figured. Had to get home....I tired to go get gas to put in the car and did not know how to fill the tank. I drove a stretch of the road on the way home on the wrong side of the road because I thought that it was a highway ( I KNOW) I had been fine before that day. I got home and my husband did not come back with the kids for four more days.

I was SO SO SO sick. What was interesting is that my husband did not pick up on that I was any sicker than I had been. Even when he got home, he did not get it,,,, I think that he just saw this as a continuation of all the years when things were not right. He just wanted life to be normal and to this day, he says that I had been sick so long that he didn't recognize that this was any different than all the other years. Even when I explained things that were happening, even when he saw me, he didn't understand the difference. A few months later when I was still going through this hell, even after he had seen me, he said something like IF YOU HAD TO WORK TO SUPPORT YOURSELF you could, you would have to....my mouth just gaped open..... I was so far from being able to even string two sentences together or make a phone call and he didn't notice that this was 100 times harder or that it was much different from before.....maybe it was denial that life was really falling apart,,,,, one of his coping mechanisms.... He is a pretty good guy, steady and even. He has been supportive in ways that matter - My theory is that if went through all the ups and downs that I went through , we both would have been crazy........ By the way he now says that if he had it to do over..... He would do it differently. If he had realized.... He does understand that I do not ask for things frivolously.

(He also has had a bout of lyme this summer.....so he now understands what tired means.......) I hate to have that be the way that he understands but it seems to be met with a little more empathy.

So I am just telling this long winded story to say that sometime from the outside, when things are going horribly, we are the only ones that really know. Wrong as it is, To others, it feels like it might be your choice not to be participating.... (And oh the things that we have missed....that we would have loved to have done!)

I am sorry that you are going through such tough stuff.......

Ak - gosh - your story....my goodness that must have been so scary for you.


I hope at some point these memories don't stir up emotions anymore.....they still do for me...I guess I've got some PTSD going on.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I so appreciate all your replies, but I've just been really busy.

Krimpet - I am taking Douglas Laboratories - Adrenplus 300.

AK - so true...it would be so wonderful to have a soft landing spot and not have to struggle to care for others at this time...and just have the time and space to HEAL. I have often wished I could afford to go off to a spa or something for a month and just focus on me!

Thanks for sharing your story. It must have been so terrifying for you to go through all of that alone! I can't imagine.

I truly agree with your line: "To others, it feels like it might be your choice not to be participating.... (And oh the things that we have missed....that we would have loved to have done!) ". As if any of us would rather spend the day in bed than participating in life!

Summersun do you stress dose for the adrenals? I have heard when people are under more stress they sometimes may take a little extra to compensate for the added stress?

Summersun this will blow over. I remember when I first started feeling unwell and my husband later told me (about a year later) that he would ride pass the house to see if anyone was here. He didn't believe that I was unwell, but rather I guess trying to sneak around. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I have 2 boys and a hubby. I told him I can barely manage the testosterone already in this house (lol).

Krimpet,
Yes, and here I am saying that I spend a lot of time in bed.......! :)

That or possibly having and affair with the doctor..weekly treatments,,,,. Two hour drive and sometimes I would have to spend the night because I was too tired to get home.........

Yep, pretty wild existence!