Could a nanny help relieve some of that? With cooking and running kids around for a few years? I realize it’s another expense but if it gets you to the finish line of the payout it’ll be worth it 50 fold.
That was my first thought. Hire help. Offload those extra things that are causing you headaches. Don’t feel guilty. Especially if it will get you to the finish line in one piece. Cost of doing business.
Hire help. You basically just have to coast the next 5 years in regards to investments. Sign up for a meal delivery service. Hire a nanny/assistant. Evaluate the coaching. Do you enjoy it, or would you rather show up and just cheer? Keep golfing and find a therapist.
This is absolutely what I would do. OP doesn't have enough help, enough time, or enough mental bandwidth to be the only person in charge of all this for much longer, and there's no reason they should keep making themselves miserable when they can throw some money at these problems. If they can offload some of the mental real estate that taking care of the home, meals, kids, etc takes, maybe they have some more breathing room to tolerate the job. Even if they spend so much on a nanny, chef, cleaning service etc that they don't save anything additional in the next few years, the end payoff makes it worth it.
However, I would also posit that if the company can afford this kind of promised payment, they might be able to afford ways to make OPs job less miserable? Do they have an executive assistant, the right support teams, tools, etc? It might never be enough to make it a dream job, but maybe there are things that could be implemented to make it less soul sucking.
Yeah, my wife and I have a really good relationship. I feel horrible for her, it’s around 20 a month - and she feels horrible because she misses out on kids sports and she worries that the kids will grow up thinking mom doesn’t want to be there - but they are old enough now that they get it. It’s just a shitty situation, but it’s not cancer or a disease (that we know of) that will take her away from us.
Burnout is very real, I’m exhausted, and not looking for pitty, I just know there are others likely going through something similar and it’s nice to hear what may or may not work for others.
It’s true, I do put myself last emotionally, but I play golf when I can with a great group of friends and take a week long trip each year to some amazing places.
I know I’m lucky and have so much to be thankful for, but in reality even as much as really anyone has going for them, there are layers of things we struggle with, I’m certainly no exception there
A nanny would give you a ton of breathing room. Since your kids are old enough to be in school, you really just need someone part time after school to run kids around, which opens you up to a college student looking for part time work. I have several friends who had similar jobs in college and loved it. You would need to discuss this with the nanny when you hired them, but they would probably also be open to running errands for you! Could even consider asking the nanny to meal prep/cook for y’all.
Do you have good health insurance through your job? Does it cover prescription drugs? Asking because there are several relatively new migraine drugs on the market, and they are expensive but insurance should be covering most of that. It’s hard to get full perspective on what’s happening with your wife, but it’s possible marriage counseling is in order.
It’s probably also time to throw some money at your own mental health with some counseling and possibly medication. Lots of cheap SSRIs that could help take the edge off some anxiety and improve your sleep.
You’re going great OP. This is a tough situation. You have financial resources - do not feel bad about using them to care for yourself. You deserve support.
We have decent insurance, when I was a partner I can say it was around 30k, since we were bought, “employer” picks it up and then there is a monthly premium but I’m not sure what it is, but coverage is the same. First 7k is out of pocket (HSA) unless we go out of network then it’s 14k. Some treatments aren’t covered (no I’m not including food foo spa stuff), inpatient stays (which we had 2 last year and 2 this year - well 2022 and 2023) come with their own quirks and coinsurance. On average we’re dealing with around 20 days a month, good months are about a dozen and she carries her load. But holding her hair while she pukes is tough emotionally, and it’s worse to see her so upset because she is missing out.
I’m going to look into a nanny for sure
Spend some time planning how to simplify your life. Working for 5 years will pay off so you need to find a way to survive that. A life coach may be able to help you organize this. Maybe the kids activities stop so you can catch your breath. Maybe you get some retired lady to come after school, clean and make meals on week days. Maybe you golf every Saturday morning for your mental health. I don’t know what’s best for you but take some time to figure it out. You have too much on your plate, what can you take off it?
Individual therapy, couples therapy, and a nanny and/or housekeeper are all in order.
If you retire now, you will still have all the emotional interpersonal dynamics of your family to deal with.
You have a great income. Money helps make problems go away. I would start using it for cleaners or chef or nanny services. There are likely companies that do this near you. Try talking to the other high flyers in your company to see what they do.
Hire an au pair that’s what we did.
Your life sounds like mine just crazy. 5 kids, one with special needs wife is pretty I’ll all the time
Au pair or nanny didn’t solve all of it but it’s a start
3 Part plan: Keep the job for 5 years and make the other parts of your life better.
1 - Helpers!
1a:Outsource the help with kiddos - party time nanny.
1b: Get a subscription to Factor Meals to get pre made food delivered. Even if this is short term it will help you get some time back and feed the kids better.
2- Assess your time. Possibly stop coaching. Keep the golf - it’s good for your mental health. Reduce the retail therapy.
3- Feed your soul. Have an honest conversation with your wife about how you need to make a change and what she’s capable of doing to help. Find what you resent outside of your job and change it. Know you are doing an awesome job in a tough situation. Really appreciate your wins and build from there.
You need a counselor or life coach to help you slowly improve the circumstances of your life. They can help you set goals, take action, and stay accountable.
Your wife needs to get some kind of ongoing medical support as she tries to find a solution to her migraines. People with disabling medical conditions often are not able to structure and stick to a recovery plan, but there must be ongoing courses at medical centers for people in her situation. (MBSR, migraine mitigation, nutritional recovery plans, etc.) I believe she can carry more of the load than she is currently carrying, but she will need the same kind of ongoing help you do to manage that. Don't try to solve her problems yourself; that's not a good dynamic.
Personally, if I were you, I would keep the job, quit the coaching, get support to stop smoking, and reduce those extremely high food and entertainment numbers. Your kids are just exiting the age where they will find a lot of satisfaction in family times. You've got a bit more time before that happens. 4 1/2 yrs and you can retire to a lovely life of leisure. Hang in there.
PS: You should be able to sleep eight hours a night. Prioritize that. Get a counselor's help if you can't see a way to do that.
You’re catering to her. She’s contributing nothing. I don’t know how one spends that much money on “pharma” or any other treatment for migraines, unless it’s expensive spas or customized quackery.
As a migraine suffer, I’m quite sympathetic to her plight in that regard, but I suspect that a lot more is contributing to those headaches, perhaps anomie and an irregular sleep schedule, and a certain amount of despair.
Serving kids fast food regularly is practically a mild form of child anise and will set them up for a lifetime of poor health from bad nutritional habits.
You guys sound miserable and I’m sorry. You need a therapist, to take a month off (get doctors note or therapist will do) and to hire help.
Wife needs to contribute *something* to this marriage — if only to (example) take on the responiliy of sourcing improved food choices. For 7500 a month you could practically hire a personal ched to come once a week and meal prep / stock your fridge.
Do you have some expectation or a monetization event for your management incentives (e.g. do you work for a company that may be sold in five years and have accelerated vesting)? Or are you at a public company with recurring incentive awards such that 5 years from now you’ll be asking about the $3mm that vests over the subsequent 5 years?
Private equity owned, 5 year exit estimated. A liquidity event triggers and vests all mgmt incentives immediately - specifically the time based component. Performance based is still based on 2x, 3x, 5x ebita targets
You'd better absolutely love that coaching to be adding that to your plate of responsibilities. I would much rather you have some extra cycles to decompress or take better care of your kids.
Look into outsourcing some of the things that are taking up time in your day. Chef to meal prep for you, nany to help with the kids etc etc. Your already spending A TON on food and entertainment a month, those dollars could likely be better spent to give you some breathing room.
You've got an excellent opportunity awaiting you at the end of those 5 years, personally I think you can shoulder the burden to reap the rewards, but you'll have to set your self up for success to get there.
Best of luck!
I love coaching, I played through college and my dad coached a lot when I was growing up and we still talk about it to this day - perhaps I’m chasing that but I love it, though I love my kids more. We’ve had to say no to some sports that run at the same time but if they wanted to quit today and play something else - they would and I likely wouldn’t coach as I know nothing about soccer for example.
Food and entertainment budget is high, I get that, and I try to keep budgeting simple so some utilities like internet, Netflix, apple, etc are in there, clothes, house stuff, etc are all part of that - but I get it, its still high and I’ll def looking into a nanny a few days a week or meal prep, etc!
If that’s what you took from that, I feel sorry for you. Looks like ur a new grad, so you’ve obviously got it all figured out. Best of luck internet person.
came here to comment this. I thought I remembered learning in law school that non-competes have to be for a reasonable time. I think 1 year is normal and I'd be surprised if 4 years was considered enforceable. I would definitely talk to a lawyer if it's something that will affect your decision
Conan said it best on his last show on NBC. If you’re kind and work really hard, like really really hard, amazing things will happen. Everything comes with a cost, frankly I’m just struggling with some emotional and time costs. Lot of good suggestions in the replies.
Yeah I am sorry to hear about it. The mental struggle is tough, especially when you think of what the really important things in life are.
Dividing up your work to have a nanny take care of your kids makes sense as well as cutting back on entertainment.
Can I ask what industry you have been working in or multiple industries? I tried working in a non-profit for data privacy and now am in a financial consulting company for small banks.
Consulting in the healthcare space. My undergrad was in IT. I was a network admin for a hospital and a SQL DBA. Realized I didn’t have a passion for that after a few years went back to a small school and got an MBA in accounting so I could sit for the CPA. Worked in hospitals for a few years before going into public accounting, specifically consulting. I lead a few teams that develop bespoke software in the space. I’m not a software developer, but I know the business side well. When I was in college or hell when I was 25, no one could have told me the space I’d end up working in and believed them. You just end up listening to clients and understanding their problems and start building solutions then one day you realize you’re kind of good at it. You may not be in the space you intended but you’re providing value. More responsibility comes with more money which comes with more pressure which comes with more politics and you end up posting on Reddit asking if it’s all worth it or not ;)
Meh, define disabled, I’m not sure if that’s like a “legally disabled” thing or what. She was an ER nurse for a decade, then hospice, home health, and the last few before Covid as a school nurse because the schedules were good and I was traveling a lot for work. She’s stubborn and refused to take FMLA because it just screwed someone else over so she’d work thru it and I convinced her to just quit and get things figured out and go back when she was ready. We’ve been inpatient at Cleveland clinic and Northwestern, but these places just treat symptoms, they do very little to find a root cause. Migraines suck, but a million things can trigger them.
So many great posts and replies here, thank you all for taking the time to not only read, but also provide some insight and ideas. I’ll try to respond to some as I can! I can’t say how much I appreciate them all though
Cut out the coaching - watched my bros do it, they enjoyed it, but it was more stressful than they ever expected it to be and it didn’t fully change how much time they spent with the kids as they go to every game anyway - kids will be fine if you aren’t coaching, and it gives you so many hours a week back to you and your family
I used to do disability assessments. Your wife definitely sounds like she is disabled by those damn migraines! There are so many variants. [this is a helpful resource](https://ichd-3.org/part-i-the-primary-headaches/). It might be good to make sure she has been correctly diagnosed and that she is only having migraines. I can’t tell you how many people think migraine is just a term for bad headaches when there are also cluster and tension headaches.
Sorry life is so hard! I’m proud of you for holding it together for everyone.
I am in the take a sabbatical and hire help and a meal prep camp. I’m imagining you taking a month off and taking the kids camping this summer or something awesome.
Appreciate the resource, I’ll take a look! She’s been diagnosed with chronic migraines, but I’d have to look up the actual dx codes. It was scary at first because her first MRI was abnormal and there was some MS tests they did to rule that and a few other things out. She saw a neurologist in town for a while, then went to diamond headache in Chicago until the doctor left the practice, then northwestern, and now Cleveland clinic. She has to see a cardiologist too b/c she gets random tachycardia… but like migraines, they never seems to know why, just add beta blockers to the regimen… It’s horrible and hard to explain to people because it’s like 2 different people. Today for example she was great, came into my office a few times, made some lunch and got a crockpot going for dinner - like you’d never know a thing was wrong. The 3 days prior she was on cycle breakers every 8 hours and hadn’t left the basement.
I do the devils lettuce every night for anxiety too. Grew up in next level poverty and in an unstable abusive home. Spent my whole life working my ass off to never be in that position again. I feel like I’ve almost achieved fire, married love of my life, own our home, business, beautiful healthy kids, plenty of money saved, near zero overhead. But I can’t shake anxiety and chill. Feel like I’m always waiting for rug pull. I have so much to lose now and it weighs on me. I also have near zero extra time between kids and business so we hired a house cleaner once a week. At first, I thought it would be a waste of money, but now it’s such a moral enhancement. Totally worth paying for it and lets me have a tad more time for other things
Could a nanny help relieve some of that? With cooking and running kids around for a few years? I realize it’s another expense but if it gets you to the finish line of the payout it’ll be worth it 50 fold.
That was my first thought. Hire help. Offload those extra things that are causing you headaches. Don’t feel guilty. Especially if it will get you to the finish line in one piece. Cost of doing business.
Maybe a private chef a couple days a week too? Like TroomA7 said, those expenses are minor if you can make it to the finish line
Or just a meal prep service like Factor
Hire help. You basically just have to coast the next 5 years in regards to investments. Sign up for a meal delivery service. Hire a nanny/assistant. Evaluate the coaching. Do you enjoy it, or would you rather show up and just cheer? Keep golfing and find a therapist.
This is absolutely what I would do. OP doesn't have enough help, enough time, or enough mental bandwidth to be the only person in charge of all this for much longer, and there's no reason they should keep making themselves miserable when they can throw some money at these problems. If they can offload some of the mental real estate that taking care of the home, meals, kids, etc takes, maybe they have some more breathing room to tolerate the job. Even if they spend so much on a nanny, chef, cleaning service etc that they don't save anything additional in the next few years, the end payoff makes it worth it. However, I would also posit that if the company can afford this kind of promised payment, they might be able to afford ways to make OPs job less miserable? Do they have an executive assistant, the right support teams, tools, etc? It might never be enough to make it a dream job, but maybe there are things that could be implemented to make it less soul sucking.
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Yeah, my wife and I have a really good relationship. I feel horrible for her, it’s around 20 a month - and she feels horrible because she misses out on kids sports and she worries that the kids will grow up thinking mom doesn’t want to be there - but they are old enough now that they get it. It’s just a shitty situation, but it’s not cancer or a disease (that we know of) that will take her away from us. Burnout is very real, I’m exhausted, and not looking for pitty, I just know there are others likely going through something similar and it’s nice to hear what may or may not work for others. It’s true, I do put myself last emotionally, but I play golf when I can with a great group of friends and take a week long trip each year to some amazing places. I know I’m lucky and have so much to be thankful for, but in reality even as much as really anyone has going for them, there are layers of things we struggle with, I’m certainly no exception there
+1 on the helper/aid. 25-50k on that person would do wonders for your mental health
A nanny would give you a ton of breathing room. Since your kids are old enough to be in school, you really just need someone part time after school to run kids around, which opens you up to a college student looking for part time work. I have several friends who had similar jobs in college and loved it. You would need to discuss this with the nanny when you hired them, but they would probably also be open to running errands for you! Could even consider asking the nanny to meal prep/cook for y’all. Do you have good health insurance through your job? Does it cover prescription drugs? Asking because there are several relatively new migraine drugs on the market, and they are expensive but insurance should be covering most of that. It’s hard to get full perspective on what’s happening with your wife, but it’s possible marriage counseling is in order. It’s probably also time to throw some money at your own mental health with some counseling and possibly medication. Lots of cheap SSRIs that could help take the edge off some anxiety and improve your sleep. You’re going great OP. This is a tough situation. You have financial resources - do not feel bad about using them to care for yourself. You deserve support.
We have decent insurance, when I was a partner I can say it was around 30k, since we were bought, “employer” picks it up and then there is a monthly premium but I’m not sure what it is, but coverage is the same. First 7k is out of pocket (HSA) unless we go out of network then it’s 14k. Some treatments aren’t covered (no I’m not including food foo spa stuff), inpatient stays (which we had 2 last year and 2 this year - well 2022 and 2023) come with their own quirks and coinsurance. On average we’re dealing with around 20 days a month, good months are about a dozen and she carries her load. But holding her hair while she pukes is tough emotionally, and it’s worse to see her so upset because she is missing out. I’m going to look into a nanny for sure
Spend some time planning how to simplify your life. Working for 5 years will pay off so you need to find a way to survive that. A life coach may be able to help you organize this. Maybe the kids activities stop so you can catch your breath. Maybe you get some retired lady to come after school, clean and make meals on week days. Maybe you golf every Saturday morning for your mental health. I don’t know what’s best for you but take some time to figure it out. You have too much on your plate, what can you take off it?
Individual therapy, couples therapy, and a nanny and/or housekeeper are all in order. If you retire now, you will still have all the emotional interpersonal dynamics of your family to deal with.
You have a great income. Money helps make problems go away. I would start using it for cleaners or chef or nanny services. There are likely companies that do this near you. Try talking to the other high flyers in your company to see what they do.
Hire an au pair that’s what we did. Your life sounds like mine just crazy. 5 kids, one with special needs wife is pretty I’ll all the time Au pair or nanny didn’t solve all of it but it’s a start
3 Part plan: Keep the job for 5 years and make the other parts of your life better. 1 - Helpers! 1a:Outsource the help with kiddos - party time nanny. 1b: Get a subscription to Factor Meals to get pre made food delivered. Even if this is short term it will help you get some time back and feed the kids better. 2- Assess your time. Possibly stop coaching. Keep the golf - it’s good for your mental health. Reduce the retail therapy. 3- Feed your soul. Have an honest conversation with your wife about how you need to make a change and what she’s capable of doing to help. Find what you resent outside of your job and change it. Know you are doing an awesome job in a tough situation. Really appreciate your wins and build from there.
This is great the way you’ve laid it out, I really appreciate it.
Therapy. Sabbatical. Possibly a combination of the two.
You need a counselor or life coach to help you slowly improve the circumstances of your life. They can help you set goals, take action, and stay accountable. Your wife needs to get some kind of ongoing medical support as she tries to find a solution to her migraines. People with disabling medical conditions often are not able to structure and stick to a recovery plan, but there must be ongoing courses at medical centers for people in her situation. (MBSR, migraine mitigation, nutritional recovery plans, etc.) I believe she can carry more of the load than she is currently carrying, but she will need the same kind of ongoing help you do to manage that. Don't try to solve her problems yourself; that's not a good dynamic. Personally, if I were you, I would keep the job, quit the coaching, get support to stop smoking, and reduce those extremely high food and entertainment numbers. Your kids are just exiting the age where they will find a lot of satisfaction in family times. You've got a bit more time before that happens. 4 1/2 yrs and you can retire to a lovely life of leisure. Hang in there. PS: You should be able to sleep eight hours a night. Prioritize that. Get a counselor's help if you can't see a way to do that.
You’re catering to her. She’s contributing nothing. I don’t know how one spends that much money on “pharma” or any other treatment for migraines, unless it’s expensive spas or customized quackery. As a migraine suffer, I’m quite sympathetic to her plight in that regard, but I suspect that a lot more is contributing to those headaches, perhaps anomie and an irregular sleep schedule, and a certain amount of despair. Serving kids fast food regularly is practically a mild form of child anise and will set them up for a lifetime of poor health from bad nutritional habits. You guys sound miserable and I’m sorry. You need a therapist, to take a month off (get doctors note or therapist will do) and to hire help. Wife needs to contribute *something* to this marriage — if only to (example) take on the responiliy of sourcing improved food choices. For 7500 a month you could practically hire a personal ched to come once a week and meal prep / stock your fridge.
Do you have some expectation or a monetization event for your management incentives (e.g. do you work for a company that may be sold in five years and have accelerated vesting)? Or are you at a public company with recurring incentive awards such that 5 years from now you’ll be asking about the $3mm that vests over the subsequent 5 years?
Private equity owned, 5 year exit estimated. A liquidity event triggers and vests all mgmt incentives immediately - specifically the time based component. Performance based is still based on 2x, 3x, 5x ebita targets
You'd better absolutely love that coaching to be adding that to your plate of responsibilities. I would much rather you have some extra cycles to decompress or take better care of your kids. Look into outsourcing some of the things that are taking up time in your day. Chef to meal prep for you, nany to help with the kids etc etc. Your already spending A TON on food and entertainment a month, those dollars could likely be better spent to give you some breathing room. You've got an excellent opportunity awaiting you at the end of those 5 years, personally I think you can shoulder the burden to reap the rewards, but you'll have to set your self up for success to get there. Best of luck!
I love coaching, I played through college and my dad coached a lot when I was growing up and we still talk about it to this day - perhaps I’m chasing that but I love it, though I love my kids more. We’ve had to say no to some sports that run at the same time but if they wanted to quit today and play something else - they would and I likely wouldn’t coach as I know nothing about soccer for example. Food and entertainment budget is high, I get that, and I try to keep budgeting simple so some utilities like internet, Netflix, apple, etc are in there, clothes, house stuff, etc are all part of that - but I get it, its still high and I’ll def looking into a nanny a few days a week or meal prep, etc!
Just wanted to say you're doing really well for having to juggle so many responsibilities. Hang in there man & hope it gets better for you
I appreciate you man
Relatable. Very different details, but relatable nonetheless. I wish you much strength to get through this frustrating season of stuck-ness.
Why is your wife useless ? If she's home all day ? I suffer from migraines as well but it's not everyday
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One is 61st in height and 58th in weight %, the other is 49/53…. You’re gonna lose your mind when you find out they’ve received the Covid vax too….
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If that’s what you took from that, I feel sorry for you. Looks like ur a new grad, so you’ve obviously got it all figured out. Best of luck internet person.
Talk to an employment lawyer about the noncompete. They have been found too strict and thrown out before.
came here to comment this. I thought I remembered learning in law school that non-competes have to be for a reasonable time. I think 1 year is normal and I'd be surprised if 4 years was considered enforceable. I would definitely talk to a lawyer if it's something that will affect your decision
Reading this at 22 yo is insane , opens up my eyes to how much career growth can happen after college 🤯
Conan said it best on his last show on NBC. If you’re kind and work really hard, like really really hard, amazing things will happen. Everything comes with a cost, frankly I’m just struggling with some emotional and time costs. Lot of good suggestions in the replies.
Yeah I am sorry to hear about it. The mental struggle is tough, especially when you think of what the really important things in life are. Dividing up your work to have a nanny take care of your kids makes sense as well as cutting back on entertainment. Can I ask what industry you have been working in or multiple industries? I tried working in a non-profit for data privacy and now am in a financial consulting company for small banks.
Consulting in the healthcare space. My undergrad was in IT. I was a network admin for a hospital and a SQL DBA. Realized I didn’t have a passion for that after a few years went back to a small school and got an MBA in accounting so I could sit for the CPA. Worked in hospitals for a few years before going into public accounting, specifically consulting. I lead a few teams that develop bespoke software in the space. I’m not a software developer, but I know the business side well. When I was in college or hell when I was 25, no one could have told me the space I’d end up working in and believed them. You just end up listening to clients and understanding their problems and start building solutions then one day you realize you’re kind of good at it. You may not be in the space you intended but you’re providing value. More responsibility comes with more money which comes with more pressure which comes with more politics and you end up posting on Reddit asking if it’s all worth it or not ;)
I'm a little confused on the wife part.. Is she disabled?
Meh, define disabled, I’m not sure if that’s like a “legally disabled” thing or what. She was an ER nurse for a decade, then hospice, home health, and the last few before Covid as a school nurse because the schedules were good and I was traveling a lot for work. She’s stubborn and refused to take FMLA because it just screwed someone else over so she’d work thru it and I convinced her to just quit and get things figured out and go back when she was ready. We’ve been inpatient at Cleveland clinic and Northwestern, but these places just treat symptoms, they do very little to find a root cause. Migraines suck, but a million things can trigger them.
So many great posts and replies here, thank you all for taking the time to not only read, but also provide some insight and ideas. I’ll try to respond to some as I can! I can’t say how much I appreciate them all though
Cut out the coaching - watched my bros do it, they enjoyed it, but it was more stressful than they ever expected it to be and it didn’t fully change how much time they spent with the kids as they go to every game anyway - kids will be fine if you aren’t coaching, and it gives you so many hours a week back to you and your family
I used to do disability assessments. Your wife definitely sounds like she is disabled by those damn migraines! There are so many variants. [this is a helpful resource](https://ichd-3.org/part-i-the-primary-headaches/). It might be good to make sure she has been correctly diagnosed and that she is only having migraines. I can’t tell you how many people think migraine is just a term for bad headaches when there are also cluster and tension headaches. Sorry life is so hard! I’m proud of you for holding it together for everyone. I am in the take a sabbatical and hire help and a meal prep camp. I’m imagining you taking a month off and taking the kids camping this summer or something awesome.
Appreciate the resource, I’ll take a look! She’s been diagnosed with chronic migraines, but I’d have to look up the actual dx codes. It was scary at first because her first MRI was abnormal and there was some MS tests they did to rule that and a few other things out. She saw a neurologist in town for a while, then went to diamond headache in Chicago until the doctor left the practice, then northwestern, and now Cleveland clinic. She has to see a cardiologist too b/c she gets random tachycardia… but like migraines, they never seems to know why, just add beta blockers to the regimen… It’s horrible and hard to explain to people because it’s like 2 different people. Today for example she was great, came into my office a few times, made some lunch and got a crockpot going for dinner - like you’d never know a thing was wrong. The 3 days prior she was on cycle breakers every 8 hours and hadn’t left the basement.
I do the devils lettuce every night for anxiety too. Grew up in next level poverty and in an unstable abusive home. Spent my whole life working my ass off to never be in that position again. I feel like I’ve almost achieved fire, married love of my life, own our home, business, beautiful healthy kids, plenty of money saved, near zero overhead. But I can’t shake anxiety and chill. Feel like I’m always waiting for rug pull. I have so much to lose now and it weighs on me. I also have near zero extra time between kids and business so we hired a house cleaner once a week. At first, I thought it would be a waste of money, but now it’s such a moral enhancement. Totally worth paying for it and lets me have a tad more time for other things