• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

The End Game

Status
Not open for further replies.

enough

MyPTSD Pro
Baseball fans know what the end game is. Your team is behind, you are getting into the last at bats you have, you start substituting players that can't play defense when they are in the field but get on base when at bat, you pull a good pitcher early to get the closer in and keep the opposing batters from getting on base, basically, you stop worrying about doing whats best in the long term and start worrying about whats immediately next and not much else. Now or never is another way to explain it.
I feel this is setting in and i can't get myself to accept it and live life this way, but I am doing it anyway.
Since I went through a long period of stress and worry about my wifes health, and then the worry associated with 3 premature births in the family (all grandsons, all doing well now) I feel like I just don't have much more to give and accepting new stress is just not possible anymore. But stresses don't stop. I wake up to more everyday. Life or death stresses. important things that need attention.
I make decisions based on getting through today, but the knowledge that there is still plenty of life left to live and i am hurting my chances for later on wakes me up some nights. Short term, it has to be, I don't have a shot at getting through this without playing the end game now. Long term, well I guess you can't have both. Not right now. i am depleted and doing everything the best, most sensible, most responsible and attentive to all the details way is just not doable. Some things have to just not matter right now.
It would push me over the edge and into an uncontrolled spin I think, to live like I always have and attend to every detail as best as i can. i don't have the bandwidth to handle life as i have lived it and manage the shit storm i am living in now. Gotta let some stuff go, clear the cache and play the end game.
Does anyone else ever feel like this? Survival today is all that matters even if it is going to make it rougher tomorrow?
There is no tomorrow if we don't get through today. Time to play the end game.
 
Does anyone else ever feel like this?
Yes. Sometimes when I do, though, it's based on some cognitive distortions. I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to feel like I'm responsible for stuff that's not really my responsibility, for a start.

I'm not a huge baseball fan, but the concept of an end game makes sense. Losing is losing and there's no difference between losing big and just losing in a baseball game. Everything will reset for the next game anyway. So you do whatever you can to win, even if it means the loss will probably be spectacular. I wonder how accurate a metaphor for life that really is? I mean that. I'm not sure it's accurate but maybe it is.

You sound exhausted. Which I've come to find out is a real thing and not something you should be blamed for. Hang in there, ok? Your tribe here is on your side.
 
Gotta let some stuff go, clear the cache and play the end game.
Sounds totally reasonable to me. Learning that our best (although not up to our normal standards) is absolutely okee-dokee is the best of the best in self care. Adjusting and adapting to new and changing situations is what life is all about. It sounds like you feel this is some sort of character flaw when I think, in fact, it is just about the reality that different stages of life affect our drive to be high performers.
 
Baseball fans know what the end game is. Your team is behind, you are getting into the last at bats you have, you start substituting players that can't play defense when they are in the field but get on base when at bat, you pull a good pitcher early to get the closer in and keep the opposing batters from getting on base, basically, you stop worrying about doing whats best in the long term and start worrying about whats immediately next and not much else. Now or never is another way to explain it.
I feel this is setting in and i can't get myself to accept it and live life this way, but I am doing it anyway.
Since I went through a long period of stress and worry about my wifes health, and then the worry associated with 3 premature births in the family (all grandsons, all doing well now) I feel like I just don't have much more to give and accepting new stress is just not possible anymore. But stresses don't stop. I wake up to more everyday. Life or death stresses. important things that need attention.
I make decisions based on getting through today, but the knowledge that there is still plenty of life left to live and i am hurting my chances for later on wakes me up some nights. Short term, it has to be, I don't have a shot at getting through this without playing the end game now. Long term, well I guess you can't have both. Not right now. i am depleted and doing everything the best, most sensible, most responsible and attentive to all the details way is just not doable. Some things have to just not matter right now.
It would push me over the edge and into an uncontrolled spin I think, to live like I always have and attend to every detail as best as i can. i don't have the bandwidth to handle life as i have lived it and manage the shit storm i am living in now. Gotta let some stuff go, clear the cache and play the end game.
Does anyone else ever feel like this? Survival today is all that matters even if it is going to make it rougher tomorrow?
There is no tomorrow if we don't get through today. Time to play the end game.
Hi,

There are days when I feel like this and they suck. Feels like I am trying to control things that are going that are beyond my control. This exhausts me to the core.

Self care seems the best way to go.

Hopefully you can do some glimmer stuff that will relieve some of your stress.

All the best to you.
 
sports fan i ain't and the more people explain "end game" to me, the less i understand it, but staying optimistic through the storms of life is a challenge i've shared with many a sports fan. by any metaphor, ^it^ can be a challenge.

I make decisions based on getting through today, but the knowledge that there is still plenty of life left to live and i am hurting my chances for later on wakes me up some nights.

me, too, and i ain't metaphoring around.
 
thanks all

stress reduction plan no 1: pay off the mortgage. A lump sum withdrawal from a 401K will cause extreme income tax headaches this year, but balanced against having a monthly expense that is mostly interest to pay for something that I could lose if I don't make the monthly payment is almost too simple a decision to even think about. The market goes up and down, if it drops too much I may not have the option to do this later or a job to earn the money to make the payment. Simple, but highly regarded as a fools move by money managers and consultants. This fool is making the move. less stress if I just screw it and do it.
stress reduction plan no 2: Quit caring if I keep climbing the company ladder or not. Head down, hard at work with a smile on my face and a design on my desk is my style and it won't change. I will just do it without caring that the idiots they promote are idiots. A lot of guys just like me are the backbone of the company and it is better to be head down and working when the heads start rolling. We all die together if it is bad enough, but it won't matter to me anymore, see stress reduction plan 1 above.

When retirement comes around, i may wish i had more reserves. I just have to remind myself that retirement came around and for a long time there I was wondering if next week was going to come around. good thing I played the end game when I had to.
 
Does anyone else ever feel like this? Survival today is all that matters even if it is going to make it rougher tomorrow?
Often.

It used to drive my exHusband keeeerazy that I have a standing rule that I “refuse to live as if it’s an emergency, if it’s not actually an emergency”.

Because he’d seen me kick into high gear, and wanted that Friday who pulled money out of thin air, and acquired/deployed resources left/right/center, who wasn’t slowed down by obstacles or challenges (including things like needing to eat/sleep/etc.), who was lively/energetic/laughing, et cetera in big big ways, both subtle & subtle as a brick.

Dude. (Meaning my ex, when we were having those arguments; but also a thwack upside my own head from time to time 😉) That’s just not f*cking possible… long term.

But?

In the short term, it’s a phenom f*cking skill set & mindset to be able to call on.

There will be a crash, and other consequences, at the end of one of these full tilt boogies. Which is part of why I refuse to live that way unless needs must / an emergency is on / it’s the end game & needs to be played as such. As the more I call on it outside of a controlled environment (like at work), the less control I have over both deciding to engage it & knowing where my limits are. IE I start to get very… feral. Wild. Living on instinct. Tomorrow & tomorrow stop being things I set aside in order to win the day, and start becoming less & less real, at all. Until I’m not actually capable of living in a world with bills to pay, and food to buy, or even allowing for anything that isn’t happening right now, in their moment, being real. <<< You can’t play the whole game, like it’s the end game, and expect to come out whole, much less win >>> But that takes some time to set in.

The key is to be really aware, and very much limit when & where I kick into high gear, for how long, & in what circumstances.
 
I definitely feel like this. I ignored my body's needs for years to be a "great employee," to prove my worth to myself and my bosses.

Eventually, my body said "F__ you."

I now am disabled because of a TBI and I learned from a good friend the "good enough" rule.

I no longer have the energies to attend to details as I once did. So, while I always do the *best I can,* sometimes the "best I can" is simply "good enough." It literally has to be good enough because I can't do better than my best. Does that make sense?

Hang in there. If it's too much house, please consider a free bankruptcy consultation before you take out $ from your 401(k) (that's the area of law in which I worked for 20yrs). You may have other options you haven't even thought of. Even if you DON'T file for bankruptcy.

Hth. You got this!! 😊💪👍
 
@Soleil thanks but not a bankruptcy problem at all. I pay all my bills and have extra already, I just don’t want to think about a market crash and the resulting loss of all of that money set aside anymore. Been getting closer and closer to this for a few years now, started when president unspeakable name announced he was going to privatize the fed on Christmas Eve and our collective present that year was a market dive. I want out, I am going to have a max income tax percentage year for this but I am lump summing off enough to pay off my mortgage. Huge tax and no more worries or monthly interest payments and fear of what happens to the economy after the next ( fill in the blank) . It may hurt me when I retire, and it will hurt on April 15, but I will have a much better chance of seeing April 15 and retirement someday for playing this end game move today.
No bancruptcy, I doubt I could even qualify for one now, pretty sure I couldn’t after my monthly mortgage payment disappears.
 
Hi Enough.
I recently got this article on AARP in my inbox, and you came to mind. 😊 I thought you might find helpful as it discusses what to do in this bear market.

Not trying to convince you or change your mind. Only giving you info because we don't know what we don't know. And...I found it personally helpful.

Do what you feel is best for you, as always. 😊💕

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top