Trying not to fall in the rabbit hole

I've been very honest about the fact that I had Post Partum Depression after I had Jacob.  For the first four months, I felt very alone and the realization that certain things were not in my control was very difficult to handle.  For at least a year after his birth, I struggled with these feelings still, while reaching out to others and taking antidepressants as a supplemental aide.  Since puberty I've struggled with depression and anxiety, and have tried many different tactics to keep it at bay.  For awhile now, I've been feeling like my anxiety has been subdued, or even sometimes I trick myself into thinking that it's gone completely.  But lately, I've been wondering how much of that is due to post-birth endorphins and the extra help I got when my husband was unemployed for 37 1/2 weeks.

Having two kids is hard.  Having any amount of kids is hard, but I'm really struggling with finding a balance with two.  Bennett and I have a great rhythm going, and even though he doesn't like being put down (like EVER), I feel like I understand his needs and know how to help him most of the time.  But with Jacob, every day I am realizing that there are times in which I just don't know how to interact with him, and having a baby who needs me constantly makes it difficult to just sit with the three year old and listen to what he is telling me.  This is when my anxiety strikes, when I feel overwhelmed and find that my brain will not stop running a dialogue of the million things I need to do and trying to find some order and method in which they can all get done.  I know that I am not alone in this, in fact, I feel like this is one of the most common complaints of mothers, that we have no time for ourselves, let alone all of the things we feel that we need to accomplish.

Even this blog post was instigated by me trying to nap with the baby and my irritating brain not shutting itself off.

The older I get, the more I understand this part of my personality, and what triggers my anxiety attacks/bouts of depression.  The problem is not pinpointing how to give myself some space from the triggers, it is telling myself that it is okay to give myself space from them.

For example, I know that a huge trigger for me is not sleeping enough.  I am the type of person who does not do well staying up past 11pm on a regular basis, and I feel like death if I am in bed for less than 8 hours.  (Not conducive to having a new baby, I realize)  So one way to help myself with this would be to try and nap as much as possible, but I usually fall into the trap where I finally get Bennett to stay asleep and instead of drifting off myself, my annoying brain says that now would be the perfect time to catch up on laundry or dishes, or take the garbage out and that I will be mad at myself for not doing those things.  The truth is, I'm mad at myself when I do those things instead of rest.  I need to rest or else I start snapping at Jacob and feeling guilty about snapping, and feeling sorry for myself and then I fall into the rabbit hole of depression.

So, my new idea to combat this is to have my husband keep me accountable.  I am going to have him ask me every night when he gets home what I did for myself that day and to be tough with me if I try to feed him a bunch of excuses.  I think that having someone check up on me will force me to brush off these excuses and actually take care of myself so that I can properly take care of our kids.  I'm not saying that this will completely keep me away from all of my anxiety and depression issues, but any help to alleviate some feeling of obligation and permission to take care of myself is going to be a good thing.

Have you struggled with feeling that you need to do too much?  How do you make sure to take care of yourself while taking care of others?