Originally Posted by
Meraviglioso 
I have taken care of every appointment, every everything by riding km and kms on my bike in 35 degree heat. I am SUPER with my kids. I am eating healthy, back in karate, praying, meditating, AAing, talk to my sponsor nearly daily, Italian psychologist, American psychologist, psychiatrist, I bought a cargo bike (way cool by the way) to get my kids around, it should be delivered next week, I am taking my meds, I am looking for work while working my summer gig. I am doing it all, I have to do it all. I am absolutely TERRIFIED that if I let one piece of the puzze go it is all going to come crashing down. Everyone around me is in control right now, I have zero control. My ex, the court, my doctors.
This is both one of the more accurate and one of the more frightening descriptions of chronic, traumatic stress that I've ever read. It's also familiar to me. I cannot tell you how reading this has affected me.
I was never good at coming up with short-term fixes, except sometimes for myself, on-the-run, and I'm very averse to offering advice. One of the best things I did for myself when I got sober was to slow down my life. Keep things simple. Learn to live more or less with only what I needed. I got better. I learned to be grateful for many things that came to me through sobriety, and to be grateful for many things I'd lost, needed to lose, since I've been sober. The world continues to look crazy and out-of-control to me, but I no longer feel compelled to take part, alone or with others.
I'm sorry, Mera, that other people are able to play an influential role in how you see yourself as a person. That's pretty much the definition of having "zero control". That tendency depletes us emotionally and physically, and it usually does not end well. It seems not only to make you believe that you "have to do it all," but that you're not good enough to get there. And maybe never will be.
As my first sponsor told me in 1983, and as some here on SR have echoed over the years, I hope you can find a way to have a slow recovery instead of feeling out of control, chaining yourself to an artificial timetable, and pursuing a seemingly unrealistic and potentially harmful plan for recovery. With many people I've known, that seems to require a great deal of compassion around what we've done, what we've put ourselves through, and how we learn to care for ourselves while we're working to recover.
I've sometimes tried to be that caring person I needed in my life when things seemed to be falling apart. Even though it doesn't always work, it's good practice, and the walk will do you good.