running on empty...

Holidays this year mostly so far went off without a hitch. With the exception of pre holiday run which resulted in not seen since drinking days emotional tidal wave complete with overwhelming feelings of inadequacey and self doubt. Pathetic is probably the word I should use to describe me running behind my husband and crying because the entire I am thinking the following: I am in terrible shape, I am a bad runner, I am pathetic, I cant follow thru on anything, I am bad at everything, I am worthless, I am a terrible wife, I am terrible mother, I am lost, I am not going to stop, I am going to stop, I should not be running at all, I need to be running--and then finally, I am tired and I am going home. Except home was not my house but my mother in laws house full of family. Suffice to say these epic feelings of self doubt, self flaggelation, are not new to me but are new to me more recently. I guess what all of my thinking has in common is that it is about me. The leads me to real confusion since I frequently feel like I never get to do what I want or get to feel how I want and so the constant thinking about me is really at odds with how I act which leads me only to think that maybe if I acted more in my best interest I would be thinking less about myself in the long run. I read somewhere that narcissim is so closely linked to addiction that when a person is active in their addiction you cant clincally tell if they are indeed truly narcissitc or just a person in the grips of addiction. This makes sense to me except I am not even drinking anymore so what the heck? The only thing I can think is that somewhere along this crazy path of mine that I somehow missed the self care class or skipped it. Now I spend all of this time and energy just trying to learn how to take care of other people and then being surprised and confused when I bottom out and feel terrible bc I have been running on Empty for days. Somewhere, somehow there has got to be a way for me to refuel my tanks. Exercise. Aromatherapy. Antidepressants. Therapy. Yoga. Green Tea. Mint Tea. Spearmint Tea. Journaling. Blogging. Knitting. These are just some but not all of my attempts at figuring this out. I admit to not sticking with any of these except therapy and meds. It seems like I have exactly 1 hour every two weeks and 1 minute everyday to do something for me. Anything of top of that is really hard to come by. This is my own doing to some extent--young kids, working parents, strange schedules, and yet I cant help but think deep down that figuring out what I need to do for me to feel somewhat relaxed, ok, connected is pretty important. I've got no answers yet but I was thinking this--the f'ing miracle question. If whatever I think I need (exercise, the right meds, meditation, spirituality) if I woke up tomorrow and had it--what would the first thing be that I noticed to know that something had changed? So far I am thinking that I would know something is different bc I would wake up early and have time to myself, I would have time to journal or walk or run or listen to music or write before anyone wanted anythign. I would be showered and clean when everyone woke up. In other words I'd take time for myself without feeling bad, without postponing, without snoozing. Maybe tomorrow is the morning I'll start...F the snooze button. x