[Jean-Paul]

I know exactly where you are, Rem. It feels like you have poison running through your veins, and the anxiety doesn't ever let up. You may not even see a light at the end of the tunnel.

First thing I do (and advise people to do) is to just tuck your head down and keep moving forward, even if all you can take is baby steps.

My next advice may shock you coming from a fitness professional, but you have a lot on your plate... Maybe stepping back a bit on your workouts isn't a bad thing. When you are so ridden with anxiety to the point of toxicity like you are, they won't be productive anyway, and may just add to your stress.

Start looking for things to take off of you. Right now you are so bogged down that you aren't really thinking about your future because you can't stop long enough to plan. You're too busy reacting.

Can you refinance your home to get you out of some debt? Do you have any other outlets that will allow you to give up your night teaching job?

Are you involved in any boards or committees that you can offload?

Maybe you can make up a check list of household duties broken down by what needs to be done on a daily and weekly list, and then give it to your wife and explain that you need to divide them up a bit for your sanity. Explain to her that a relationship doesn't have to be constant marital bliss, but it is very much like a bank account, and she can't keep taking withdrawals without occasionally making deposits.

First thing though is to get a moment of silence where you can sit and plan. Plan your next day, plan your week, plan your month, and plan your year (where do you want to be in a year?). If you can't see where you're going you'll never get there.

You can't continue to operate under chaos. And your wife needs a little tough love too. She needs to hear, loud and clear, what her condition does to the family to her son, and to her own quality of life.

Maybe you can recruit her into doing a daily walk with you to get things rolling. It's not effective compared to lifting, but it is a good gateway exercise.

One thing that will give you wings is the truth. You will feel liberated when you can simply speak the truth without hesitation, to your co-workers, your wife, your kids. Not cruel or mean, just honest. Don't feel like you have to protect anyone. Lay it out there and get your hands dirty. You will find a strange power in it. Did you ever see the movie, Wolf, with Jack Nicholson? Okay, aside from becoming a werewolf, he just woke up one day and realized that he had let all this bad stuff happen to him. When he stopped pulling punches with people suddenly people paid attention to him because of this new fire he had in his eyes.

Once you plan your next day, take a few minutes to do some preparation the night before so you can hit the ground running. Even if it's just something like preparing a meal or laying out your clothes. After you build up a few of those, you will get in a zone with it. Even the first time your next day will go much smoother.

Chaos is stressful. If you are looking at a pile of leaves blowing in the wind, it is the very embodiment of chaos (in a mathmatical sense), and you can almost feel carried away by the wind, completely out of control. But pick out one leave and follow it with your eyes. Suddenly you have a center, and everything is just spinning around it. It almost makes everything seem like it's moving slower. That is the essence of organization. Following one task at a time without letting yourself get lost in the chaos.

Focus on the big things and learn to compartmentalize. Worrying will do nothing but make you sick. When you can't control something, let go of it. Try to lay out your day where you can allot some time to think about it so it doesn't stay with you all day, mulling around in your head. That is advice I got from Dale Carnegie.

I agree that your health is important, but you won't lose everything if you lay off while you get your priorities straight. It's easy for young people to advise you of that because they don't have the frame of reference. When I was in my twenties, missing a workout was never even an option for me. If your head's not in the game though you are just going burn yourself completely out, and probably injure yourself in the process from not being well-rested or too stressed.

I'm not saying give up and go to pot, but back off a little and lay out a plan. One that may involve you doing other activities so you can include your family. Don't worry about having a washboard for now. Just keep active. Play some frisbee in the park with your boy. Go for nightly runs, even just a half mile with him. Go play on monkey bars with him.

You might also set some rules on food in the house, and be firm with them. Talk honestly about your son's health with your wife, and get her on the same page where she's not trying to sabotage you.

Even if you are not out of your hole, if you have something as simple as a plan it will energize you and push you forward.