Morning musings from inside the madness of mumming

Yesterday, two things happened. 1) I listened to Glennon Doyle's new podcast (oh my goodness, go, right now, immediately and get it in your earholes: We Can Do Hard Things) where she described her journey in writing which began by her just writing every morning in her closet. 2) I did an Instagram live with my friend @katywakefield_yoga to discuss mental health and the impact mumming a young child during this pandemic has had.

Both of these things made me think I have things I want to say and I don't actually care if anyone is listening to them, I just know I want to say them. So I'm going to try. 

I have a long and colourful history with various mental health issues and I can honestly say that I know more people who have had some sort of something mental health related in their life than haven't. It seems absolutely bonkers to me, then, that we are NOT talking about it all the time. All. The. Time. Especially now. Especially during this time of absolute world ending, sky falling, nothing solid to hang on to sort of a time. Hands up if you're fed up hearing 'we are in different boats but the same storm'?🙋 Hands up if so many phrases that started off providing comfort have now become cliché to you? 🙋 Hands up if you feel that you're so far into this thing now that you can't keep leaning on the same people you have been because you feel guilty because they are also still battling through? 🙋 Yeah. Sorry for all the 'hands up' ing, but I am a teacher and that's just what we do. Except when we are doing 'no hands up'. Or are on Zoom. In which case you just mute and unmute. I digress. The point is that we are still all dealing with this crazy time and we are all still trying to live through it and survive it with some mental faculties still in tact. We can only speak from our own experiences of how hard it is. We can only understand from our own little place in this giant shitstorm. But by talking about exactly how hard it is, exactly how pushed to our very limits we are, by reaching out and saying 'I CANNOT KEEP DOING THIS', we can try to connect with one another and maybe make each other feel less alone. 

This has been a massive part of my own struggle; the absolute aloneness. Having no actual humans in my house past 5pm who I can have a real conversation with is crushing at times. A lot of the time actually. Having no one to share the burden of how unbelievably difficult this is feels like the most enormous weight pressing on my chest. Not being able to tag team out when Emilio is being difficult. Being the ONLY person, and I do mean that, I am the ONLY person in the whole world who understands what he needs, why he's screaming, though obviously not all the time. When he's tired, when he's just being a twat, when he's losing it because he wants to take his umbrella on a walk and the person taking him for a walk (nanny no.5) doesn't understand him. I am the ONLY person who can help him. The weight of that responsibility is mindblowing and suffocating and overwhelming and anxiety inducing and also special and a privilege and an absolute blessing. The internal struggle I have with those polar opposite feelings is exhausting. These things would probably always have been there but throw in a global pandemic, teaching from home since March 2020, homeschooling since March 2020 and having very, very, very little in person contact with your support group and it is just too much. Oh, and being on the other side of the world from your family and not knowing when you'll see them again. And worrying about the virus and their health. Again, it is too much. 

I think the thing that is getting me the most at the moment is having to be absolutely everything to Emilio. I am his whole world. Sure, he goes to the park with Nanny No.5 (who can hear Mambo No.5 in their head right now?) for a couple of hours a day but that's it. The leaps and bounds progress he's making is exceptional - absolutely exceptional - and I am so grateful to have his twice a week speech therapy because that is a huge part of why he's making that progress. But the rest of it is entirely on me. There is no Early Years education. There are no intervention groups to teach him how to Social. Which, let's face it, is pretty important in life...though not really in current life! The guilt that just envelops me when I'm having a down day and have no motivation to even get out of bed, though out of bed I must get, is crippling. But some days, I. Just. Can't. Some days the T.V. is on from morning till night. Some days I want to throw him in the bin and watch Netflix on my own for that entire day. It is just so, so, so hard. 

And that is all. This is so exhaustingly hard. To anyone out there who feels this, I see you and I hear you and I feel you. Let's talk.