Bad day

Um, I mean hi! How are you going? It’s been a while, huh? Please excuse me while I vent now…

I love my kids (natch) but sometimes I feel like my 6yo would be a completely different person with a better-suited, more zen mum.

It’s like she’s genetically engineered to bring out the worst in me. If this is some sort of test then my report card would give me a B for effort and maybe a D+ for outcomes. (It’s like high school PE classes all over again…)

Thankfully my 2yo has a completely different temperament: that helps me keep perspective and know that there’s only so much I can do to guide my big girl. A lot of our issues just boil down to the way she and I are innately wired.

Don’t get me wrong, I nail it a lot of the time. We have plenty of golden moments where everything is in sync and the connection is palpable. It’s just that she’s a really empathic Highly Sensitive Child (possibly with early stages of anxiety/depression – no formal diagnosis as yet though) trying to establish a secure attachment with a mother who has regular bouts of depression and a really short fuse.

We had a perfect storm today. Sibling sniping followed by me losing it over some rejected food leading to anxiety-driven school refusal followed by me giving in to the Beast and letting rip with my feelings of frustration and helplessness (we’ve been doing so well the last few weeks! I thought we’d turned a corner!). Then cue hysterics from Miss 6 and MASSIVE guilt for me, triggering a huge a chasm of depression for the rest of the day.

I gave up. I lost all fucks to give and spent the rest of the day basically being as horrid and unlikeable as possible so the kids would leave me alone (it took A LOT for them to give up on me, which is…something? Is that good or bad? I don’t know anymore). I couldn’t stop crying for about half an hour there – which is unheard of for me. It takes a lot to make me sob like that so I guess my body made the most of that window of opportunity.

Hubs had a crisis at work so couldn’t come home and rescue the kids from me. I was on my own. I simply had to skirt up and pull myself together. No other options.

It was hard. Not gonna lie: I had to skull some cooking sherry to numb my head out enough to stop crying and start on the damage control.

We managed to find some sort of fragile equilibrium that kept cracking around the edges but held enough for us to survive – and even occasionally enjoy – the rest of the day. Hubby was able to head home early so now I’m sitting in a local restaurant eating gluten-free penne bolognaise (they didn’t have gf spaghetti) and drinking wine and trying to work out the way forward from here.

I want out.

Not forever, but long enough to miss being so viscerally needed by my little people.

Because right now it’s suffocating.

I can barely keep my own emotions in order – how am I supposed to nurture two children through such tumultuous times in their lives?

All I can see is the scars and bad habits I’m consolidating right now. I don’t want my sweethearts to go through the same bullshit my head dishes out to me!!

From the current vantage point I’m not even sure that is possible…

I need a hug. 😞