A mum and her Mental Health.
This blog feels like it has taken an age to do, which it actually has. Life has got in the way so much these past few months and then the coronavirus arrives putting us in to lockdown. I feel awful as well as this blog was meant to be a guest blog, but I am determined to get it finished and published asap. It’s a blog on Mental Health and under the current circumstances that we are living in I think it would be a good thing to write.
When I was asked about doing a blog on Mental Health from a mum’s view, I jumped at the chance. I mean who wouldn’t want to write about Mental Health and raise awareness for something that holds so much stigma around it? However, it has probably been one of the hardest blogs I have wrote. I have found it really hard to sit, think and write.. me and Mental health writing don’t seem to go.
We all have Mental health, yet it’s something that not many people are comfortable talking about. It’s by far not the easiest of conversations to have with anyone that’s for sure. I suppose by talking about it you become vulnerable, as your opening up about your thoughts and feelings to others. Which has the potential to leave you feeling maybe judged as Mental Health is not something I find really spoken about. Knowledge of such subject is poor!
Mental health is such a big thing, there is so much stigma about it and yet it should be something that we feel freely to talk about. 1 in 4 people suffer with their Mental Health a year and in England 1 in 6 report a Mental Health problem such as depression and anxiety in a given week.
I’m a mum to four children and find myself putting them and their Mental Health before mine all the time. I have 3 teenagers and a 10yr old who thinks he is a teenager already. My 19yr old has Asperger’s and is currently receiving support to find a job and follow her path, a 16yr old who is taking their A levels first year, a 15yr old doing their GCSE’s and my 10 yr old is in the last year of primary school. Four children all finding and taking their own paths and facing different challenges as they go. All made so much harder by the Coronavirus in the last 9 weeks and having to stay home in lock down.
My life as a mum is crazy busy, some days I don’t stop! Some days I may be lucky and actually get to drink a cup of tea hot, other days I go to sit down with a cuppa and have to walk straight out the door to play mums taxi. Being a mum is anything but boring, its challenging both mentally and physically yet it’s the most rewarding role ever.
A mum’s job role is never ending. Taxi driver, scare away the boogie man, counsellor, bank, cleaner, servant of the washing and cook, they are the shoulder to cry on and the nurse… the list goes. Then on top of this we can chuck in the over thinking brain that keeps us awake on a night time listening to the child cough and wondering if to go to them, looking out the window for the child to come home from school, watching the clock tick to go pick them up from a party as you won’t rest until they come back through the door. Not forgetting the emotions from being a mum, the butterfly’s in your tummy on their first day at school or the first time they go out with their friends, my children have all sat exams and gone to secondary school, the feeling in the pit of my stomach on those days you cannot explain. If I don’t take time for me.. when these parenting challenges arise, there is the possibility that I could react differently as I’m over tired, drained and running on empty.
Being a mum is challenging, some days I don’t stop. I actually feel like I had more time for me when the children were younger. I certainly felt stronger mentally then I do at the moment with everything going on. I feel that as the children are getting older it’s like they have got more demanding, especially at the moment in lock down. I don’t seem to get 5 minutes at the moment to take time out and yet the past few years I’ve realised just how important time out is. I always believed that taking time for me was selfish and that all your time should be devoted to the children. These past few years I’ve realised that you cannot be you and give your best especially as a parent when your running on low. You need you time to regain your strength and energy.
About 9 weeks ago we went into lockdown thanks to the Coronavirus. It was a scary thought but at the same time I was happy as I felt I was able to protect my family from becoming ill and they would stay safe as they could not go out. Obviously, the thought of no alarm clock and no rushing around was bliss as well. I would be able to start working out again, eat properly, catch up with work and make memories to keep forever. How wrong was I?
Lock down has been a complete roller coaster of emotions. We have had tears mixed with laughter and of course we have had strops and I’m not just talking about the children. There are 6 people living in this house and have been stuck inside for about 9 weeks. From day one I feel like I have not stopped and that the need for mum has increased massively. Four children 3 of which that are still at school and one with Asperger’s. So along with all the normal things that mums do we have added teacher and councillor extended hours and upped the demand and need for mum.
I feel like I have had to split myself up into several parts… making sure the children are ok, schoolwork done, house cleaned, children fed, and they all see day light and had fresh air. Make sure they come out their rooms have conversation and of course make memories as life is short. The past few weeks more so, I’ve struggled to get my head around everything that’s going on.. I suppose I’ve been feeling suffocated in away and I believe that it may have something to do with not having any me time.
My youngest needs me in the morning or more or less all day, for one reason or another. My eldest needs to have conversation on an evening to express her day. Then the two in the middle are in the afternoon when they awake.
The past week or so I have struggled mentally, and I feel that because I’m not having any me time as I’m either needed by the children or trying to catch up with work that it is impacting how I’m reacting to things. I’m trying so hard to ensure my children’s needs are being met at challenging times that I’m letting my needs pass me by.
Because I’m not taking time out for me… putting my needs to the side, I’m finding myself becoming snappy to the children and feel like I have little patience for them and little concentration at times and then frustrated as I am not achieving my goals for the day. I feel that I may not pay proper attention to things and struggle to switch off from everything that’s going on when I go to bed, resulting in very little sleep. I’m responding to things in a way that I would not always do so, I’m tired and am struggling to recharge my body and mind to give things my full potential.
Mental Health is something that impacts us all! It can affect how we think and feel about things that happen and how we react to those things. Mental health can assist with how we determine how we handle things like stress, how we are to others and how we relate to them and it helps us to make choices through life.
When really thinking about it, it’s actually quite a scary thing. My Mental Health can impact the way I parent!! I may respond to something in a rational way just because I never thought it through because I am so tired.
Talking about Mental Health and how your feeling is so important! Yet so many of us find it hard to talk about. I worry about my children’s Mental Health all the time, but never or very seldom think of my own. I mean I’m a mum and I’m invincible after all!
