STAYING OK.
It’s Mother’s Day and Are you Ok?
I write as my two daughters sit on the sofa on their screens, one 19 year old texting at lighting speed and one five year old on her big sister’s DS (remember those?)
We are waiting for take away.
We have not left the house in 7 days.
I may be going slightly mad but who is to know? I am reminded of the mad person in the Oscar winning Parasite… I can’t say much more as it would be a spoiler alert, but you can’t go and see it anyway as the cinemas are closed now, but I still won’t say!
I am in recovery from many crippling mental health issues (complex trauma, depression, anxiety to name just three) and I was only just getting a good routine back in my life with my little girl starting school last year in September.
Time for me,
finally
(I am a single parent,
I never wanted to be).
Hey, all that rhymes so I have put it into a poem form!
I would have a SUPER strict routine to stay ok, to stay mentally ok, to stay physically ok as any stress could flare up my skin and I would then have some sort of self-harm going on to release the pressure. But I CAN NOT do this hurting of my self anymore. I HAVE to keep going for my little girl, I can’t let my mental health decline as I HAVE to look after her. I know there are some of you out who will see this as an utter blessing for me, and it is, in my good periods I know it is, but these good periods were/are less and less with the chronic stress of being a single parent.
I have had to see these good moments as seeds, seeds of happiness to make my good health grow, to make my self care an utter priority when I can. It is not SELFISHNESS at all, as some might say, you have to put on your own oxygen mask on when the plane is in turbulence, don’t you, then put on your child‘s mask without freaking them out cause you are freaking out.
I find it utterly crazy-making not having time away to myself now school is closed. And us single parents don’t really get that time to ourselves, do we unless the child is at school or family is near, And willing to help.
Therefore, keeping my appointments with my counsellor is still utterly essential in this crisis time. Sessions have all moved online now. If I do not go to my counselling I find I fill up with utter stress, like a pressure cooker (not that I ever had a pressure cooker as I am not old enough) but like a pressure cooker all the same, full of steam that I can’t let out. How do I let it out? And if I don’t let it out I explode with rage.
Counselling is like the pressure valve at the top of the pressure cooker, or like a tap that is fitted on the bottom of a stress container, offering an outlet for this stress, a stress that let\’s face it with children Is constantly is filling the tank, like those water tanks that sit on the side of the worktop but they are constantly filling with water.
Counselling offers a chance to speak my truth (“am I going to go crazy”, “ how will I know if I am going crazy”, “I want to scream“,
” I can’t stand it“
”I never wanted this for my life”,
“I want to cry, but I don’t. I can’t.”)
Together with my counsellor we work out different ways of doing things, for example getting my little girl ready in the morning for school drives me utterly insane as she has to do everything so perfectly, so “tucked in properly”. It takes about half an hour, I can’t handle being late, I start to hyperventilate at even the thought of being late and so inevitably I end up shouting at my child, who cries and I feel terrible for the day, no matter how many cuddles are given before school. I will run this morning routine through with the counsellor, suggestions are made to make the difficult things less difficult, suggestions that I can not do myself when I am in the fog of it, that I can only see when I am reflecting on it.
It is nice to feel free of the judgement that you can get if you are so honest in other places. Like on this blog for example…
So if you are not feeling ok I urge you to try counselling even if you have never tried it before. It could change your life and release the pressure and keep you ok in this different and difficult time. You can still do the online counselling even if your child is with you. It will give the counsellor a good insight into how you truly are. And they will not judge you.
Please let me know what you think in the comments. how are you getting through?
Author: Marina Martin
