Note: I often marvel when I read writing by parents who are struggling with traumatic stress. How hard parents will work, how deep the digging, how overwhelming life can be at times. It's not easy for families. There's not a lot of support or language even for parents doing this warrior level work invisibly or not so invisibly. It's rare to hear, know or read anything about these topics and I'm glad this is one place where experiences can be shared. Here's an excerpt as well as the link to the full essay.
By this time the stress and overwhelm was such that tears flooded my eyes and then wouldn’t stop. As we walked away from the crowds, my youngest looked up to me and said “Mummy, are you crying?” The shame. The shame of feeling so easily overwhelmed, of having the ground disappear from under my feet, of the physical fact of being lost and how that triggers my own internal disorientation. “I can’t even do this. I’m forty fucking four and I can’t even take my kids on a nice day out without going into melt down.” Etc, etc. The map of two straight lines I’d studied the preceding day taunted me, “Not even that. What’s so difficult?” The shame of people seeing me in the middle of Manchester crying with two kids in tow. We stopped at a shop to buy drinks in a bid to normalise and try to pull myself back together and stop the tears falling. My eldest said, “It’s ok mummy, we’ll be there soon.” I usually manage to keep my meltdowns hidden from them and felt bad that they were the ones reassuring me. Walking again, I thanked them for being so lovely, because they really were heart warmingly lovely to me, and apologised for being in such a state and the tears slowed down.
We got there and we had a good day – the kids had a lovely time, and I was really glad and grateful we did something nice together, something different. But it reminded of me of why my life is so small, why I don’t arrange to do such things off my own back with the kids. It makes me feel so pathetic, but it’s the reality of my limits, which I pushed at a cost and won’t have the resources or the courage to do again for some time. It reminds me of how getting a GPS for my car a few years ago felt extravagant but has totally transformed my experience of driving, taken the stress away, a visual contradiction to my raging self doubt at the smallest decision. We did it though, we got there! We got lost again on the way back, but it was tedious and tiring more than stressful. A messy disorganised brain makes it challenging to step outside my comfort zone. I need a life GPS, telling which way to turn, what decision to make – that would take the stress away. And I guess that’s what I’m trying to do – rewire my brain – it just takes a long time and a lot of commitment.
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