Motherhood, Madness, God and Me

They say when the going gets tough you find out who your friends are. I accepted that. I knew that some people. Some friends, acquaintances, colleagues, family members would not be supportive. I had confidence though that some people would certainly stay put. No doubt. Even if I had a little wobble, I would be quickly reassured that they loved me and weren't going anywhere. Anyone who has read the blog will know that this didn't last. That people who I was certain would get me through, for whatever reason, didn't. Most days it hurts my heart. However there are others. Others who if I was asked a year ago wouldn't have crossed my mind as those to be holding me. My cousin. My totally mental, loud, foul mouthed cousin. We were so different growing up. You were cleverer but I was more conscientious. I was angelic, you were full of trouble! I was polite. You were cheeky. I through myself into study, you took a different path. We grew up together until our early teens w...

What will you remember? Will you remember story time. Cuddled up and funny voices. Will you remember sneaking into our bed and falling back to sleep. Will you remember singing songs when you were small. Doing all the actions? Will you remember me singing you to sleep whilst rubbing your back? Will you remember licking the bowl after baking. Dancing around the lounge. Will you remember walking home from school and talking about your day. Will you remember my smile at parents evenings, dance shows, the day you rode your bike? Will you remember being pushed high on the swings until you giggled? Will you remember nights when you were sick and we'd sleep on the sofa? Mummy holding you in hospital. Will you rather remember the times I shouted. The times I could do nothing but walk away. The times I joined in your chaos rather than calming it. Will you remember the times I missed. That I worked through your chicken pox. That I was in hospital for your 3rd operation? That you would wake...

Today my psychologist noticed that I am polite, articulate and calm. She doesn't believe this reflects my feelings and I avoid answering her when she asks how I feel. We started in silence. After a while when even I, trained to include silence as a tool for listening, felt it had gone on too long. "What is happening for you?" she asked. I said I was ok. "What does OK mean for you?" I don't really know. I guess ok means I'm not imminently going to try and end my life. "Ahhh yes I wondered that". We ended up discussing my son saying he hated me this week. We discussed the reasons for being angry. She pointed out that he was angry and he was able to safely express his hurt, anger and yes, hate. Why am I not entitled to do this? Perhaps I need to learn from him. My psychologist seems to want me to be pissed of with her. She makes too much sense and now I wonder if she's slipping stuff in to try and get me angry. Like suggesting my children...

This wasn't who I wanted to be. My only dream was to be a mother. When I finally was I wanted to be a better mother than I had. When my daughter was born I was that mum. Despite having postnatal depression, which looking back now was fairly minor, I played, I read books, breastfed. I was responsive. Even when she wouldn't settle I never felt angry. When she was a toddler I never shouted. I cried and I was anxious and tired but even when our son was born I was still patient and not at all shouty. Looking back I can pinpoint a change. It was a few months after going back to work from my 2nd maternity leave. I left the job I had been in for 5 years. We were a small and supportive team which had comprised of the same six people for 4 years. 5 women in their 40s and 22 year old me. Just weeks after returning I was persuaded (threatened my job was being phased out) to begin further study. It would result in the job I had wanted since my first year of nursing. It wasn't ideal t...

My girl is growing up. She is not as grown up as many of her friends. Fashion isn't something she cares about. She tries to join in about music. She can have very adult conversations 1 to 1 and if there's a baby around she's a lot more competent and capable than quite a few first time parents. Tonight we went to a concert with a group of girls from her class. These girls love her even though she's weird and grumpy, and whilst there are sometimes a few issues at school they seem pretty normal for 8 year old girls. Tonight I cried. I cried with joy that these girls wanted to include my girl. That they looked past the spinning and the ear defenders and kept encouraging her to join in. I cried that she was joining in and dancing with her friends. I cried with relief that she didn't physically hurt somebody when it got too much for her. I cried with sadness that she stands out. Whilst the other girls danced and danced, my girl stopped. She stood dead still and star...

We aren't a soppy romantic couple. We don't do big displays of affection or sloppy Facebook posts. We tease others who do. We both know declaring we are the love of each others' lives, wind beneath our wings, that we are so in love and so happy is false. We do love each other. We show our love by still being together. By occasionally offering to make a cup of tea, or an affectionate meeting of feet in the bed. It's a look across the room when we realise how cool yet weird our kids have turned out. It's laughing when one of us farts during sex. It's holding the fort at home whilst your wife is in hospital. It's managing alone when life just feels too much for your husband. It's apologising for being grumpy. It's taking the bins out and cleaning the toilet. It's pretending not to be annoyed that the other one didn't hoover today, or that one of you has spent our limited resources on a motorbike. It's making hard decisions about huge ...

Today was the day we had all been waiting for. My first session of psychotherapy. I was referred in August, assessed in November and today was my first appointment. I filled in the homework, questionnaires regarding my mood, my medication, the impact on my life, my parents, my relationships, my siblings, my education and my kids. I didn't even cry today. I was talking about things that have been hurting for so long that there isn't any pain anymore. I don't expect anything different. Things that are so far back that I can't really remember much of how it felt, because it was so ordinary for me. How did it feel keeping it a secret? Truthfully? There were so many secrets that I got very good at putting on a face, not feeling, or hiding. I'm still tired. I'm still uncertain this will be the magical answer. She asked about my diagnosis. We discussed that bipolar had been suggested. She disagreed, so do I. She asked what I thought my diagnosis was. I didn...

WARNING NOT FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED OR CHILD OF READING AGE BUT INNOCENT MIND You think I am critical and angry? You think I overreact? A large amount of communication I have is written, via text or email. It allows me to be more measured, and I think some people like to have evidence of conversations. Even in speech I do try to be measured. I was never a shouter really. I try incredibly hard to come across as rational and in control. I try my best to be balanced. I try to be polite. I try to be truthful. Do you know what though? Sometimes I just feel like shouting "Fuck off!" Sometimes I really feel the need to reply and really show my feelings. I want to stand and shake you whilst telling you that I am fucking pissed off and I don't deserve to be spoken to like I'm crazy, or a fucking child. I want to stamp my feet and say I don't fucking care if I upset you because you have hurt me more than you can imagine. Whilst I don't really mean it, for that ...

The NHS is wonderful. I have received excellent care from GPs, some nurses, OTs, midwives, surgeons, anaesthetists. I have worked within the NHS for over a decade. I can't imagine having to make decisions about mine or my children's healthcare based on cost, or what health insurance would cover. The NHS is on it's knees though. Doctors and nurses are having to do more with less. They are torn between what they are paid to do and what they are expected to do, even what they feel they need to do. There are discrepancies between what employers are asking and what the population needs. As professionals we live in fear of missing something, due to tiredness, computer systems not being fit for purpose, or even just a mistake. Our careers and sometimes our even our freedom put at risk every day. Tired, unsupported staff make mistakes. Staff who have little time for reflection between clients. Not enough time to care. When a mistake is made, we know that our employers won...

Being a member of a church is funny. You are called to be parts of the body of Christ, working together with God at the head, all different and doing different parts, but all one body. It's a lovely illustration of being who you are unique yet part of a team, designed for a specific job that is made for you not somebody else. If you are an ear, you hear, but you wouldn't be doing a good job if you were a foot trying to do the job of an ear! Tonight my musings as I struggle to sleep are when does friendship stop and being a client/customer /consumer/sheep begin? Both my husband and I have known our relationship with our priest has been professional. At times it may have appeared to be friendship, actually my husband and our priest have quite similar interests and fairly similar wives! It has always been more business though, and none more so than the past year. That's fine. Not a criticism. The difficulty comes when 2 women are friends. It is not business like or profes...

I really do know it is silly. I feel silly. A picture of a child, I used to see 3 days a week and haven't seen for months alongside a letter of thanks to my friend who is loved and highly regarded by others. Her lovely Dad is very sensitive and a good friend to me. I wonder if that's why he added "children workers past and present". Perhaps he realised the impact of that picture would have on me. Or perhaps he didn't mean me at all. That's what I am. Past. Six months is more than a break. Six months is a definite end. I can't just "park" this. This is grief. Grief for my role, grief for the children, grief for my friend and grief for the lost sense of belonging. Perhaps time will be a healer. It seems to be a bit of an impasse. Nobody can talk to me until I am better and show it by coming back. I don't feel better or able to come back because nobody can talk to me. I know these silly little things don't and shouldn't matter. ...

I thought September. That flew by pretty quickly though. Then I set half term as a goal. Nope. Christmas then. Surely I'll be better for setting up the stable and nativity plays. No. In fact things were worse than ever. No contact at all. So...parish weekend. I love those. I love working with the children whilst they enjoy a special holiday with their friends and can be immersed in God's love for a whole weekend. No. That's today. I am not part of it. Holiday club will come and go. Another failure. Then soon it will be a year. It's an unending, lonely expanse of isolation and sadness. How on earth can I be expected to walk into a church where I have been abandoned. Where my dearest friend is not allowed to talk to me. I am forever tainted. You can make all sorts of promises about not judging me. All sorts of noises about loving us. The reality is when I needed to be held, you stepped away. When I needed to know I had purpose, you questioned my faith. When I needed ...

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal ... a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance ... a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to lose and a time to seek; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Everything is a season. Even the seasons which can't ever be described as a blessing have a purpose in God's plan. It's so hard in a dark season to believe that joy could ever come again. That spring will arrive. That it won't always be Winter but never Christmas. I am in a dark season. A time of weeping and mourning and loss and war. It is uncomfortable. It is hard to see how this situation can be used for good and t...

I love watching my children and their characters developing. My son is chatty, polite and incredibly thoughtful.His teacher liked his hand knitted scarf so my son wants to learn to knit to make him one. My daughter is not so keen on other people. She really doesn't care what others think, which is a blessing and a curse when it comes to parenting. Today we were having lunch at a local farm. Both had a chocolate bar with their lunch. My son commented he was planning on cutting his in half and giving one half to me. I said how very kind and thoughtful he was but he could eat it himself. My daughter looked at me. She was considering whether being kind and being praised for her thoughtfulness was worth more to her than her milky way. We both laughed as she shoved it all in her mouth in one go. Obviously she decided chocolate was the best course of action after all! She seemed to so desperately want to do the right thing but just couldn't resist taking the choice that put someo...

I couldn't live in limbo any more. I sent the letter. I think this is it. It really is over. I'm not sure how I feel. I'm really sad. I don't know if it was the right decision. It is at least a decision. One under my control. The weight of responsibility lies heavy on me but it's a starting point for what life could look like. I'm still anxious. Obsessively checking emails. I don't know if there will be an answer at all. I'll have to have a time when silence will be answer enough. I still feel a shadow of myself. I cannot imagine a new life but I cannot live waiting to grieve for an old life which would never return. New things are tricky for our family. Three introverts and a boy who dearly loves his church family. Perhaps this is selfish of me. Perhaps we should carry-on on the edge of the fellowship. Perhaps this is an opportunity. Perhaps God's purpose has been revealed. Perhaps He wants us somewhere else. I just don't know. Lord ...

I am finding it so hard to make a decision. There's a terrible pressure to make the right one. My stubbornness, my fears that my children won't continue to learn the truth, fear my husband loses his valuable support network, my longing for life to go back to normal and my difficulty in working out which path God wants us to take. If God wants us to stay put why is it so hard? If he wants us to move on why is my heartbreaking so much that I can't bear to leave? Do I follow the advice of my counsellor? Say my piece in a letter and then walk away? Or do I wait for a meeting, be quiet and get on with it? Or do I turn up as if nothing happened, accept things will never be the same and continue being blamed. I don't want to fight. I'm tired. Not fighting doesn't seem an option though. Forgetting my voice and all I have been trying to learn the past few months. That I do have a voice. I am allowed to use it. That I can show emotion. That I don't have to take ...