I Want To Dance

I had an inkling my anxiety was getting worse.

I’ve been more irritable. Disconnected. Struggling to sleep. Heart palpitations were coming out of nowhere. I hadn’t left the house all month, except to take the twins for their vaccinations and return some library books.

But I ignored it.

I made excuses.

It’s just hard to get out the house with 3 under 3.

I can’t feed two babies AND keep an eye on a toddler at the same time while out.

Caide’s only just potty trained so we can’t go anywhere where there’s no toilet.

Can’t afford it.

Too far away.

More effort than it’s worth.

There’s too much at home that needs done.

But the truth is that the thought of leaving the house filled me with dread. I mean, there are people out there.

People who judge. People who mutter mean things. People who like to hurt other people. People who kidnap children.

Hell, just people who make completely innocent comments that I over-analyse in my head.

So the 29th January rolls around and I’m supposed to be going to a gig. I haven’t been to a gig since 2015. Teenage me would be shocked and ashamed.

I had the opportunity to go out. With my friends. With no children. And dance and sing my favourite songs until I was exhausted and hoarse. Maybe even have a drink or two. And Phil had the day after off work so I didn’t even have to worry about being too tired the next day.

But as the day wore on I got more and more irritable. My heart pounded faster and faster. I got restless leg syndrome. I was sweating. Biting my nails. I felt sick.

Phil got home and immediately started cooking dinner while I finished feeding the twins so I could just eat and leave. I eat slowly. I help Caide with his. I finally finish. I continue helping Caide. I slowly drink some water.

“Here, I’ll finish Caide and you can go and get ready.”

I freeze. My throat seizes. My grip on my water bottle tightens. My breathing gets so shallow it almost stops. I feel sick. I get lightheaded.

“Are you okay?”

It takes my brain a while to process the words. I can’t answer. I can’t speak.

“Do you not want to go?”

I manage to shake my head a little and the tears start to fall. Phil hugs me and I try not to fall to pieces.

I go to the bathroom and fall to pieces.

It’s time for Caide’s bath so I go sit on the sofa, heart pounding, heavy breathing, biting my nails, rocking back and forth slightly. The classic “crazy person” action but the movement helps me to regulate.

The twins start to get grumpy because they’re tired so I cuddle them to sleep. I don’t know how I succeeded considering muscle in me was stiff.

When I was finally able to sit back I fell asleep. Anxiety attacks are freaking exhausting.

The rest of the evening was the usual routine, with added disappointment at not being at a gig. I stayed up late because my mind was still reeling at a mile a minute and my heart still palpitating. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. But I wasn’t able to do much else either.

I finally went to bed, taking off my Frank Turner t-shirt and throwing it into the washing basket in anger, shame and despair.

Baby It’s Cold Inside

The worst thing about anxiety is when it makes you feel like a shitty parent.

The heating stopped working. It was snowing. We have boiler cover but I couldn’t phone them. I got through the options menu then the sound of the ringing made my heart pound.

Then I was put on hold and their soothing music and reassurances that my call is important to them did nothing.

I hung up.

All I had to do to keep my kids warm was make a phonecall and I couldn’t do it.

I used to work in a freaking call centre ffs! Yes, it was basically a 10 month long anxiety attack but that’s not the point.

One bloody phonecall and I just couldn’t do it.

Tired

I am tired.

Not the kind of tired where I didn’t quite get enough sleep last night.

Not even the “mother of 3 under 3” kind of tired.

But the kind of tired that comes with fighting a war inside your own head day in day out.

The kind of tired that makes my brain feel like sludge. My thoughts are desperately trying to tread through but they run out of energy halfway there. Words can be on the tip of my tongue but never make it out of my mouth.

I can hear the words that are being said but they don’t make sense. Perfectly constructed sentences just sound like word salad.

I can see what is going on but it feels so far away. Colours and blurs whizz past but it takes my brain a while to make sense of them. I could sit and watch Caide doing something he shouldn’t for a couple of minutes before my brain catches up and I realise I should stop him.

Time feels funny. 5 minutes can feel like an hour, an hour like 5 minutes. Things that happened a few hours ago feel like a lifetime ago. Things that happened months ago feel fresh.

I wake up feeling just as tired as I did when I went to bed. Every small task feels like a monumental effort. Not physically, but mentally. Total mental exhaustion.

It’s taken me 3 days to write this post

Roly poly baby

One of them can roll front to back and one of them just lies there 😂😍

With Caide I got so stressed out by milestones and what he “should” be doing and comparing his development to other babies around the same age. Then of course worrying I was doing everything wrong, not spending enough time playing with him, not giving him enough tummy time, not talking to him enough etc whenever he was “behind” (which he never even was).

With the twins it’s so easy to see how different two babies can be, even with exactly the same environment and upbringing. So yeah I’m trying not to let anxiety get the best of me. I’m sure Theo will roll over sometime before his 18th birthday

‘Tis the Season to be Stressed Out

Honestly, the whole festive period was just incredibly stressful and I didn’t really enjoy any of it.

I had grand ideas for how perfect it would be, traditions we could start and memories we would make. In the end it was mostly just Tuesday. With added mess. And extra tantrums due to the over-excitement of it all.

It was also the first time we visited family since the twins were born and fuck me the amount of STUFF we needed to take for a 3 night stay was unreal. Living out of a suitcase is not fun with 3 small children. Neither is having a toddler running around somebody else’s non-babyproofed house while hyped up on chocolate.

Constant sky-high anxiety.

He’s gonna break that. I’m being too lax. I’m being too harsh. Do we have any clean bottles? Where did we pack the muslins? We didn’t bring enough clothes. Why are there so many vests and so few tops? The babies won’t stay asleep when we put them down. We forgot the baby carriers so each need to carry a twin and somehow still keep hold of Caide so he doesn’t run into traffic. Linden’s puked on the sofa. Theo’s puked on the carpet. Fuck what if Caide pees on the carpet?! Caide it’s time to go to the potty! “No!”. Everyone’s judging my parenting, I know it…

It’s all just left me feeling drained, disappointed and slightly ill. That’s not how I want Christmas to be.

I’ll Love You, Tomorrow

I’m still awake at 1am. I’m replaying every interaction I had with my children today, worrying it wasn’t good enough.

I think about Caide and the number of times I told him to go away because I was feeling touched out. All the times he asked me to read him a book and I said “not right now”. When I told him to “stop putting your bloody soft toys on my knee when I’m trying to feed these babies!”. All the times he stands at the baby gate on the kitchen door shouting “come in!” and I either say “I’d rather you didn’t” or just ignore him.

I can’t remember telling him I love him.

I think of the twins and how much time they spend just lying in the travel cot/baby jail because I need to clean and tidy so the mess doesn’t give me an anxiety attack. About how little time I spend playing with them.

I worry I’m hindering their development because of how rarely they get to play on their playmat because I spend the whole time frought with anxiety that Caide is going to fall on them or be too rough with them. And I seldom do tummy time.

I think of all the time I spent just scrolling through shite on my phone, killing time until the day is over, and how I should be spending that time actually paying attention to my children.

I try to tell myself it was just a bad day but the truth is that it is every day.

I’m pretty sure I’m mildly neglectful.

I know I should change my habits but I never do. Every night I snuggle up to Caide and say sorry and promise to be a better Mummy tomorrow.

But I never do.

Let It Go

Oops.

I’ve let myself get dragged into a argument with not one but TWO childless old white guys on a local forum about parent and child parking spots.

I wish I wouldn’t let myself get sucked into these things. It’s really not good for my mental health.

I’ve already unfollowed and blocked a whole load of pages, groups and people (mostly lactivists and anti-vaxxers) for the sake of my mental health but I seem to have a strange compulsion to seek out these asshats and get upset about them.

Let it go Steph.

Pretty Jewellery. Pretty Anxious.

So I got away from the kids to go and have a nice relaxing day with my amazing friends at Christina Vernon Jewellery‘s exhibition.

Sounds great right?

So I take the bus with an already-paid-for bus ticket into Glasgow to discover my bank card won’t work. Not in the machines, not at the ticket desk, not in a cash machine.

So if course I have an anxiety attack in the middle of Glasgow Central Station. Jibbering away to Phil on the phone even though I know there isn’t anything he can do. Frantically typing on the group chat. Shaking. Sweating. Walking at a million miles an hour trying to run off the nervous energy.

My amazing angel of a friend comes to rescue me. We get there. I calm down. I realise I brought my old card out with me. Phil texts me my new card details so I can set up Google Pay. I go to Tesco to buy some lunch – and by this point it is 3:30pm and I’m pretty ravenous.

Google Pay doesn’t work, anxiety clouds my head, and I once again need rescued.

And this is why I am thankful to have such amazing friends 😘

P.s the jewellery is beautiful 😍

Go With Your Gut

“Go with your gut.”

Both the best and worst parenting advice I have ever received. Do what you feel is right and ignore everyone else/the internet (especially the internet). Spot on.

But with anxiety, nothing feels right. Anxiety shouts louder than my gut, telling me I’m doing everything wrong, that I’m going to screw up my kids for life. I’ve read six different parenting books and about a million blog posts/articles and still nothing feels right.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m terrible at making decisions. I can’t trust my gut because my gut tells me that no matter what I choose I chose wrong. Whether I’m making a major life decision or deciding what to have for dinner, the panic sets in.

So I feel I’m pretty awful at parenting. Whenever Caide is “naughty”/a normal toddler I worry about what I did wrong that causes such behaviour, even though I *know* it’s normal for his age. Logic and reason don’t enter in to it.

So what do you do when your gut instinct is to tell yourself you don’t know what you’re doing?

We Made It!

We made it to the park!

This is such a huge win for me because anxiety tends to keep me prisoner in my own house. It runs my mind through everything that can possibly go wrong, every minor inconvenience, every worst case scenario, until I have convinced myself it’s better to just stay home.

It’s never better to stay home.

Staying home means staring at the same four walls under artificial lighting while breathing stuffy air, gradually feeling more and more lethargic as the toddler destroys the place. It’s telling him off over and over again and feeling guilty about it because you know he’s just bored of his toys and is getting cabin fever but you just can’t face going out. Its convincing yourself you’re an awful mother for keeping him inside 24/7 when you know how important outdoor time is for children’s development.

And the house continues to get messier and dirtier giving me more housework to do until I tell myself I just don’t have time to go out. And the shouting escalates and the clutter escalates until eventually I snap.

So we went to the park. Anxiety will not keep me prisoner any more 😘