Something Different

Hey Blog, it's been a while.

Ladybug has been topside for the same amount of time as she was inside, and I finally feel as though some things are starting to come together and make a modicum of sense.

I feel as though I've been walking through fog for the past nine months; my brain has been full of it and my outlook has often felt as grey. I compared my brain to a tornado; full of sound and fury, whirling madly and out of control, but ultimately, just air.

It seems unfair, yet obvious, that I spent thirty-three years learning who I was, what I liked, and what I wanted to do with my life, then I was suddenly expected to become this whole other person with no training, no instruction, and no understanding, beyond my own ego, of what this thing called 'parenthood' would entail. It seems to be taken for granted that a person's whole self becomes subsumed to the needs of a tiny, helpless, yet very loud and demanding, other.

We moved house when Spud was a few weeks old, and I tried to fit into this new life-pattern. I thought I was succeeding for a while, despite finding myself crying over food, or while walking down the street: I thought it was normal to want to clean the whole house at ten p.m. or not eat for twelve hours at a time, because other mums talked about the exhaustion, and the forgetfulness, and the baby brain. But they also talked about the overwhelming love, and all-consuming adoration of their newborn, and I felt as though I could compensate for that lack with cleaning, and cooking, and trying to be who I thought I was supposed to be.

I thought, at four months, after the fourth-trimester, that I was coming out of this fog: I stopped crying at the drop of a hat (literally, in one case when it landed in a puddle) and I threw myself into trying the be the person I was before; I pushed for the career and the work that I had been aiming for when I found out about Spud. But that didn't work: I burned out quickly and spectacularly and felt worse than I had done previously because this time I had let other people down and I had tangible proof of my apparent failure.

I couldn't even use Oli's sleeping as an excuse as, being grateful for small mercies, she's never really been a terrible sleeper apart from when she's been ill or teething. It's a relatively recent realisation that I don't actually need an excuse for feeling this way:

After waiting two months for a mental health assessment, then a further ten weeks for an appointment, I was finally referred for CBT when Spud was seven months old, and I was maxing out the charts for both depression and anxiety. I have finished the course now, and they're pleased with my progress. I guess I am too - I'm not crying as much any more, or crying back at Oli when she has a tantrum, and I feel as though I'm calmer in the face of problems (even if those problems haven't changed).

I think, now, that the rest of my life is going to be a learning curve: or a learning wiggle - I can't be the person I was before, because I'm not. And I don't yet know what the person I'm going to become is like. This has been a difficult few months, and we're not out of the woods yet, but I can, perhaps, at least see a path through the tangle of trees.