You're Not Alone

Happy new year everyone.  I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas season.  I’m sporting what social media and tv adverts don’t show you about parenting…a fat lip and watering eyes from a 2 year old’s head to my nose and mouth.  When my son throws a wobbly he really throws a wobbly!  He has this amazing strength and simply hurls himself every which way.  I’m honestly impressed I still have unchipped teeth and don’t have a nose like Mike Tindall!

I absolutely love Christmas.  I don’t go over the top but it really is my favourite holiday.  We dash about seeing family and everyone is mostly happy.  The last couple of years I’ve struggled to find my Christmas joy.  This has made Christmas hard work for me because I feel upset and desperate that I can’t seem to enjoy a time of year I loved before.  This is a classic depression symptom from what I can gather…not enjoying activities and things you did before.

I put a lot of the focus on my son this year.  At just over 2 years old he was old enough to enjoy Christmas and all that comes with it despite not quite understanding what it was all about.  It gave me a goal but I still didn’t enjoy the whole process like I normally do.  I’m hoping next Christmas I’ll be more like me…religiously watching terrestrial channels until I see the Coca Cola truck advert, excitedly choosing my wrapping paper theme the minute M&S put out their Christmas stuff, adding Christmas songs to my playlists and counting down in sleeps…sorry everyone!

I don’t want to dwell on my frustrations about Christmas so let’s move onto New Year.  Have you made resolutions?  I always come up with something and inevitably have failed to achieve it.  I decided not to make any resolutions this year.  I’ve promised to simply be kinder to myself going forwards.

Yet the pressure to make resolutions is always there isn’t it?  I can’t browse any media outlet right now without being bombarded by diet plans, exercise regimes and ways to definitely keep those resolutions.  Why do we do it to ourselves?  Setting resolutions while you’re on a high from the excitement of the new year clean slate is just asking to start the year with failure.  Take diets as an example.  You start the first week off feeling great and so very worthy as you munch your salad and grilled chicken.  Then you have a bad day or a busy day and you end up eating chocolate or something you hadn’t planned on.  How do you feel?  If you’re lucky you shrug it off, you’re not perfect after all, and pick up where you left off.  For most of us though I think we feel bad about it.  We beat ourselves up that we couldn’t even manage one week.  We start to think about how on earth we’re going to manage to stick to this long term.  The weight of the task starts to crush us and before long the whole venture has been abandoned.

I’ve described the process of failing a resolution because I think it has similarities with how I have ended up feeling with a lot of the things that happen these days.  I have a day where I don’t feel quite so overwhelmed.  I get a glimpse of the old me and it lifts my mood.  I embark on the day feeling like a peacock in full splendour.  Then something happens, something small and simple.  Maybe a small mistake at work or I’m not able to do the errand or chore I wanted to at lunchtime.  I used to shrug these things off and move on but now they get to me and weigh me down.  A work mistake leads me to berate myself and then I start to panic about everything else I do which stresses me out and actually breeds more mistakes. Missing a chore causes me to start worrying about when I will get it done now, what other chores will now get delayed and will I be a wreck by the end of the week in an untidy chaotic house (with no clean pants!).

It’s good that I can see the negative feedback happening now but I have no idea how to stop it.  I see my own mood crumble around me and can’t stop it happening.  I should get my first therapy session soon and that will focus on helping me to stop these spirals down when something negative happens.  Honestly I can’t wait to get started because it’s very disconcerting to watch something happening to you that you don’t have control over.  Do you remember those abuse adverts with the abuser and victim banging on the glass trying to get themselves to stop it?  This is how I feel when I see myself going down on a negative spiral.  I can see it but can’t stop it.  As someone who likes to be organised and in control, I’m sure you can imagine how this scares me.

Anyway I think I’ve rambled on enough in a serious fashion for one post.  Thanks for reading, see you next post!