Mental Wellbeing – Parenting in the Holidays
A blog update on where I’m at and hoping to shortly depart from, with the help of an arsenal of alternative health gems to protect my mental wellbeing.
Asylum Escape Fantasy
Where I’d like to be right now, is in my fantasy of a mental health institution…. Dressed in white for nothingness and everything (white has the full spectrum of colours within it, or so I believe), being fed and watered like a delicate flower and free from all demands!
Where I actually am is enduring the final day of the school holidays in the juxtaposition of wishing them over but dreading the return of early morning warfare…..
Daily School Morning Warfare Routine
Please get up and get dressed.
Rushes off to do something….asks after 5 minutes, ‘Are you up yet’
No and I’m not going to because I hate school.
Please, this isn’t me forcing you to do this, you legally have to go, besides you’re running out of time for breakfast
Rushes off to do something else…. asks, after realising another 5 minutes have elapsed and no one has appeared, ‘Are you up yet’
I’m not and I don’t care, you can’t make me
Please, don’t make this difficult. You know the rules. I haven’t got time for this, please!
I don’t care, I’m not doing it…
On occasion, on a good day I am able to retort, well that’s up to you dear, it’s you that will get into trouble with your teachers. Shall I ring them now? This get’s results….
Screaming Results
However and generally, by the third repetition of variations on this script, I scream:
GET YOUR BLOODY ARSE OUT OF THAT BED NOW OR ELSE I’M DRAGGING YOU TO SCHOOL IN YOUR BEDCLOTHES! (Yes I am now out of control and beyond caring that I am using a profanity to assist me in relaying my fury)
Flaky Promises
Why we have to get to Level 9.5 on the Richter Scale too illicit a result is beyond me. It gives me a headache, puts me in a bad mood and makes me feel hatred towards my children. They know this, I explain this time over, once I’ve calmed down, and they systematically promise not to do it again; Their promises fall by the wayside on at least 2 out of the 5 days of the week!
Swapping Hells
Thus, school holidays offer sanctuary from that daily horror. However, they deliver a different selection of horrors that engender my destruction and fuel my feelings of loathing…all round…by the end of them there isn’t anyone in the family I don’t hate…even the cat!
Fussy Eaters
Endless demands for food, which when supplied are met with ‘urrrggg I don’t like that’ OR ‘that looks gross’. How a plain jacket potato with cheese can look gross is beyond me? How can yesterday’s favourite food be so odiously reviled Today, is an ongoing and unwelcome conundrum?
Disappearing Me Time
Bedtime leaches dangerously into ‘child free adult rest and relaxation time’, until all escape is futile. You either move your bedtime later to accommodate, not easy if you’re me, or just use alcohol to pretend they’re not there watching all your watershed programmes alongside you; the latter’s sinful neglect reverberates upon you at the most inopportune times echoing into the future….so it’s a high-risk strategy.
Later to Bed, Earlier to Rise – WTF
The downside to moving bedtime backwards in our case, my son just can’t make up his lost hours by remaining asleep in bed. This delivers two-fold, firstly, he hates to be alone so he deploys a series of tactics he’s perfected over time to wake us rudely from our slumbers. These range from playing our own music loudly to physical assault, under the guise of pretending to be a lovable dog. I don’t know about you but the advent of children brought with it, the demise of my ability to return to meaningful sleep, once woken.
Tantrum Cycle
The second, involves dealing with a stream of mini-breakdowns through-out each and every day, when he doesn’t get his own way! His demands made ridiculous through lack of sleep, it’s a cyclical spin in the washing machine of torture.
Sibling Terrorism
Holidays take sibling rivalry and terrorism to new heights! Meaning I get to expend too much time either defusing situations, negotiating new rules of engagement or mopping up blood.
During these times I often find Myself hiding in the garage, pretending I can’t hear anything and where I keep the booze fridge.
Naive Intentions
I always look forward to the holidays with misplaced, naïve joy, all a bit ‘Ground Hog’s day’.
My shitty memory fails to remind me that I won’t get any space, peace, relaxation or time to write.
Sucks the Light from my Soul
This lack of ‘Me’ time, sucks the light and life from my Soul, converting me to a sour, short-tempered old alcoholic who just wants to escape!
Fast Track Recovery Tips
At the end of this one, and to fast track recovery, I am employing the following tools.
Exercise
Regular gym exercise to stimulate endorphins and attempt to work off some of the accumulated weight, courtesy of sugary stress management! I can only manage x3 45 minutes sessions per week, but it’s enough to feel 1000 times more grounded; which equals more emotionally balanced. Spending too much time in my head is not advisable, my inner critic is a total bitch!
Craniosacral Therapy
Cranial sacral therapy; this mysterious treatment is so gentle it’s easy to believe not much is actually happening. But my God it does, and not only can one feel immediately re-aligned both physically and emotionally, it sends you to another level of relaxation. I am also doing this to remove the damage reeked by having a general anaesthetic. I explain more about this here.
CBD Oil
CBD oil daily, Cannabidiol(CBD) is a naturally occurring cannabinoid constituent of cannabis. I’ve started on this to enhance my general mood, source daily peace and nourish my joints; again, this has its own blog, read it here.
Good Nutrition
I’m eating as much fish and homemade food as I can lay my hands upon. I find it ball-achingly hard to cater to my family’s food demands during the holidays, against the backdrop of everything else, and often resort to cheating.
However, I pay a high price for these short-cuts, again all round. It makes us all tetchier, less energetic and doesn’t facilitate a good night’s sleep; quite lethal really. Shout out to Willy Wonker to get that pill sorted, you know the one Violet Beauregarde snuffled up!
Sweet Release
And so I now leave you, having once again defecated my truth with the purpose of relieving some of the guilt of being so far from a perfect parent, friend or human.
Next steps
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