I keep having really intrusive thoughts. I've suffered with health anxiety in the past to the point I've been even unable to say the word "death" because I thought it would tempt fate. So i definitely have history with anxiety. And there's so much going on in my life at the moment. I have to support my child with a lot of personal care and mental health support due to her neuro condition and her school perpetuating disability discrimination. I am in the process of taking them to tribunal. And the local authority who didn't process her EHCP update for seven months. We've been renovating the house for over a year. My oldest son is hating school due to poor support and understanding from some teachers of the executive functioning difficulties that come with adhd. And I have to support my husband's adhd too. His executive functioning is off the charts poor and due to lockdown I've become the de facto manager of all of this chaos. Even now that school is back, I get very little respite. My DD has a condition that is very debilitating and so if she wants something to eat or drink, I have to get it. The number of times a day a teen wants to eat or drink is astronomical. Right now, as I'm writing this, I've had messages from her asking me to bring her a hot drink and some biscuits. There is no space anywhere in most days built in for me to be able to say "no, ask your dad" because he works nights so he's asleep most of the day.
I just want to go to the gym. Or out for a coffee. Or even- gasp! Away for a night. I want a break. But this is where the shit comes in. I don't think i would mentally be able to do it, even though I need it. Because I keep thinking and overthinking about things going wrong. I'm falling asleep at night and I think I hear the door knocking. Or my daughter calling me. Or someone throwing up and it jolts me out of sleep. I hear sirens in the distance when my children are at school or my husband is at work and my mind immediately tells me it's for them. If I've had an unusually well rested night, I worry that I haven't heard my children because they're dead or something. God, it's awful to say. But I have to get up in the night to check them because nobody knows what my daughter's condition is.... how do I know she won't just have some sort of fit and die? My youngest had a friend in playschool who simply died in his sleep and the doctor told the mum its more common than we talk about. My friend's young teen boy collapsed and died of a brain haemorrhage one day. I can't help thinking something dreadful will happen and I think I'm driving myself mad. It could be the stress and the lack of sleep or I could actually be going mad. But I'm scared if I speak to the doctor they'll think I don't want to care for my children or something. They're well cared for. I am not ðŸ˜