Feeling overwhelmed by home, health and children’s needs, where do I start?

[HelloIsitChristmasyet]

My life is a mess and I literally dont know where to start or how to begin to tackle everything.

My house is a mess. It needs decorating desperately. We need some real storage to be able to put things away. The house is dirty and untidy. My eldest boy, for example, in the fits of a meltdown will throw ALL the contents of his bedroom down the stairs unless we restrain him.

My eldest boy is at a Sen school and struggling. We now have social services involvement (voluntarily). My youngest boy gets a lot less attention than he deserves. He's dyslexic and can hardly read and write despite being nearly 9.

My health is a mess. I'm overweight. Depressed (recently overcame a serious episode where I've been suicidal etc). Im fairly sure I have a vaginal prolapse. I kept falling over for a while so started ankle exercises which have helped but my body is so weak.

We both work really hard at work and juggle childcare because there is just no childcare possible with the needs of our eldest. So therefore we either work or have the kids. We never manage to parent together as one of us is always working.

We have no family nearby. I don't see my friends because I basically can't be bothered. Even our relationship has hit absolute apathy now.

Life sucks. I HAVE however managed to book an appointment at the GP for a meds review.

I just don't know where to start with the rest of it, please help. My simple step I started this week was to buy cracked heel cream. One little thing

Hey OP, are you claiming all the financial bits you can such as DLA and carers? Could you reduce your hours at work?

I'm sorry you're in this situation, how are you sleeping. I have SEN girls and the eldest doesn't fall asleep til after 10 then I stay up late to have some quiet time to myself. Going to bed as soon as I can and getting a run of decent nights makes it much easier to have the energy to do stuff in the day.

I wonder if storage is a good place to start. Can you sort through eldest DS room and see if there's anything that could go (if he can cope with that) or be stored in a way that's harder to tip?

If you declutter a bit it might be easier to keep clean and tidy? A drawer or cupboard each day. I found a charity shop warehouse that took 99% of the usable stuff and the rest went to the tip. I didn't try to sell anything worth less than £20 as it's such a hassle.

Antidepressants help me a lot so hopefully the appt will be useful.

I quit my job so I could have more control over my time so thankfully a couple of times a week I get to nap before school run. His sleeping is unpredictable. He's nearly 10. The non Sen boy is nearly 9.

He has higher level DLA which goes towards replacing things that he breaks, etc

I found what helped me the most was having a huge declutter. No buying storage, simply getting rid of a lot of stuff that had accumulated. It has made keeping the house tidier much easier, so then easier to clean, so then I have less tension headaches and low feelings around failing as a Mum etc…the children play calmer when everything is tidy too and they find it easier keeping on top of their bedrooms etc. I don’t feel quite like I’m constantly waiting for a fire to flare up that only I have the extinguisher for!

It is a real slog parenting and also caring for additional needs, it’s isolating and lonely and hard. So please give yourself gentleness, you’re trying and that is taking a huge lot of strength.

Do you and your DP still keep up affectionate touch? It can do you both the world of good and help keep the relationship on a more even keel. But it’s so easy for it to slip away in the minutia of life.

Can you get out for a yoga class or something similar even once a week? Something like yoga would help regulate and calm.

The slight complication with "touch" is that DH is autistic and doesn't like to be touched 😂i do sometimes crave touch but he really can't manage it. He's a good man, but affection really isn't in his repertoire at all.

Zero opportunity to get out on a regular basis unfortunately. Genuinely zero.

I am going to get on with decluttering the kitchen though. Thank you

Ah ok. Maybe make sure you’re both spending time chatting then, rather than simply existing like roommates which can become a habit but can be changed back.

Good luck with the kitchen. I was determined with my decluttering and it made everything far more cope-able with mentally.

Yoga with Adriene, “Yoga for Comfort and Nourishment” is on YouTube and made an enormous difference for me, it really helped.

Can you get to the gym just 2x a week to do a long incline walk while the boys are at school ?

I do empathise so much, I’m a single mum. My daughter is such hard work, has violent melt downs and breaks stuff, has to constantly be touching me to the point that I can’t even shower without her coming in and watching me. Sleep in the same bed now as it’s the only way I’m not up and down all night. I find a long hard walk at the gym sort of resets me,

can’t advise too much about the house as I’m in the same position, and desperately need to declutter

Use sorting the house out as a free work out that has to be done - work up a sweat if you can. Scrub, carry things upstairs, squats to pick things up. Treat it as a real job.

Start small don’t do yourself an injury.

Fill your bin each time it is collected, broken electronics and batteries aside anything that can be broken down and fit in a bin can be thrown away.

Totally agree with declutter.

Think about your life now, not what you envision, just what it is now.

What do you actually need? What do you need to do?
The two things that leapt out is your health and the kids.

So what else is taking up space?

A clear, calmer, calm-ish home might calm emotions down.

Can you remove things that break being thrown downstairs from eldest’s room? So leave soft toys, any books, clothes. Keep the breakable toys/tech downstairs?

Take sometime outside just to breath with a drink. Just in the garden our outside your front door, with a drink, 10 minutes after morning school run, not to think about anything you have to do but just to be, a bit like meditation but not meditation (I don’t think if you have mental difficulties that meditation is a good idea without supervision) but just to just notice what you can hear, see, feel, smell. It doesn’t have to be countryside perfect surrounds, can be traffic, clouds, cool breeze, police siren, doesn’t matter as long as you just spend 10 minutes just noticing before you come back to your what needs doing life.

Small changes, very small changes, that stick are much better than huge sweeping changes that burn you out.

Also use the nice shower gel, or best glasses for water, every day. Check out the tatty stuff.

And drink water. Your body and brain works better when hydrated.

And never give yourself a hard time if what you planned to get done doesn’t there is always tomorrow.