To turn around and go home from holiday?

[Focusanddetermination]

I'm on day one of holiday, just arrived and seriously considering turning around and driving straight home again.

Reasons for going home :

1. I've been hit by a wave of dark depression on way here, I'm crying, feel like I'm in a dark place. I feel so alone, and ugly, and unloved
2. The weather here though at the beach is worse than where we came from, grey to reflect my mood
3. The tide is out, my child doesn't understand, they are just asking over and over for the sea, it's far out
4. The place we've come to I've spent a lot of money on, it doesn't feel worth it, it's more downtrodden that I thought or would be. I don't know what we're going to do here for a week. I could recoup some of the money by leaving straight away before we check in. It would total about £200 with fuel and lost deposit. If we stay ill have spent closer to £1000 on hotel, food in a week

Reasons against going home '

1. I recognise I'm in a dark mood, it could lift, things could get better
2. My child just wants a beach holiday, which this is... Sort of

I can't discuss it with my child, they are too small. They don't understand money or why mummy is crying. They want a happy childhood holiday, this isn't it. They want a happy mummy and I'm not that. I'm so unhappy this is what they will remember.

For context, I do suffer with severe depression, and am seeking treatment but really there isn't much on the NHS.

Go out for fish and chips, or just chips and eat them in the rain. Then buy a bucket and spade and a net and if necessary some footwear to go rock pooling.

Give it a couple of days and try to see it through your child's eyes.

Don't say the tide has gone out, say it is visiting Australia and if it was in all the time here children in Oz wouldn't be able to paddle.

LLandudno and Colwyn Bay are North Wales, folks!

Without pinpointing where you're staying could you say if it's south west or south east Wales? It's quite a long coastline! Is it Barry/Penarth area? Head a bit west for day trips.

Pembrokeshire is lovely (SW) and Mumbles/ Gower peninsula (SE).

I think the British seaside is very weather dependent. Resorts that can seem like lovely, fun, cheerful places in the sunshine can feel absolutely miserable on a dull, grey, cloudy day.

You'll only feel worse if you go home. After the holiday go to your GP and get some antidepressants. THEY WORK.

Well done for getting there OP when you feel so bad; you are being a really unselfish parent. I so hope that you can start to feel better soon. Medical help would be good.

The things children might like and remember
-finding a favourite pebble/or pop-weed - or really smelly (nameless)beach stuff take home
-splashing in and out of bright pools/puddles (however grey and dirty)
-digging HUGE castles to stand high on and knock down

• eating icecream instead of a sensible lunch

-slot machines (that have many lost coins beneath them)

• snails on the wall

-the sea magically appearing from no-where and then disappearing again

Things they don't remember
-good quality well-furnished rooms
-windows with lovely views
-meals in expensive places (where you have to wait forever and a day for plates of food).
-weather (unless it was sunny throughout the whole of my childhood :) )

rc22 I prefer the British coast line in mid winter on exactly the days you describe precisely due to the atmospheric drama of the grey lashing seas, and the wildness of it all.
I can't help but love the contrast of the brightly coloured cottages and houses set against the wildest days. We always book in the worst of the winter, love the cosiness of it all, cold walk wrapped up warmly, hot chocolate and reading whilst looking out at the dark sea, we try to use the descriptions to feed stories for school and fairytales with the dc.

It depends which way you look at it.

OP can you buy some pens that can be used to decorate stones? My dc loved choosing 'special stones' we took them back to the hotel and painted them in the room and had a massive collection to take home (she gave some as gifts to friends) Some of them were really beautiful.

Collect shells and make necklaces, if he is a boy you can add string and make shell bunting for his/her bedroom. Be careful to make the holes yourself.

Buy some strong glue and make shell pots/plates and other things for christmas, sounds random but grandparents will like it, you can keep the best ones for home to remind you of your bravery.

Painting and drawing, story writing are all worth doing!
Picnics inside, and you must have a midnight feast (at 9.30pm) every night with treats and milk.

Have a lie in and make sure you do something for yourself each day, whether that is ordering food from somewhere you like the most, or reading a book or magazine for an hour. Split the day so you have some me time too.

There are many beautiful places. Do let us help.

Kids need very little for a holiday. Tide will be in soon.

So plan of action 1) get lunch for you both.
2) find out what time the tide will be
3) have a few places you would like to visit this week.
4) Get chatting with a local about where the prettiest beaches in the area are. (Preface it 'after this one of course' and you won't offend anyone.)
5) buy a bucket and fishing net and see if you can go rock pooling for a bit.

Just wanted to say we have all been there op at some point or another! You can turn this around.....hope that you do. Please update when you can.

We remember it with horror, the kids LOVED it and keep asking to go back!

That's what children do, ask a teacher who has organised a lovely day trip, spent hours planning, box-ticking and has exhausted themselves by never thaking eyes off their charges all day! Next day, asking the children about what they remember, invariably it will be who was sick on the bus coming home.
As a child, many many decades ago, we went to a new caravan park in North Wales, we couldn't get into our cabins immediately, they were still making the beds. Later we found that this was literal, my Dad and Uncle went and helped them assemble the beds. Can't recall much more except a tore my new dress on the swing when I jumped off and it caught on a nail.
Children remember the oddest things.

You can check tide times on the bbc website. Somehing i only found out this year.

I'm wondering if you are in Porthcawl. If so go to Llantwit Major beach. Its only sandy if the tide is out but it has the best rock pooling and a really kitsch cafe. Merthyr Mawr sand dunes are fantastic as a pp mentioned.

Op, please read mallysmomma’s post, my mother had depression as well, and her refusal to fight it ruined my childhood.

I think this is just your Depression talking not the actual place itself. South Wales is actually a very beautiful part of the country with lots of castles to explore (if you like that sort of thing) and beautiful beaches. Swansea is a lovely friendly city, there are wild ponies on The Gower and Tenby is the most beautiful little town if you are anywhere near there. Your little one won't notice things that are run down he will be happy on any sandy beach with a bucket and spade and building sandcastles and eating ice cream. One of my most vivid memories as a very small child was being shown how to write my name in the wet sand on a beach in Wales! Please don't go straight home. Check into the hotel, get something to eat, explain to your DC about tides, little ones are often more interested in the world around us than we give them credit for. Go for a walk regardless of it being a bit grey and buy him some beach toys for when the tide comes in.

I was thinking too that with the lockdown and us all having been at home for 6 months, upping and travelling somewhere different is actually pretty anxiety provoking. I know I am feeling a little bit panicky about my short break to Scotland next week and being away from home, and I am not depressed and will have DH with me for support/kid wrangling.

Perhaps some of your difficult feelings are to do with that?

Maybe it would help to just take a day at a time. Say OK we will do today and this evening I'll have a glass of wine and watch TV when DC is asleep and think about whether I want to carry on tomorrow or go home.

I’m not sure what you’ve decided but personally I would stay and try and someone up a bit of a sort of kitsch, nostalgia attitude to myself about place. At the end of the day your child probably only wants to sit on the beach, dig and have ice cream and if that’s doable for me that will be worth it. I say that as someone who has been in a very dark place and for whom turning around and hiding away always made everything worse. You may be completely different. So it’s a very personal choice.

Summon up not someone up

Years ago my grandparents paid for myself and my daughter (4/5yo at the time) to go away to Blackpool for a few nights. I was beyond poor, living in homeless accommodation and not long split from an awful exp.

The hotel was crap, the area it was really bad too. The weather didn't know what it wanted to do! I was going through the worst time in my life.

That holiday was one the best holidays I ever had!

My daughter was having so much fun, and that made me so happy and still does to this day. She rode on the donkeys on one of the drier days on the beach, she loved the penny machines (I don't remember what they're called)

A holiday is what you make it. Today may be bad but tomorrow could be better, make it what you will

I don’t suffer from depression but every time I go on holiday, for the first few hours after I arrive, I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness, and I want to go straight home. This passes the following day.

I’d try and stick it out OP. The tide will come in, and there are lots of things to do in South Wales. Even if you can’t manage a full week, give your child a few days by the sea.

The tide will be back in within 6 hours maximum. Try to concentrate on the sea, the sand, the sun, your beautiful surroundings.

Mallysmomma I think you're great , hope OP has read your post and will take heart from it. and persevere.

OP, your child is too young to know the place is downtrodden, they'll just be happy to be on their beach holiday. Buy some fish'n'chips/bucket and spade/lolly or ice cream . Hopefully some of his/her joy will rub off on you.

It was grey in Pembrokeshire this morning but back to its glorious self by noon. Hopefully the same for you. Could you find a different beach?

Are you on your own there with DC? Or anyone else?

@Focusanddetermination
It isn't Weston Super Mare, is it?
We used to take groups there, and over all the years, never once saw actual sea...Just a vast expanse of wet sand.

I empathise...Holidays alone with just you and a very young child can be poignant...BUT!
It means no arguing!..You call the shots...No one else to consider.

Depression is awful..Mercifully only had it a few times, and it only lasted a few days, but I know exactly how ''dark'' it makes one feel, the heavy sodden heartedness of it.

I think everyone feels like this from time to time.. And as for ''Ugly''...I look back at pics of myself taken at times when I too felt 'ugly'...and it just shows a person who is not at all ''ugly''...And I'd love to look like that now 🙃!

Try and make the best of your holiday...It is probably you having a 'wobble' being out of a familiar routine.

Don't rush back home...You will feel defeated if you do that.
I bet in a day or so, you will settle more. 👍

Without meaning to sound patronising (I'm not trying to be honestly OP!) but have you explained to your child how the tide works? It will come in and go out twice a day...go online together and check out the tide times.

As for being run down...not much we can do about that, but kids won't notice 🤷‍♀️

The weather has taken a nosedive today so that won't help, but it's looking up for the rest of the week.

At the end of the day though, do what makes you feel better...there's nothing worse than being unhappy in a situation xx