AIBU to think women never think they have 'time' for a breakdown?

UndertheCedartree · 2021-01-23T20:26:30+00:00

Bit of a wierd one...but I often see women in particular single mothers claim 'I don't have time for a breakdown' or even 'I don't have the luxury to have a breakdown'. I feel this feeds into women not giving priority to their mental health. I definitely felt I didn't have time for a breakdown...but it still happened! I had no control by the time my mental health was that bad.

Pebbles16 · 23/01/2021 21:34

I agree. Not a single mother... but I pushed and pushed myself because I did not have time for a breakdown. And then I had one. There was nothing I could do about it

AndcalloffChristmas · 23/01/2021 21:36

I felt like I was going to have one this week! I seem to have rallied somewhat now thankfully.

Gncq · 23/01/2021 21:38

Eh?

Not everyone is predisposed to have a mental health breakdown.

Some very stressed very busy single mothers crack on with it.
A mental health breakdown is a very seriously scenario, and I had one aged 21 resulting in months of care even though I wasn't particularly "busy" at the time of braking down. (I was emotionally traumatized but not exactly busy).

Some people are copers in life and can cope well with stress.

AdoraBell · 23/01/2021 21:39

When I was very young, less than 12 months, the doctor thought my mother had leukaemia. She told him she didn’t have time for such a luxury and walked away. Luckily it wasn’t leukaemia.

Scrunchies · 23/01/2021 21:42

@AdoraBell that’s quite a story!

audweb · 23/01/2021 21:46

Yeah I felt that way with PND. I was hanging by a thread. I had a CPN and received regular support but I bottled so much up, it probably took me much longer to recover. Even now, I’m a single parent with an ex that barely sees her and pays no maintenance and is an alcoholic. What would happen if I did get so ill again? I’m now acutely aware of my mental health given my past history, but I barely have time for a headache let alone anything else. What would happen to my child? I’d have to just drag myself through each day. My ex however used to just wallow in drink and bed about being low, someone had to raise the child we had, so I dragged myself every day out of bed to do so. It wasn’t healthy, but I had no choice.

HugeAckmansWife · 23/01/2021 21:54

I agree with GNCQ. I am a stressed, working single mother and don't have time for lots of introspection or conscious 'self care'. when I get a bit of rare down time I read, or drink wine or have a night out (not now obvs). If I have days where I'm in a shouty mood or would rather not get up and deal with the day, I just get on with it because I have to. I do cope. I've had a tough few years and any bad days I see as a natural reaction to that, not the onset of 'depression and anxiety' which seem to be the new watch words these days. I do accept that those can be real conditions and that if you suffer from them you wouldn't be able to get up and get on and may need gp help but I think it's normal to feel pretty crappy sometimes in response to circumstance and you do just have to pull yourself together.

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 23/01/2021 21:56

I think you've hit the nail on the head OP. Women and their needs are mostly invisible to others.

I often wonder, when we hear that men have more breakdowns/MH issues, it's just they have the means and capacity to get help and a diagnosis and actually many more women are slowly breaking down but dealing with it at home?

TheNestedIf · 23/01/2021 21:58

If it's a true breakdown you can't schedule it in, or not, any more than you can schedule in a car accident. It's not the same as being extra stressed.

StormcloakNord · 23/01/2021 22:01

Think this is what happened to me. Spent years since having DD being the sole earner/provider/parent as ex was useless. Didn't have the time to address mental health issues.

Now with amazing DH who prioritises DD and housework and (whether lockdown has contributed who knows) in the last year I've had several breakdowns and my mental health is a mess.

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 23/01/2021 22:03

I can really relate to your post @HugeAckmansWife as a single mother with very little support too, if I am ill I am so used to getting up anyway and doing breakfast etc whilst battling a migraine or fever. When I got COVID and was so ill I had to roll out of bed as I couldn't stand, and call exH (who very begrudgingly came to get the kids, but not without making a huge deal about what an inconvenience it was) the difference in my recovery in being able to lie in bed for days and not just get on with it, was remarkable.

MissMarpleDarling · 23/01/2021 22:03

I only recognised I'd had a break down after I'd picked myself back up with no support. Looking back I can say.... yea that was bad. At the time it was just normal.

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 23/01/2021 22:05

@TheNestedIf

If it's a true breakdown you can't schedule it in, or not, any more than you can schedule in a car accident. It's not the same as being extra stressed.

But men can usually take the time out of family life to get support, heal, have a break etc and the woman will pick up doing packed lunches, homework, school runs, bringing money in etc as she probably usually does, while he recovers. I don't know any mothers - except single mothers with very good support from their own family members - who could take the same time to heal and leave their husband to pick up all the family work and still go to work without difficulty or complaint

TonMoulin · 23/01/2021 22:08

I think it’s one of those phrases that you dint want to take to the letter.

I dint think people are talking about MH as such. But about the fact they can’t afford to let themselves miserable and have to plough on. Even when it’s shit and they’d rather stay in bed all day.
But they’re nit talking about a proper breakdown/depression that you can’t control.

What I do think though is that people, women and men, dint take enough time to look after themselves so they might be able to AVOID a breakdown. And yes there is this feeling that it’s self indulgent to take time for self care. Women in particular. And it wouod be better if we all did. For ourselves and for your families/dcs.

SignOnTheWindow · 23/01/2021 22:15

I think the phrases 'I don't have time for a breakdown' or 'I don't have the luxury to have a breakdown' is usually a snide way of dismissing people who have breakdowns.
There's no choice involved. When I had a breakdown, I was non-verbal, unable to stop shaking and couldn't even climb the stairs.

audweb · 23/01/2021 22:17

@TheNestedIf

If it's a true breakdown you can't schedule it in, or not, any more than you can schedule in a car accident. It's not the same as being extra stressed.

I mean, that’s true, but I dragged myself through months of breastfeeding, looking after baby on anti depressants and being looked after by a CPN and sometimes crisis teams. I battled suicidal thoughts daily but I still got up to do the childcare because if I didn’t who would? Would I have recovered quicker if I had been given the time and space to heal? If I had stepped back from the day to day duties like my ex did whenever he felt low? I think there is something to the notion that so many women drag themselves on. I’ve recovered now. I don’t know who I was during the time, and some of it is like a fog. It was existing and trying to live through another day (and keep a small human alive and raise her well).

Notcontent · 23/01/2021 22:21

Well, I know this is going to sound sexist but I think there is some truth in what the OP is saying. You often read and hear about fathers who disengage from family life, are to stressed/depressed to help at home or work etc. I do think that women will often just keep going because they know they have to. I have been at that point - but I just kept going because I had to, even though I was in a very bad way.

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 23/01/2021 22:26

My exH, while we were still married, had a bout of depression for six months and pretty much stayed in bed the whole time. I did everything, raised the kids, brought money in (he was SE and we haemorrhaged money), did all the cooking, cleaning whilst also looking after a man who point blank refused medical help but was happy for me to burden it all.

I did love him at the time and so bore it with good grace, but I secretly resented that, if this were me (and trust me I've come very close to wanting to spend half a year in bed) I wouldn't have been given six minutes to be depressed let alone six months. I was especially resentful after he repaid my support by having an affair with a teenage girl.

TheNestedIf · 23/01/2021 22:33

But men can usually take the time out of family life to get support, heal, have a break etc and the woman will pick up doing packed lunches, homework, school runs, bringing money in etc as she probably usually does, while he recovers. I don't know any mothers - except single mothers with very good support from their own family members - who could take the same time to heal and leave their husband to pick up all the family work and still go to work without difficulty or complaint

My mother had pre-natal depression. I was three at the time. When she had a breakdown she stopped doing any of those things. She just stayed in bed and cried and occasionally hallucinated. This carried on until one evening when she asked me to get a doctor. I wasn't normally allowed out of the garden so I waited several hours in the cold and dark until a neighbour came home. It was at that point medical services stepped up and grandparents stepped in. My father wasn't oblivious but worked long hours for a low wage and couldn't practically give up his job.

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 23/01/2021 22:42

@TheNestedIf your mother's extreme breakdown was probably the result of parking her own self care for far too long. We don't just go from happy one day to breakdown the next after all.

mummytolittledragons · 23/01/2021 22:50

As somebody who has had a breakdown , I can tell you that you don't have to 'make time' for one. It just sneaks up on you and then attacks with a vengeance after a week or two of smaller symptoms .

Sorry if that has not been explained well. I find it very difficult to describe the onset of what happened to me.

Norwayreally · 23/01/2021 22:50

I’m not a single Mother but I definitely have said this before, sometimes about physical illness as well as mental illness. I honestly just don’t have time to be sick.

I had my fifth and final baby 6 months ago and I was quite sick after his birth for about 3 weeks. My c-section wound opened, was pouring with blood and it became quite severely infected so I was re-hospitalised for a few days. The house just completely fell to pieces without me and I’m not saying this for dramatic effect. I mean, DH fed and kept everyone alive but that was about as far as it went. I left the house looking pretty tidy and returned to an absolute bomb site, it just caused me so much stress at the time. We got to a stage where he’d left dirty nappies piled high and it was summer so flies were buzzing around them. He hadn’t done laundry in god knows how long, piles of washing up on the side etc. It went further than just a bit messy, it was disgusting and I was helpless because I risked making my infection worse if I moved around too much.

My DH is lovely but he’s absolutely useless at domestic life and with homeschooling the DC now on top of everything else, I really truly do not have time to be ill.

Chimeraforce · 23/01/2021 22:58

Yeah. I'm saving my breakdown until DD is an adult. There's a bed with my name on it in the phychiatric ward.

TheNestedIf · 23/01/2021 23:07

your mother's extreme breakdown was probably the result of parking her own self care for far too long. We don't just go from happy one day to breakdown the next after all.

The whole point of the thread though is that she couldn't park it indefinitely and was forced to make time. There's more to this and it's more about me but it's more personal than what I've already written and I can't post it.

I respect your experience and I do regret involving myself in this thread. I prefer to use these boards for fun things so I'm going to step away from this discussion. and hopefully see you in a thread that's more amusing.

Tehmina23 · 23/01/2021 23:09

When I was going through a paranoid psychotic breakdown in 2012 I kept going to work for months, nobody stopped me & I lost my career as a result.

Luckily I didn't have children or I would probably have lost them too, at least temporarily.
Honestly, when you go properly mad you have no choice about whether or not to 'take time out'.

I've been diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder which I take meds for & can only work pt as an HCA but I'm struggling with that now because I'm having anxiety attacks plus hearing a strange voice.
I can't get signed off sick or I'll lose my job. So I really can't afford to have another breakdown right now although I feel like I'm heading for it.

So I also take promethazine to alleviate the anxiety symptoms at work as prescribed by my psychiatrist & when it wears off I take another one.
Outside of work I'm struggling to shower & function though due to feeling flat & depressed.
I only get out of bed to feed my cat really!!

Ii recognise that with my illness I woukd need support to care for any children as well as for myself.

I would try very hard not to be negligent if I had a child but I would definitely struggle to care for myself as well.
So for me being a single mother without support would not be feasible & now I'm 44 sadly I don't think I'll be having any babies in the future..