Overwhelmed

[walnut87]

Hi all

I’m really sorry for how long this is. My head is a mess and I just need to get this all off my chest I think; I can’t see the wood for the trees atm.

My Dd is 3 years old and has always been incredibly attached to me, a consequence partly of us having had to shield during lockdown and me BF her til she was almost 3 (not really willingly/defo not planned). She has a lovely relationship with her dad and my mum, but if I’m around, she rejects dad and it really upsets him. He can’t do bedtimes etc because she just screams the house down.

He, for various reasons, has had to work insanely hard over the last few years, huge workload, and his time at home with us is therefore unpredictable. It should be improving but he now, rightly, needs some time to decompress from some aspects of it. He also isn’t great at communicating when he’ll get home after work despite reminders ever since we started going out about this. This also means that I have to do all the mental and emotional load with dd.

I also have a very stressful job (teacher); I work part time (4 days a week) which is something I always knew I needed before I had a baby from a mental health perspective. I was already burnt out when DD arrived. Then lockdown hit, I was shielding and had so much fear that something would happen to me and I couldn’t cope with the idea of dd not having me around (my dad who was basically my best friend died when I was little - very much connected). This hit as my brain was in that postpartum rewiring phase and honestly I was a mess. I didn’t enjoy being at home with dd. I don’t feel like I love her the way everyone else seems to love their kids :( even my mum says I’m not particularly maternal gah - she doesn’t mean it horribly but I hate this about myself, I feel I’m letting dd down.

Since dd started nursery I have even less time to get my own work done because of drop offs. I feel like I’m going to explode with how much I have to do. I have tried to hem off work so it’s only done while I’m there but it seeps into my evenings and weekends so I have to try look after dd whilst working and feel like a horrible mother because of this.

My mum is amazing and helps loads but the reality is my time at home is totally unpredictable and based on whether my daughter is going to be ultra clingy in the evenings; it’s driving me crazy.

I’ve come off antidepressants recently because I was fed up of feeling numb; Ofsted hit just after I had got myself off them and the stress of that plus toddler being really poorly have set me back. I’m struggling to cope, crying a lot (after a year of pretty much none thanks to feeling numb).

Not knowing when her dad is gonna be home and not knowing how clingy she is going to be, after a day of managing teenagers, is just… a lot. I don’t feel like a functioning adult, it’s always an uphill battle to get anything done, there is so much to do, and I really have no idea how to do this all and have some semblance of contentment? I feel anxious at what the evenings bring, there is no predictability behind what I’ll be able to achieve in terms of work or even time to myself (dd wakes in the night so we cosleep, a conscious decision to protect my mental health, but I lose a lot of me-time to being stuck in her bedroom with her when she’s ill which is a lot thanks to nursery). So I basically can’t guarantee time to myself at wake-up or my bedtime. It’s like I am on alert 24 hours a day and anything I do to for myself comes with a clock ticking.

My partnerwants more intimacy and me to be more lighthearted. I need to be able to relax and importantly destress before I’m in the mood and I’ve explained this to him but I don’t think he understands and he’s not around to facilitate me getting some alone time. We are crap at communicating it has to be said. I have always been quite a serious person I think (blergh - even as a kid) and sometimes i hate myself for it. I want to be a fun mum/partner/person.

I don’t feel enough for anyone. I need to exercise I think, Im not a natural but miss it so much but how do you do that with a clingy toddler who makes everything pretty much impossible? I need it for alone time and to try and destress. It’s hard to go running atm because of muddy fields, so I’m stuck trying to exercise at home but have a bit of a block on this because there is ALWAYS a toddler there to pester me/scream on the other side of a door if I shut it. Who can relax like that ha!

I just don’t know where to begin to make things better. I feel totally burnt out, pestered and overwhelmed. I’m constantly alert for the next thing I need to do/manage. That is the best way to put it. It can’t be normal to feel like this right? Anyone else? :/

I think you need to be working outside of the house while your partner or mum cares for your child.

Is there a suitable local cafe or library you could get a few hours undisturbed work done in, while your daughter is at home cared for by someone else?

either weekends, or evenings, or maybe one regular evening and a few hours each weekend?

First thing, your DD clinginess. That can be fixed. You won't be the first person in the world to experience it so I'd get on the parenting boards to find a solution. Maybe it'll mean both of you taking 2 weeks annual leave to stay home with DD and tackle this (so you both have the time to accommodate this extra stress in your lives). It means sacrificing some annual leave, but a one off sacrifice for a long term solution has got to be worth it?

Second, you need some alone time. One whole evening a week and half a weekend day, minimum. I'll bet DH gets the alone time he needs eh? This Big Important Man with his Big Important Job does NOT have higher value than you as a human being, just because you work part time. He doesn't have more stress than you either. Burnout is a thing and you're experiencing it. Being on red alert 24/7 is a symptom.

Thirdly, your MH. So you've come off ADs. Fine, you had your reasons. But the reasons you took them are still there. You haven't fixed the source of the problem. So, what have you replaced them with? What therapy, self care measures, herbal supplements etc are you using instead? I suspect the answer is "none" and that's part of the problem. You can't ditch the thing that was helping you cope without finding a different way of coping or, guess what? You won't cope. Which is where you're at now.

My partnerwants more intimacy and me to be more lighthearted

Marriage counselling. Seriously. He's putting this all on you. Erm, no. You're not a robot! You can't just magically "be more lighthearted" and "feel like having more sex". You've got needs too and they're not being met. Time he started caring about this and acting accordingly. He can start by telling you what time he'll be home, it's really not a difficult thing to do. He needs to learn empathy and consideration (for your struggles). He's acting like you're choosing to be at the end of your tether! Time he wakes up.

If he won't do basic things like this, or if he won't get marriage counselling, that's him telling you how little you mean to him and it's something you need to listen to. Won't pay eg £60 a week to save your marriage/sanity/get his sex life back? Won't spend 2hrs a week of his downtime for it either? Thinks it's pointless (because he'd prefer to bully you into having more sex, giving him more attention and STFU about how you feel)? Take note OP, that's not the thoughts/words/actions of a good person who loves you. His reaction to the suggestion of marriage counselling will speak volumes.

Please note also: DD clinginess is his problem as much as it's yours. He has to be equally involved in fixing that situation.

OP to clarify, when I said "alone time" I don't mean so you can work undisturbed, although that's important too. I mean for a hobby etc.

Thank you both, so much :) Alone time is key, the library is such a good idea thanks! Everything is so expensive atm I’ve been trying to figure out how to do the self-care side of things on the cheap, hence the exercise, trying to figure out if there any any exercise classes that I could get to or swimming even. I’ve been trying to make sure I can get a toddler-free shower after she goes to bed which has helped too. Then it all got thrown off course by the crappy week from hell. I know I should have had everything in place sooner but consistency has never been my strong point :/

I’ll talk to him again and see where we can get too - he has been making some changes for me - thank you xx