Medicate Me?

Looking for Life’s Rainbow

I’m back in the eternal dilemma I’ve struggled with since having my second child. I know I’m (probably) depressed, but I don’t want to go back on anti-depressants. I’ve been on them once in my life, when I had a breakdown after three years in my first grown-up job. I needed them, as I wasn’t sleeping and could barely function. But they put me in a glorious bubble where the world couldn’t touch me. I left my job, my home, my friends, my guide unit, my family, and I barely felt it. No joy, no grief. And, when I came off them, I was introduced to the world of anxiety and panic attacks as an unexpected (as unknown at the time I guess) side effect. Since then I’ve been prescribed the same drug three times and each time I’ve carried the pack of pills home as a lifeline and refused to take them.

But now I’m spending more and more time in the dark place, where I am worthless, where I am a terrible mother who is damaging her children beyond redemption, where it makes perfect sense that they might be better off without me. Where I cry and cry and it never gets better. Or the rage builds, inflating like a balloon in my chest with every petty annoying thing the children do – every time they whine, or refuse to eat, or don’t listen, or ask and ask and ask, until I pop and the shouting starts.

The I Wasn’t a Good Mom letter that I included in The Parent I am and The One I Aspire To Be post has a whole heap of supportive comments underneath. But the one that stood out, when I re-read them this week, was the one which said your poor daughter, you need medication, she will remember these days and be scared for life by them. And it raised the endless debate that wars away in my brain.

Should I medicate?

Will it take away the extremes of temper and grief? Will I lose me or find me? What if the shouty ranting person is me? Or what if I realise I’m a hundred times better on medication, and I’ve been battling all these years – making the children’s life, hubbie’s life, my life awful – for nothing?

Happy Food my Son Refuses to Eat

The bit that’s stopped me in the past is the part in the information leaflet that tells you it gets worse before it gets better. I’m not sure there’s any capacity for worse.

I remember, also, that last time I slept and slept. I don’t have that luxury now, who would run the house? Who would take the children to school and pick them up? What would I miss?

And then I realise there are whole chunks of the kids’ lives I don’t remember because of the sleep deprivation (did you know you only write the events of the day to your long term memory if you reach second-stage sleep? Like that ever happens in this house). So what difference would it make?

The biggest challenge is finding someone to talk it through with who understands. The last time I saw my GP she blamed everything tangible, refusing to accept that I might be depressed. She even suggested I send my husband in to ‘fix’ his snoring because clearly that was the cause of everything. A factor, occasionally, possibly, but hardly a major one. Might as well tell me to give up being a wife and mother completely, because husbands and kids cause sleep deprivation and therefore mood swings. That makes about as much sense as my sister’s doctor prescribing her prozac for PMT. my psychiatrist said it sounded like I was overwhelmed, rather than depressed, and I just needed to take more time for me. (I take half the week to do my writing, how much more would it take?)

It’s true that it’s got a lot worse since my daughter started school and I lost both my long nursery days – which gave me time to reset – and my freedom to manage our week as required. Quiet days at home to nurture, days out to recharge. Which terrifies me. I always thought it would get better, as the kids slept better, as my time became my own. The opposite is true: my time is so much more squeezed, my chores have increased, with extra ironing, packed lunches, assemblies, home work, and my self-doubt increases with every day nearer to adulthood my children get.

How many mothers need medication to survive the school run? It makes me feel selfish and pathetic. But every time my daughter sobs hysterically for no reason, I take the blame that she’s learning it from me, and it eats away at me. I remember my own mother battling with depression as I grew up. I read somewhere that children who grow up taking care of their parents end up missing out on their childhood and spend their grown life adrift and unable to connect. I could relate to it and it hurts me each time my son pats my shoulder and asks “Are you okay, Mummy?” as I sit sobbing. He’s three. It should be me comforting him, not the other way around.

Sigh. I wish life, or at least parenting came with an instruction manual. Or a crystal ball. Something, anything, to give you a hint about the right path to take. Until I find one, I guess I’ll muddle on through, getting it right and wrong and never knowing which is which.

The Parent I Am and the One I Aspire to be (reblog)

Forgiving son as we finally did baking

Today has been a pig of a day, from a half-five start with my up-with-the-lark daughter, through yelling at my son because he wanted my attention when I was trying to restore order in a filthy house, to losing it entirely and sobbing for a whole evening after the dentist told me my three-year-old has two cavities (does parenting fail get any lower than knowing you didn’t control sweets/juice/teeth brushing enough in two short years to stop him having bad teeth like you?) finishing with an evening staring blankly at a su doku trying to numb my brain because I just don’t want to be me anymore.

Hubbie has watched me like a hawk to make sure I don’t do anything stupid and all I can think is I don’t want such love because I don’t deserve it.

Was this worth yelling for ten minutes because I’m sick of being the only one who cleans anything?

So, as I often do, when happy words for the blog won’t come, I hit ‘random post’ to reread an old blog entry for inspiration. And I found this one, from 7th April last year. Seems appropriate (If slightly worrying that I have these days so often).

—

I don’t have many words today.

Lack of sleep and residual illness has turned me into at least four of the seven dwarfs. I’ll let you figure out which.

Instead of waffling on as usual, I’d like instead to share two thoughtful and beautiful posts about being a parent: both written as letters to a child.

One describes the parent I’d like to be, the other the parent I am far too often. Again, I’ll let you decide which.

It won’t be hard.

An Open Letter to My Son:

Like some poor, naïve fairytale mother, I’m trying to help you navigate your way through a forest that’s by turns enchanted and haunted. The path is familiar, as if I walked it once years ago, but different, too; overgrown and seemingly impassable in some parts, and unexpectedly clear in others. And as we pick our way through the undergrowth, as we do our best not to trip on twisted roots and sharp stones, I try to remember the lessons I’ve learned from all folktales I used to know.

For example, I won’t make the mistake that Sleeping Beauty’s parents did when sending out invitations to her christening. Unlike them, I’ll be sure to invite the dark fairy godmothers as well as the good ones, because I know that they’ll come anyway, slipping in through back doors and lurking in corners where you least expect them. I’ll let them give you their murky gifts in broad daylight, so that I can look them in the eye while they do so. Then I’ll smile and thank them, recognizing that I have to let life give you the bad as well as the good.

And when I send you out into the world alone, as I know that I will someday have to, I’ll give you something more substantial than bread crumbs with which to find your way back home.

And I won’t make you go to your grandmother’s house alone until I can be sure that you can tell the difference between an old woman and a wolf in a nightgown.

…

I Wasn’t a Good Mom:

Dear Daughter,

Today, I wasn’t a good mom. The morning came too soon after a long and exhausting night. I rolled out of bed and put pants on an hour before you normally woke up. When I came into your room you were ready for me, your hair tousled and your smile crooked. “I up!” You said reaching your arms out to me. “I pay wif toys!”

I didn’t smile, not because I don’t love you, but because I just needed more sleep. And then the day came and you stuck stickers to the couch and I grumbled under my breath. You tried to play tag and kicked me in the chest and I yelled, “BE NICE TO MOM!” I realize now, I wasn’t yelling that at you. I was just yelling at the world. But how could you know that? You couldn’t, and I’m sorry.

And when I went upstairs to go to the bathroom and you said, “NO MAM GO PODDY!” And I said, “Shut up!” It wasn’t my finest hour of parenthood.

I’m sorry I cried when you ate my lunch. The lunch I bought for both of us to feed my feelings. Because my feelings needed chicken nuggets, but apparently so did you. And I’m sorry I put you in time out when you made your plate do a little dance on the table. I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you when I put you down for nap, choosing instead to run away and lay in the guest room bed and just dwell in some silence.

…

These are only extracts of the posts. I encourage you to read the full version, and to follow these inspiring blogs. They get me through many hard days as a mother and a writer.

And I Am Free

The view from my childhood home

Did you ever run away from home, as a child? My childhood memories are sketchy at best. I recall the hullabaloo when my sister ran away, and was subsequently discovered hiding out in the neighbour’s garden.

I seem to remember a similar ruckus to do with me walking to or from Brownies by myself (it was several miles away along a deserted road) because Mum couldn’t take me.

My childhood comes back in vague flashes that I’ve learned not to rely on as the truth. But I do know that I was often away from the house. I roamed the fields, climbed trees, waded through rivers, either with friends or alone. Home was not a happy place and I avoided it when I could. (When a psychiatrist asked me to name a significant adult I remembered from childhood, I couldn’t, settling eventually on a neighbour who used to breed rabbits and whose house I used to haunt.)

The other place I escaped to was inside a book. No friends outside school? No matter. I had the Sweet Valley High twins, Nancy Drew and the Famous Five. No boyfriend? Never mind. I had a hundred romance stories, from Georgette Heyer and Mills and Boon, to Jane Austen and Emily Bronte. All the happy ever afters you could desire (what they did to my expectations of love and marriage is another post entirely.)

Roaming the fields near home

As an adult little changed. My roaming got further afield, to the Lake District and Scotland, Morocco and New Zealand. My reading switched, unfortunately, to Nineteenth Century Russian History, to be rescued by Shakespeare and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

And now? Now I long to run away. To roam the fields unfettered without rushing for the school run. I long to drive more than ten miles from home, to be by myself with wide open skies and roaring rivers. To not be ruled by the clock and the routine and the responsibilities. To get through a night without drawing on compassion that doesn’t come naturally or survive a day with no need for patience.

So I escape, into books, and discover that writing has become my salvation. Many writers I know have always been writers. They’ve known from the beginning that that is what they were meant to be. Not me. I wanted to an academic and control words, as I couldn’t control life. I had all the freedom I needed in the mountains I climbed and the books I read.

Escaping to the Lakes

Then I became a mother, and my world contracted to a tiny point of endless worry. Even reading wasn’t always an escape (husbands and children don’t understand “this is a good bit” and are sure to interrupt at the climax, never mind my new inability to read anything where people suffer.)

I couldn’t find the books I needed, so I wrote them. I write of all I’ve learned, all the things I’ve done, the people I’ve been, to remind myself. I write of painting huge canvasses or taking photographs, hiking mountains and travelling far from home. I write to remember and I write to forget.

And I read, with my fingers in my ears. I hoard the last chapter until I know I can enjoy it uninterrupted. I read fantasy books by brilliant authors who let me live other lives for a while and make me want to be a better writer. I read at the school gate, and write in the supermarket, and plot and plan in the dark hours of coughing and crying and complaining and cuddles.

And I am free.

Who Says Money Can’t Buy Happiness?

Kids find happiness in the rain

I read this great post by Valerie Alexander on her Speak Happiness blog today about our inalienable right to pursue happiness (well, for the Americans anyway, I’m not sure anyone has told us Brits. Complaining is a national sport!) and how there is nothing noble in suffering.

It came at a good time. The combination of rain and illness over the last few weeks has completely stolen my fairly fragile mojo. It’s good to be reminded that happiness costs nothing, and that “suffering and happiness are not mutually exclusive. You can survive immense difficulties and still remain a happy person.”

Not that a family full of cold and coughs, a few sleepless nights, and the most miserable weather count as immense suffering. I can see the ridiculousness in that idea. Still, there is something horrible about shuttling small children through puddles and mud, angry parents and umbrellas, twice a day that leaves me grumpy.

Actually, it reminds me of the phrase, “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing.” I don’t mind the rain so much when I’m walking the dog, in (mostly) waterproof boots and coat (although the sea of mud around us at the moment makes walking a treacherous thing.) But walking to school, juggling umbrella, school bags and – at the moment – pushchair for poorly child, with my feet slowly soaking in my long-since lacking in waterproofness shoes, and with my drag-in-the-puddles jeans drinking up rainwater, I am only reminded how long it’s been since I afforded myself the luxury of new clothes or footwear (have you seen the price of kids’ shoes these days? None left for Mummy!)

Grrr there I go again, full of misery and self pity. So I’m going to try and follow Valerie’s excellent advice; “I will embrace and grow my happiness, regardless of what challenges the world throws at me.” And I will start by buying myself some new shoes! Who says money can’t buy happiness? 😉

Waving From The Trenches

Slightly blurry party pics

Having survived my daughter’s birthday party weekend, despite illness and chaos, I thought I could finally breathe a sigh of relief and get a day to do some writing. Unfortunately the universe had other plans. As if to trump the coughs we’ve all had, our son decided to throw out a temperature of 39C last night, throwing up his party sweets and spending the night whimpering. I tried sleeping on his floor but he wanted to come in with us, so after hours spent checking his temperature, trying to keep him from cuddling up and getting too hot, and then a wide-awake daughter coming in at 5am wanting to play with her new gifts, I’m a bit spaced today.

I’m currently trying to figure out how to do the school run and the supermarket shop without spreading his germs around. Meanwhile he and his sister are playing guns with a new toy, happy as you like. Kids are amazing. I have no temperature at all and feel like the living dead and husband looks like willpower alone is keeping him walking. So, this is just a quick note to keep my daily blogging alive. I’d like to say normal service will resume soon but, quite frankly, the light at the end of the tunnel keeps being the London Express.

Domestic Madness

Homemade bread and crumble

What is it about us humans that we do crazy things under the delusion that they’re a good idea? I woke up yesterday full of cold (again!) and this weekend should have been about survival. Instead I took my son shopping yesterday to buy my daughter’s birthday gift. Two hours of wandering around shops looking for bedding, with a three-year-old in tow, isn’t that clever.

I did at least take a lie-in this morning, after writing my blog post, and didn’t get up until 10am. But then, instead of sitting in a corner quietly reading my book while the kids played (as suggested by hubbie) I started on a baking spree.

I don’t do baking or cooking, unless I want cookies and there aren’t any in the house. I’m the only person I know who isn’t a foodie, doesn’t enjoy cooking and hates making everything from scratch. But, today I made macaroni cheese, fruit crumble and a loaf of bread, all from scratch. What the…?

Actually, there is some logic. Firstly, although the kids were playing nicely by themselves, I knew that would end abruptly if I sat on the sofa with a book. If Mummy’s busy they can mostly be relied on to do things they think I might not approve of. I watch them surreptitiously to make sure it’s nothing dangerous, and everyone is happy.

Ironing done. Check.

Secondly, it’s ‘that time of the month’ and comfort food was required. A nice broccoli and cheese pasta bake and some fruit crumble and custard was just what the doctor ordered (well, probably not, but you know what I mean!) I managed to make a hash of mixing powdered custard, ending up with a lumpy goo twice, but it tasted okay.

Thirdly, I bought a new loaf tin a few weeks ago and I haven’t really had a chance to try it out. I made banana bread in it, but think I got the recipe wrong because it didn’t rise (although it tasted okay!) I searched and searched online for an easy wholemeal bread recipe, for my basic cupboard of ingredients, and found one on Delia’s site. Delia is one of the UK cooking gurus, so I thought what can go wrong?

The recipe certainly is easy, requiring no kneading and only a few basic ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, yeast, hot water). It rose as she said it would, to fill the tin, and baked to perfection, sounding lovely and hollow. It looked lovely, smelt great. But it feels like a house brick. Tastes like one, too.

It’s just about edible toasted, but it’s sooooo heavy. It’s just as well I managed to buy a loaf at the supermarket this afternoon, because I can’t see the kids eating it in their packed lunches tomorrow (I’ve got to make them all week, because I forgot to order my daughter’s hot dinners. Idiot!)

Says it all!

So my search for the perfect easy bread recipe continues! My sister swears by a no-knead one that cooks for hours (or sits for hours, I can’t remember) but I’m not very patient. And, actually, I’m happy to do a bit of kneading if it means light and fluffy bread!

To top off my day of domesticity, I did ninety minutes of ironing while the kids played outside in the rain and then picked away at their tea. It’s a nice feeling to know it’s all done, but my head is fit to burst now (especially as they’re watching Barney for the tenth time in two days and that singing goes straight through me!).

Thankfully hubbie did bath time, although that seems to have finished him off (he also has a cold!) What a pair we are.

Roll on spring and feeling well again. And thank goodness it’s bedtime (for the kids and probably for me, too!) How was your weekend?

Making a Change: It Starts Here

My Reason For Change

As a writer I know the power of words. Words can move, heal, hurt, destroy. Change the world. Think about Martin Luther King Jr’s speech “I have been to the mountain top”. Or the words in the bible. As a writer I should know to mind my words but, like any person of a certain profession, I don’t always follow my own beliefs.

A while ago I read a poem called powerful words on Chris McMullen’s blog and I said something in the comments about the words I use to my children being the wrong ones and how damaging that was and how I can’t take them back.

It’s something I’ve been worrying about more and more lately. Then, today, I read this article on Facebook called Ten Ways to Guide Children Without Punishment and I felt like I’d been whipped. It starts with these words,

“The reason a child will act unkindly or cause damage is always innocent. Sometimes she is playful and free spirited, and other times, when aggressive or angry she is unhappy or confused. The more disturbing the behaviour, the more the child is in pain and in need of your love and understanding”

Oh my it’s so true. I get most angry with my son when he’s at his happiest because that’s when he’s at his most destructive/deaf/irritating. Lately I’ve started hearing some of the terrible things I say to my children when I’m in a rage: things that were probably said to me, that I believe about myself deep down, that I’m teaching them to believe, and so the cycle continues.

“You’re lazy,” “You’re mean”, “You’re being selfish”, “You’re unkind”, “You’re trying to hurt me”.

These things are not true of children, certainly not two wonderful children under five. I excuse myself (or else I couldn’t live with myself a moment longer) by saying I’m exhausted, they don’t remember it, that I’m teaching them not to be bullies, and a load of other rubbish that just isn’t true.

My amazing kids!

To complete the trio of articles that have a) made me feel like ending my own life I hate myself so much and b) have forced me to see the need for change, is this one I found on Twitter called Why We Told Our Kids to Stop Saying “Sorry”. It discuss why the author has stopped her children apologising. She said to her child, after his umpteenth sorry, that, “Your sorries don’t mean anything when your behavior shows me that you aren’t sorry at all.”

I say sorry. All The Time. I’m sorry for living, I’m sorry for being a monster, I’m sorry it’s raining. Either it’s something I can’t control or it’s something I could change if I tried hard enough. Sorry doesn’t cut it. There’s a meme on Facebook about comparing a crumpled piece of paper to a bullied child: you can smooth the paper but the creases never go. You can say sorry but you can’t unsay the hurtful words.

As I write this I feel sick to my stomach. I feel like I have hurt my children beyond repair, beyond redemption. But the more I beat myself up about being a monster, saying the hurtful things I heard in my childhood, the more I give myself permission to continue because, hey, I’m a monster already.

I am not a monster. And, no matter how exhausted, overwhelmed, unhappy I am with being a parent, it is not my children’s fault. So, today, I have to make a commitment to stop. In my post yesterday I mentioned the book Happiness as a Second Language. The author, Valerie Alexander, stopped by to encourage me to read the book some more. So last night I did. I read all the way to Chapter Nine, although I need to read it again to take it in properly. The two chapters that really resonated were Chapter Eight – Adjectives and Chapter Nine – The Negative Form. Because these are the two I know I need to learn. Adjectives: the describing words I use on myself and my children, and learning not to be a negative person.

Because another thing I’ve learned from childhood is that sympathy = attention, that being broken means people try to fix you, help you, love you. That being happy means people resent you, ignore you, take you for granted. So I’ve learned to be miserable, so people ask “what’s wrong?” Except of course they stop asking after a while, or get bored of hearing the same ol same ol. So you up the ante. You think of taking your own life because then “That will show them I’m really miserable.” No, that just shows that you were too pathetic to help yourself.

Chatting to my sports massage friend yesterday she says it frustrates her when people refuse to help themselves get better. That’s me. I’ve had an injured knee for eighteen months but will I do the exercises to get better? No. I make excuses that they hurt, or I’m tired, or I don’t believe they’re working. Instead of growing up and just getting on with it. The only person that suffers from that is me (and my dog and my family.)

I want to learn how to be happy

So I don’t want to be a negative person anymore. I don’t want to steal other people’s happiness to make myself feel better. An “Indirect Negator” in Valerie’s words, someone “whose own unhappiness is so palpable that it risks becoming contagious.” Equally I don’t want to be around people like that (and I know a few).

The next thing I am going to do is choose five adjectives I want to describe me: five things I want people to think when they think about me, and live those values. This is an exercise I think I can do because I obsess about what people think about me all the time. That probably needs fixing too, but at least I can use it to my advantage.

Being a wordy sort of person I came up with alliterative adjectives so they’re easier to remember. There are many traits I’d like to be: successful, funny, strong, gracious, social, but I have to be realistic about what is in my control and what fits with my personality. So the five I have chosen are:

Calm
Confident
Caring
Compassionate
Clever

Calm: Since becoming a parent I am never calm. I rush around saying “we’re late” or I’m yelling or sniping at the kids, or I’m trying to do one hundred things at once. Yet, way back when, I used to work for a man who said “You’re always calm.” I said, “I’m a swan, I’m paddling furiously underneath.” But what mattered was that, on the exterior, I was calm. As a parent that’s the important bit. Honesty is great, but I am too honest about my feelings with the kids. They will feel calmer and happier if Mummy is calm. So, back to being a swan. This great article on Aha! Parenting will help.

Confident: My lack of self-confidence is something I wear like a badge. I second and third guess myself on everything. I dither, I ask for opinions. I change my mind, or let my mind be changed. I cry. I negotiate with the kids. I let other people’s parenting affect how I feel about mine. And yet the one thing I want for my children is self-confidence. To the point where I want to put them in a private school to learn it, because I know they can’t learn it from me. And yet the private school I visited was not right for my children.

I did use to have the courage of my convictions, when I worked for a living. I knew my stuff and I would argue my case (not always calmly!) and stand my ground. Against clients, against directors. No wonder I never got promoted. Now, though, as a writer and a parent, all I read are articles telling me how I’m doing it wrong, how I should do it better, and I believe every contradictory word. (Read this post by Ava Neyer for an hilarious summary of how contradictory parenting advice can be). So, I’ll start with the mask and hopefully confidence will come.

Learning Kindness from my Kids

Caring: This would have been a given, once. I considered myself an empathetic person, someone who cared about others. I seem to have lost that at the vital moment. Now I’ve become a monster. I say to the kids all the time “I don’t care” when they’re whinging about something. Arrgghh. Enough said. I will care. I will listen. I will kiss the grazed knees and listen to the fights and try not to get involved but still be present and caring.

Compassionate: Similar to above, but more about seeing other people’s points of view. I can be very judgemental and it has only got worse since becoming a parent. Part of my defence mechanism against feeling like a terrible parent is seeking out instances of other people’s terrible parenting to make myself feel better. I have probably made other people feel bad in the process. I want to learn to be more compassionate to other people (especially my family).

Clever: This used to be the one thing I knew I was, back when it was easy, when it was about exams and studying and stuff. The longer I’ve lived the more I’ve realised I know nothing. But the brain is still in there, beneath the lack of sleep and the low self-esteem and the self-doubt. I know stuff about writing, but through modesty, humility or fear, I can’t present myself as an authority here on the blog or to others. Yet I probably know more than I realise. Ditto for marketing, history, literature and some other stuff. I don’t want to bore the pants off people but remembering I have a brain and using it sometimes might help the other stuff.

Anyway, sorry for the long, self-indulgent post. When I finished writing it at 6am this morning I nearly hit delete. But then, for me, much of the beauty of the blogsphere is learning from others, seeing others experiencing pain and surviving it. Regular followers know my demons. By declaring to you all that I’m going to do this, I have made it a real thing. I will try and some days I will fail. But by trying to live the values of Calmness, Confidence, Caring, Compassion and being Clever, I hope to make a difference before it’s too late.

Defeating the Grump?

Painting fun

I’m in a grump. I don’t know why. The sun is shining outside, I’m home with my boy, my daughter is going to a friend’s house for tea. Life is okay.

I’m a bit stressed about my daughter’s party in a couple of weeks, but that’s mostly being planned by the other mummy (although maybe that’s why I’m stressed!) I’m tired of being poorly and random bits of my body not working (my knee seized this morning and I trapped a nerve in my back on Sunday) but generally I have good health.

I have a lovely husband, two gorgeous children, I enjoy writing my books (well, okay, that’s not really true when I’m revising, as I am now, but – you know – I don’t hate it).

I have enough money to buy the weekly food and pay for the odd cup of coffee. We found the resources to buy my daughter a new bed (although I hate not earning for a living and am currently looking for a part time job). I get three days a week without the children to theoretically do my writing, although mostly I do housework. I survived my 2013 365 Challenge and wrote 285,000 words of which I’m quite proud. I even sell a book every now and then.

But, for all my blessings – and I do count them every day – I feel meh. Sad. I sigh a lot. Shout at the kids. Cry, even, when small things overwhelm me. I don’t feel depressed, just melancholy. And I don’t know how to fight it. In the old days I would have gone for a run, but since I injured my knee 18 months ago I struggle to walk the dog without feeling the after effects. Cleaning the house helps for a while, but it gets messy again so quickly it adds to the feelings of futility and adriftness.

Telling me about his painting

I read to escape, but then I pick up a book like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and it magnifies my sorrow. Last night I dreamed about a remote hotel where all the staff had Asperger’s Syndrome; they’d been hired because they couldn’t lie and they didn’t like being with people so didn’t mind being by themselves for long periods of time. I have no idea if that’s true, by the way, I’m just basing it on the character in the book I’m reading. My dreams are all either high-drama chase sequences or depressing stories of loss and unhappiness.

I’m not what you’d call a happy person. I grew up with a man they nicknamed Morbid Mick. I try and see the positive in things but my default is to see what might go wrong and feel guilty about everything that does. For example, I cooked a lovely lasagne at the weekend for my father-in-law, with mince I took from the freezer. When I went to the fridge today I realised there was mince in there that now hovered on its sellby date. I cooked it anyway, but it smells a bit odd. I’ve been beating myself up all day for my stupidity. All Day. I mean, really?

I follow the blog of Valerie Alexander, author of Happiness as a Second Language. I have the book, too, although I’ve only read the first chapter. When I did I felt happy, and so stopped reading. I don’t have much staying power for self-help stuff. There always seems to be so much else that demands my attention instead (which has brought to mind that I haven’t phoned the doctors or the vets and there is a load of washing in the dryer and potatoes to peel for dinner and the dog needs walking and son asked to play playdough quarter of an hour ago…)

My brain is my biggest enemy. I over-think everything so generally I’m happier when I don’t think about things. But what to do when you’re stuck in a grump? Maybe it’s just the January blues, or the fact we can’t really afford to go on holiday because our daughter is now in school. Or that a holiday isn’t a holiday anyway anymore. I feel so sorry for myself it’s pathetic, especially as I don’t even know what could change for me to feel better. I feel like Shrek in Forever After, when he imagines life without wife and kids and finds out it’s not as great as he remembers it to be.

Ah well. It’ll all be alright tomorrow. No one died. What do you to get out of the grump?

Kairos Time Not Carpe Diem

Friends at the scooter park

Back when parenting was impossibly hard (like yesterday! Haha) I read an article about not subscribing to the need to Carpe Diem when it comes to raising small children. So often as a new parent (or not even a new parent) people who have done their parenting, whose kids have left home, who look back with nostalgia, say unhelpful things like “treasure every minute, it goes so fast.”

Of course that’s true and, as I watch my babies grow older and less cute, I see the truth in that. But with every “adorable age” comes a bucket load of trouble and it’s tough to see the diamonds at the coal face. Being told to love every minute just subscribes to the Perfect Parenting myth and puts unnecessary pressure on an already difficult task. As Glennon Melton writes in her post Don’t Carpe Diem:

It bugs me. This CARPE DIEM message makes me paranoid and panicky. Especially during this phase of my life – while I’m raising young kids. Being told, in a million different ways to CARPE DIEM makes me worry that if I’m not in a constant state of intense gratitude and ecstasy, I’m doing something wrong.

Braving her own Mt Everest

She compares raising children to climbing Mount Everest: “Brave, adventurous souls try it because they’ve heard there’s magic in the climb. They try because they believe that finishing, or even attempting the climb are impressive accomplishments … Even though any climber will tell you that most of the climb is treacherous, exhausting, killer. That they literally cried most of the way up.”

In my favourite bit of the articles she then says, “if there were people stationed, say, every thirty feet along Mount Everest yelling to the climbers — “ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF!? IF NOT, YOU SHOULD BE! ONE DAY YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU DIDN’T!” TRUST US!! IT’LL BE OVER TOO SOON! CARPE DIEM!” — those well-meaning, nostalgic cheerleaders might be physically thrown from the mountain.”

Instead of treasuring every painful moment, every tantrum and time out, Glennon Melton introduces the concept of Kairos time, God’s time: Moments of perfection to treasure amidst the chaos, as opposed to Chronos time, “the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.”

Kairos time is moment when you really see the children, love them with an immensity that is overwhelming. Even if the specific moments aren’t remembered after the event, just getting to the end of a day and knowing it had one or two moments of Kairos time in it is enough. It’s a beautiful article and it’s worth reading and rereading.

Kids carpe diem

And this afternoon I had one of those moments. Sitting on a bench, watching the children scoot round the park as the late afternoon sun trickled through the trees and sparkled off the puddles, I had a moment of peace. Of being proud of my beautiful babies, of myself.

Of course, being me, I ruined It by suggesting that my daughter let her brother have a turn in front. Thus ensued half an hour of sulking and tears, and Mummy getting cross. My son went and made some big girl friends who helped him where his sister had before.

But I fought hard to keep my Kairos moment and not let the sulking spoil it. Because these moments are rare. In the article, Melton compares parenting to writing a novel – we enjoy having parented, much as a famous author once admitted to enjoying having written. That’s true for me usually too. But some days the words flow effortlessly and shine and sparkle, and some days the children do the same. Those are moments worth hanging on to.

Finding Sense in Stories

Horrible headlines

Sat here on a Saturday morning, trying to think of something to write for my blog post, my mind was blank. After a night of The Raven Boys type dreams (always the danger of reading a powerful book at bedtime) I couldn’t pull together a story. I started flicking through my Reader, catching up on my favourite bloggers, like Miss Fanny P, looking for inspiration.

And then I came across a post that stopped me like a punch to the stomach. On Wednesday this week, over the border in Scotland, a three year old boy went missing from his first-floor flat, some time between bedtime and morning. The kind of story that twists inside you as a parent and makes you rush to hug your child.

I’ve been following the story with latent hope, as the people of Edinburgh poured out in their hundred to search for the missing boy. As is usual in such circumstances, we discussed whether our children could leave the house by themselves (they could) and whether there was more to the story than a boy running away from home (it seems there possibly was).

So, when I saw in my Reader this post by a resident of Scotland, whose children were involved in the search for the missing boy, I felt physically sick. We all want a story to have a happy ending. As an author (an author who lives for the HEA) I can’t bear a story that doesn’t end as I think it should. One that involves the death of a small child is the worst there is.

The Facebook appeal

It’s not the only story that has wrenched at me this week. There’s the case of a child who died within hours of their first day at nursery, or Jordon, the autistic boy who locked his mother in the house and disappeared on 9th January.

The latter story, like the story of the missing three-year old boy in Edinburgh, was one I discovered first on Facebook. I always share missing people or pets messages because Social Media ought to be good for something. In the case of Jordon, the story had a happy ending, with the boy being found alive and well. But during my internet search to see if he was okay, I discovered another dozen stories of missing children found dead.

They haunt me, these stories. Not just as a parent, imagining something happening to one of my children (which I can’t imagine, or I’d never let them leave the house again). I think of the families blown apart. The scars that won’t heal. The blame, the recriminations, the guilt. Of all the people touched, all the people searching with hope in their hearts. The policeman holding back tears as he breaks the terrible news. The assumptions that will be made, as the authorities search for the truth.

Mostly I think about the mother (who is often the first one questioned). I no longer judge mothers. No matter what we see from the outside, we have no idea and we must not judge. I am sure there are evil people in the world, but there are just as many desperate, overwhelmed, frightened people and we cannot know the truth of their lives.

As a writer, I live these stories with full emotion. It isn’t just a news story, it’s life in all its messy detail. There aren’t heroes and villains, winners and losers. Just the complicated horrible terrible beauty and tragedy of life. And it’s why I write love stories, women’s fiction, journeys of self discovery. The world needs hope and Happily Ever After. It needs to make sense of life and wrap up the loose ends, to have themes and symbolism and resolution.

Because life doesn’t. Life has sadness and questions and fear. It has grieving families and worried parents. We’ll all hug our little ones just a bit tighter today, and maybe we’ll look for escape in a book. I know I will.