Tag: mental health

Tossing things aside

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I played a few games of cornhole at a work event this week. I am usually pretty terrible at any casual games like bowling or mini-golf, mostly because I never practise them outside work events. So imagine my surprise when I won a game. Then another one. A lovely American from work then saw it as a challenge and eventually obliterated me but it was fine, I was mostly surprised I did so well to begin with.

Then I realised why – a few years back I was trying to get Riley to play something active and somehow we ended up throwing a little ball into a laundry basket. At the beginning of the game we stood right next to the basket and whenever one of us got the ball into the basket, we would move further away. A super casual game that requires zero prep. We still play it from time to time, except now the twins participate too. I never really cared about winning or getting better at the game, mostly about keeping the kids happy and engaged. We play it every few months max. And yet, somehow it helped to train my throw enough that I can win an unanticipated game of cornhole.

That’s a huge contrast to my usual approach to things: I tend to dive into things. At some point I was sailing 3-4 times a week, offshore racing, reading books about trimming sails. When I started strength training, I was learning the basics with a coach then started reading books about it and advice online; with time I added mobility exercises and some skill work. Even though I often struggle to find time to exercise I definitely give it a lot of headspace: always looking how to improve, to do everything better. And then there are things I really care about, like work and children and their education. And sometimes I wonder if giving all of those things so much consideration and space in my thoughts helps – or just makes me exhausted. Maybe if I just cared a little less or at least let things go when I am not actively involved in doing them, I would be less tired.

There are caveats of course – tossing a bag or a ball requires far less skill or consideration than helping a child get better at writing. And yet it’s such an enticing idea that we can sometimes get better at things just by casually doing them every now and again, without thinking about it at all. In the world that keeps telling us that the most important thing to achieve things in life is discipline it’s pretty counterintuitive to just… do things occasionally, for fun, without planning. I’d like to think of a more lighthearted, more fun version of myself.

Approaching life that way would require lowering the stakes though. Can I care about work less when it’s not just about my ego and to a certain extent my identity but also about paying off a mortgage and taking care of my family? Can I care less about my children’s emotional health and their education? It doesn’t seem possible – so I don’t seem to be able to toss them out of my head the way I forget about a game of cornhole. And yet, when I do have a little time, I will try to remind myself then I can also let go of some things and tread lightly, with no obligation to achieve any results whatsoever. Now how do I not overthink this whole not-overthinking thing…

Numbness and being alive

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What do you do when you struggle to find enjoyment in anything? When every day feels like a never ending stream of chores to be followed by another day of chores, with responsibilities and other people’s expectations shaping up your every day?

I tend to numb myself when not working: listening to audiobooks, cleaning, ticking off other chores, staring at social media, not allowing myself to pause to avoid being overwhelmed by wondering why is this life that I built for myself – in fact worked very hard to build – can feel so miserable, like there is no space for myself in it. But that numbness only makes it worse, I feel like I disappear into nothing and lose all sense of myself as a person, my inner light completely lost as I retreat, dull eyed, after a moment of joy with one of the girls. I sleep dreaming of being abandoned over and over or being stuck in a place I cannot leave – that’s my brain’s revenge for not giving it any breathing space to chew on that question.

This happens to me from time to time, especially when the weather is miserable and I don’t have enough sleep. I remember a couple of years ago I took a single day off work to revel in reading, having a slow, lazy lunch and walking along the beach. Three hours into it I got a call that one of the twins was sick and that I had to go home and look after her. That feeling of utter defeat – I don’t know how you avoid it. No matter how many times you tell yourself to be grateful (and I am truly grateful for so many things in my life), not having any control of your life for even one day can be soul crushing.

I do eventually snap out of that feeling of being completely depleted. One morning I wake up and feel warmth in myself; I don’t rush to look at my phone, I suddenly feel enjoyment in my cup of tea, my comfortable seat on the couch. I start writing again. Suddenly, I don’t just notice the cuteness of my girls in an abstract, remote way, I notice how they react to me as I tickle them and breathe in their smells. I see warmth in my husband’s eyes. I return to myself and wonder how I can treasure my little humans so much but never seem to apply the same love and acceptance to myself. But I can never arrive at that moment by sheer willpower. You can understand certain things intellectually and yet it does not help you to feel better at all.

Where does that numbness, that grim feeling of overwhelm comes from to begin with? It’s tempting to blame it all on the stress of modern lives, with ridiculous property prices and expectations of being able to work as if we don’t have kids and parent as if we don’t have jobs. I know for me it’s much more than that, it’s the perpetual feeling of being unseen when I lose connection with the outside world and myself.

I am fortunate enough to have friends who I connect with on a deeper level, despite all of us having hectic, overwhelming lives. We might not see each other often but being able to be completely open with each other is priceless. I remember talking to a friend while eating chilli crab in Singapore. We hadn’t seen each other for several years, she moved countries, we both had more children and many other changes and some setbacks in life – and yet we felt so close in that conversation, no need to guard ourselves from being misinterpreted and misunderstood.

That’s not going to happen with every single person in our lives, I understand it intellectually; yet I try sometimes and then that openness makes me vulnerable. Being open turns into exposing weakness to someone who will not reciprocate. I cringe at how uncool it is to try to be friends who is always guarded against you.

Yet the best things in my life came from risk – risk of leaping into unknown and risk of opening up instead of keeping up appearances. I shudder to think what my life would be like if I contorted myself into a cooler version of myself who pretends to always be in control, who isolates different parts of her life completely. That version would be much less me – and I want to be more me and stop losing the sense of myself when I am overwhelmed and doubt everything. Eventually I find my own way back to myself – that’s when enjoyment creeps slowly back into my life, even when there is still way too much to do.

Why so serious?

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R has been going to gymnastics for over a year. She goes to a fairly small club that emphasises fun over competition which is probably the healthiest approach to children’s sport. Yet we almost didn’t rejoin this term, and the main reason was that I didn’t see much improvement in what R was doing. She also often lost interest by the end of the class and instead of practicing she’d do absolute minimum and make faces at me, in her usual monkey manner.

I talked to a few parents while sitting on the bench waiting for R to finish her classes. One girl who used to be friendly with R dropped out after Christmas because her Mum didn’t see results (and it was inconvenient for the whole family to do sports on Saturday morning). A couple of people I knew from my previous jobs brought their kids – and then I didn’t see them anymore. Both of the parents echoed my secret desire to see their kids doing perfect cartwheels and flips when we chatted. I am not sure what happened after – all I know I don’t see them at gymnastics anymore.

In the end, I was talked into continuing by another mother whose daughter has been doing gymnastics with R for a while. I look forward to talking to her every Saturday and that was probably the biggest reason why I signed R up again. That, and R actually telling me she enjoys gymnastics.

By the middle of the term R’s cartwheels suddenly improved. She now pays attention at the end of class. And come to think of it, she’s generally far less clumsy than she used to be.

Somehow she still mostly just enjoys the class, sometimes getting things right, sometimes not. I can imagine myself if I was somehow transported into a child’s body without losing the tendencies of my own age and experience – I would try to get the most value out of each class, do everything just right, constantly increase complexity and compete with myself. In other words, I would probably take all the fun out of it. I’d take it too seriously and get frustrated. I’m pretty stubborn so I as that imaginary child would probably not quit – but I probably wouldn’t get any joy out of it either, too focussed on results.

Needless to say, when I was an actual child I did not have that mindset. I did quit ballet after two years and I didn’t finish music school. The approach towards children education both in sport and in music back in Russia had nothing to do with fun and recreation – you were expected to work hard to get results. And I know that a lot of my enjoyment of music was lost in my childhood because learning music was all hard work and very little fun. Only now, many years later, I allowed myself to play the piano very casually, occasionally, for my own enjoyment – although I suspect if I didn’t have the excuse of having three children, a full time job and too many hobbies, I’d probably start trying to get more serious about improvisations and all the other skills that were not covered in my childhood education, possibly getting to the place when playing the piano is not enjoyable once again.

Yet R who can be pretty resistant to any kind of pressure somehow, almost by magic, managed to acquire skills just by sticking to weekly lessons and not taking them too seriously. Yes, it took a long time – a very long time by the standards of our impatient times. But the big plus is, she’s still enjoying it, too.

I had a dream that my children would do nippers (train to be lifesavers) – who wouldn’t enjoy running around on the beach, training to be safe in the ocean? R, that’s who. She started just before she turned 5 and she hated it then and the next term when we tried again. She hated being last while running, she hated how sand hit her bare legs when it was windy, she was clingy and miserable and so we quit. And a voice in my head told me for years and years that R didn’t enjoy anything all that much and maybe it was worth persisting despite her wishes. I know that voice is not really an enemy, it’s the same voice that urged me to practice reading and writing with R and researching the best ways to learn spelling and maths. Yet in the end what often works best with R is just giving her time and agency to decide how she engages with whatever she’s doing.

And as it often happens in parenting, I am not sure who learns more in all this – the child who acquires a skill of doing cartwheels and writing complex sentences, or the parent who learns to let go sometimes and trust the process and their child. I know I am currently trying to apply whatever I learned in my own life: hold my desires very lightly and don’t take them too seriously, invest time in following my interests and slowly build skills without fixating on it. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do a cartwheel too.

Growing pains of parenting

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When Riley was between 3 and 4 months old I woke up one day to the loud noises of tradies preparing to trim the palm trees outside our apartment.

The sounds of them laughing and yelling out instructions filled me with a mix of helplessness and rage.

At the time I felt trapped. It was a very hot summer, 40 degree days interspersed with tropical downpours and even if I did manage to get out of the house Riley hated our brand new expensive pram and started screaming before I could reach the nearby park. I also struggled to reverse our car out of the narrow car port but that didn’t really matter because Riley hated the car most of the time, too.

She was a very alert baby who did not go to sleep easily; I couldn’t encourage her to go to sleep by rocking, bouncing, shushing, patting her bum. The only thing that worked most of the time was breastfeeding her in bed. She also liked the baby carrier but mostly when James carried her, not me.

So when I heard those loud noises I realised that sleep would not come easily that day (not that it was ever easy with Riley). I tried – but understandably Riley was very curious about all the commotion and had no interest in sleeping whatsoever and I was sure she was headed into the dreaded territory of overtiredness. I eventually loaded her and the baby carrier into the pram and walked towards the park taking the opportunity to glare at the tradies who so inconsiderately ruined my day.

As I was walking, I was seriously contemplating writing a short story called “The worst day of my life”. Some part of me did think it was slightly ridiculous to call it the worst day of my life even back then. I lived through the collapse of a country, my parents losing all their savings, queues for bread, a death in the family. I moved to another city then to another country by myself, survived crappy relationships and worked for an employer who didn’t give a hoot about me, overcame depression that was mostly caused by my personal choices. Yet it really did feel like the worst day at the time and I could feel myself cracking at the seams.

I wasn’t sure I wanted another child for a long time after Riley was born. Her sleep was terrible for ages and she never stopped being a fairly intense kid. Eventually though James convinced me to start trying. For a while it didn’t look like it was going to happen, then came the shock of a miscarriage and then I found out that I was pregnant with twins.

While remembering my early days with Riley I promised myself that I would not be calling James in tears this time, that I wouldn’t be a blubbering mess, that I wouldn’t doubt myself nearly as much. I have since broken that promise. Only James knows how much I struggle some days.

Riley is not the challenge she was when she was a baby. Sure, she has her moments but there are also wonderful times. She is now four and says the funniest things. And she sleeps! She tells me she’s tired and climbs into her own bed and asks for cuddles. She adapted easily to new daycare when we moved and made friends and tells me what they do there every day and she’s an absolute angel with her grandparents and it’s not rare at all for us to have great moments when we are both giggling about something silly while making cookies or just horsing around.

At the same time, when your family grows from 3 people to 5 in one go, there are inevitable growing pains. Babies need to be kept alive and happy; the older kid wants as much attention as she used to get; parents are outnumbered at all times. We now have not one but three kids to put to sleep and for some reason they all want me. Some days there is just not enough of me. We have had all three kids crying at the same time a few times. I grieved about losing my exclusive relationship with Riley. I yelled at her in the fog of my exhaustion. Yet most days we manage alright. James is a much more involved father, not the guy who called me 10 minutes into my first walk alone after Riley’s birth (she was 6 weeks) telling me he couldn’t stop her crying. He now knows that if I don’t spend some time alone during the week I’ll be in a bad mental space and it will affect the entire family. He’s looked after all three kids by himself plenty of times. I have changed, too.

For a lot of us the desire to be a good parent who goes beyond the basics of physical care means that we also have to confront our own demons: our hidden triggers, insecurity, anxiety. If you don’t have kids you might never be pushed to your limits. People seek enlightenment in extreme sports and silent retreats but you might learn a lot of (unpleasant) things about yourself when your preschooler screams “Yucky Mama!” because she can’t wear the dress she peed on the morning after a night of multiple feedings of newborn babies and the said preschooler wailing that she doesn’t want to be by herself. You will discover that you feel angry when you’re screamed at, even by a little child with an underdeveloped brain or a tiny baby. You might find out that the never ending work of parenting does not feel rewarding at times. There are no promotions or breaks. And you might judge yourself harshly for anything that you perceive you are doing wrong.

I’m sure my kids won’t remember or think much about the years of breastfeeding and night wakings and managing tantrums and illnesses – not until they have their own kids. Not sure I even want them to. Let them be happy and well adjusted, surrounded by love and interesting challenges. I’d prefer them to hang out with me when they are older because I’m fun and because I’m the ultimate place of comfort for them, not out of the sense of obligation and filial duty. And I want them to remember me as a happy person throughout their childhood, a gentle source of support who doesn’t get easily overwhelmed herself.

There is a lot of messaging out there to ask for support if you’re struggling. I’m a little skeptical of it. For once, the reason you even need to tell people to ask for help is that asking is somewhat frowned upon and seen as a sign of weakness. We are surrounded by pictures of happy families and immaculately dressed babies and toddlers surrounded by wooden toys; yes, there is also a plethora of mummy blogs about the struggles of motherhood but a lot of the time it swings too far in the opposite direction with copious amounts of wine for the mother and nuggets served for all meals to the kids. Then again if you do ask for help what if you don’t get it? Nobody owes us help and especially not specific types of help; struggling mothers are routinely sent to Tresillian and other sleep schools that might work for some and terrible for others, well meaning bystanders often offer what seems like terrible advice (mostly about decreasing responsiveness even though it’s been shown again and again to provide best outcomes in the long term). What do we do when sleep deprivation and changing nappies all day are not the biggest problems, when the biggest problem of all is staying content among it all without daydreaming of abandoning your family to live in a cave where nobody ever needs you ever again?

There seem to be a lot of resources about productivity and hustle yet not enough about dealing with everyday challenges and our mental health; I’m not sure the skill of staying on an even keel through tribulations of life is taught routinely to anyone. With time I found resources that were helpful to me: some Facebook groups and books and real people who were happy to talk about their own struggles too. There is the most wonderful Possum Education clinic with its free tips for parents with babies and a book by one of its founders. She also refers to another wonderful book called “Becoming Mum”. I found ACT (as in acceptance and commitment therapy) hugely helpful and wish I got into it way before becoming a parent. I would also recommend the podcast called “The one you feed” to anyone who struggles (it’s not parent specific).

As a process of improving my own mental health I finally realised that feeling my daughter’s pain is not helpful. I was very attuned to it when she was a baby and as a result often found myself overwhelmed. I could not go down the same path with three kids instead of one. Plenty of people proudly call themselves empaths these days saying they feel other people’s pain acutely; that’s very similar to what I felt with Riley. Yet there’s research that shows that feeling other people’s pain actually prevents us from helping them – we just try to avoid people in pain. These days instead of getting upset myself when Riley has one of her intense reactions I try to separate myself emotionally to an extent and really listen to her and not my perceived impression of what’s happening; what I find a lot of the time is that when what we call “empathy” is in fact projection. And if you really listen instead of trying to stop someone’s extreme reaction the situation often diffuses itself and your connection with them is restored much faster. It works with babies too. You can’t stop them from fussing sometimes and there are few things more frustrating than trying to calm down a baby who doesn’t want to calm down. Their cries sound like the worst performance review of your life. It takes time to really feel it in your body that it’s not a reflection of you – you are the source of comfort for your children but they are still separate people who will inevitably react the way they want, not the way you expect them to.

I’m far from having found the way of perfect parenting, I still struggle. Yet now the sting of anxiety has been removed sufficiently from my everyday life for me to enjoy my babies when they are not fussy and to react with humour when they are (most of the time anyway). I now trust James to do his own thing with the kids as I go for a walk. I’ve taken all three of them for a walk by myself. And when I’m having a shit day it doesn’t cross my mind that it’s the worst day of my life anymore as there’s always a moment of two that I enjoy. And I know that after a while the photos of that day will most likely make me miss the times when my babies were little and needed me very much, so much that I used to daydream about running away and living in a cave somewhere.