Sleepless Nights

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  • What do you do to save your sanity as a parent?

    Otherwise entitled, “Why so judgey, Internet?”

    Yesterday, 93.6 Hobart asked on their facebook page, what we as parents do to combat feelings of isolation or guilt. There were some great answers and the lovely Sallyanne and I agreed that online communities are an excellent way to keep in touch with friends and family when real life doesn’t enable you to do that.

    My stock standard answer, whenever anyone asks me what I do to keep myself sane is “I blog.”

    And it’s true. This little community here has saved my sanity on more than one occasion.

    Sure, I do other things to make myself happy – I take time out to read books, I daydream, I buy delicious loose leaf tea and refuse to talk to anyone while I drink it. I take the smallest things and savour them and I laugh, a lot.

    Mostly though, my sanity saver is blogging.

    However, social media is a very new thing and it wasn’t available to a lot of parents. Something that people are all too willing to remind us.

    And really, flippant comments like “We had no time for sipping lattes and babycinos in trendy cafes” are not adding anything to the conversation, except a bucketload of guilt that apparently, mothers nowadays are doing it wrong.

    I could rant and rave about judging people (how do you know that mother in a trendy cafe with her baby isn’t taking her first time out in 6 months? how do you know it isn’t her one outing this month? HOW DO YOU KNOW?) but it wouldn’t do any good – people would still be judging and mothers would still be getting landed with a large guilt trip over “not doing it tough enough”.

    Guilt is a useless emotion. It doesn’t do anything except make me doubt myself and when Amy was a baby (screaming, screaming all the time) I promised that I would not guilt trip myself. I would refuse to feel bad for sneaking a coffee at a cafe with my mothers group and I would refuse to feel bad for things I could not control.

    Nowadays, I don’t “do” guilt. But it doesn’t stop me wanting to explain myself and my unique set of circumstances to every single judgey person out there. Should I explain about autism? About Ehlers Danlos? About how the Internet has very truly saved my sanity?

    Sure. I could.

    But I’m also pretty sure that it wouldn’t make a difference to people who want to play pain olympics and talk about who has it tougher, or who is the most selfless mother, putting themselves last always.

    Here’s the thing:

    I take good care of my sanity, because for a while there, I consistently put myself last and not only did I nearly have a mental breakdown, I nearly had a physical one.

    It took me a long time to recover and I am reluctant to ever let things get to that point again.

    Things are better now. I take time out to look after myself.

    And sure, some days that time out is merely sitting in my bedroom alone for 10 minutes while I drink a cup of tea.

    Other days, it’s taking the time to feel the sun on my face while I remember to breathe. Or turning the music up really loud and not caring what anyone else thinks of my musical tastes. Or leaving the children with their Daddy, while I attend events in the city.

    I’m not a martyr and I refuse to be one.

    Life is hard enough without carrying around a backpack full of guilt.

    —

    I would love to know, what do you do to preserve your sanity? Any tips for parents (especially new parents) who might be struggling?

  • Daydreaming counts as working in my universe

    I have to be in a certain mindframe in order to write. To Nathan, this looks like I am staring off into the distance, or mindlessly refreshing twitter. He wanders around the house, cleaning up (I picked a good one) and getting progressively hmmmphier with me, while I continue to ignore him.

    Writing requires daydreaming. Daydreaming requires that I not be vacuuming.

    Honestly, this makes perfect sense to me.

    I don’t have a writing room, or a space of my own. I have a desk in the corner of the living room, covered in detritus. If no one else knows where it lives, obviously it belongs on my desk. This is why next to my wedding and engagement rings, is a roll of duct tape and a couple of packets of seeds. Plus a sculpture, some school work, a pink labelling machine and the nail clippers.

    This is also why every few days I have to throw all of the catalogues into the fireplace, put the bills back on the mantlepiece and throw toys at my children.

    Getting into the right headspace to write things is hard when you have children. Children demand that you be in the moment with them. They have needs and their needs are usually loud and demanding. They need a cuddle, or a sandwich, or a kiss better. They NEED you to create that traintrack immediately and find their pink shoes (NOT THOSE PINK SHOES, THE OTHER ONES) and make them a drink.

    It doesn’t matter that the traintrack won’t stay fixed, or that they can reach the kitchen sink and get their own drink.

    No. They need you.

    I don’t begrudge my children this. If I did, I wouldn’t be purposely throwing myself back into the deep end with another baby.

    It’s just that sometimes, I would like a daydreaming room, all of my own. With lots of windows and a wild garden to look out over.

    Then maybe, I could daydream in peace.

     

  • Sunday Selections #60

    Sunday Selections is here today, because your ever lovely host Frogpondsrock is in Burnie for the Fired Up exhibition and sadly, has no internet. Such a shame.

    The Blurb

    I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

    I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

    So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

    Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

    Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

    Link back here to me.

  • On managing social anxiety and learning to be myself

    I have terrible social anxiety. Or, I used to. I’m not sure anymore.

    Two years ago, I couldn’t talk to strangers. I’d avoid eye contact, smile politely, mouth the right words to the cashier and walk away, never having connected with anyone. I was in a bad place and not only couldn’t I talk to anyone – when I did finally talk to people, I would be crippled by the fear of what they thought of me. Did I talk too much, laugh too loud, speak too strongly? Was I enough? Was I too much?

    It was tough, so I just stopped and basically became a very polite recluse.

    Shortly after,  I became part of the team organising the Aussie Bloggers Conference. Conference day came around and yes, I wanted to vomit, but I had no choice. I HAD to talk to people. This was my job and part of my job was making sure as many people as possible felt as welcome as possible.

    I went into that trip determined to have fun and I did. I talked to everyone I saw, asked them questions, listened to their answers and was not told I was an idiot by anyone.

    Throughout that day, I realised that people are incredibly forgiving and that the people who aren’t forgiving have their own issues.

    It wasn’t an epiphany that changed my life overnight, but it was the beginning of the building blocks I needed to get over myself.

    Over the last twelve months, I’ve attended a few conferences, a couple of blogging events and a music festival. I’ve forced myself to make eye contact with strangers, to start conversations and to smile at everyone. 95% of the people I have met have been amazing.

    You know what? It gets easier with practise. Nowadays, I can almost forget that I have social anxiety when I start up a conversation with new people. At MONA FOMA, while I was waiting for The Dresden Dolls to perform, I talked to people. We laughed and chatted and danced and enjoyed the music. I didn’t know them, and yet, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and had amazing fun anyway. I did the same thing the next night for the Supergroup and had just as much fun.

    People are clique-y. Yes.

    People are also, generally, quite nice and willing to talk to someone who strikes up conversation with them.

    [If they’re not nice, they’ve either got crippling social anxiety themselves, or they’re an arsehole. Be kind either way, both things are hard to live with.]

    I realised this week, as I sat down next to a couple of the school mums and struck up a conversation all by myself, that people don’t scare me so much anymore and it’s really nice.

    In fact, it is damn freeing to realise that I can just talk to people.

    People are interesting and people have stories and I want to hear what their stories are, without having to hide behind a computer screen to get there.

  • Really, this is about it.

    Getting back into the school routine has knocked the entire family around. Gone are the luxurious sleep-ins that Isaac wants and Amy is no longer able to raid the fridge before anyone else is awake.

    Now, if I was any sort of new and popular blogger, I’d have a series of tips here, complete with a shiny graphic. I’d be ready to tell you all about how to adjust your routine and make sure that everyone bounds out of bed without swearing at the alarm, or screaming.

    But of course, I’m me, and fabulous graphics are not really my thing, nor are tips and advice on how to live your life. Sorry, but you’ll have to buy a magazine for that.

    Instead, we’ve been stricken by an end of Summer cold. I use the royal “we” here, but really I mean Isaac and I. Amy, our darling germ carrier was a bit sniffly for a couple of days before improving today (thank god, because it’s photo day) and Nathan has had a sore throat that he’s very kindly shared with me.

    However, it’s onwards and upwards, because anything that doesn’t land Isaac in hospital is not really a bug worth whining about (sure, he sounds like a frog croaking, but he’s eating and playing cars).

    Pregnancy is going well, you know, all the usual bits and pieces happening. My pelvis falls apart on average twice a day, but I’m much better at putting it back together now. Babe is fluttering occasionally, enough to let me know that it isn’t dead in there and my uterus continues to expand at a normal rate(photos when I warm up enough to upwrap myself from the blankets I’ve wrapped around my shoulders – stupid body temperature).

    I had an antenatal appointment last week that consisted of a LOT of waiting, a lot of talking, a slightly panicked midwife (BUT YOU HAVE TO BE HIGH RISK!!!) and a calm, brilliant OB (Sure, you’re not low risk, but I accept that there isn’t going to be much we can do for you, and sure you can have midwife care).

    After two pregnancies with doctors and midwives alike panicking about the growth of my uterus and smaller than average babies, I’ve been set up with my very own personalised growth chart for this kid, hopefully averting professional panicking down the track. I’m not sure that 20th percentile babies are even all that much to worry about.

    Really, this is about it.

    How are you?