Checking in with myself. How I am feeling?  stressed and utterly exhausted, disconnected from my body because of the amount of pain that I’m in. I’m trying to compartmentalise and focus on each individual task. It is really all I can do to prevent myself from getting carried away by anxiety. One day at a time, one proverbial foot in front of the other. Just keep swimming…

It is hard being a parent because the responsibility never stops. It doesn’t feel real sometimes. It is easy to lose yourself in the day to day taking care of the child. It is difficult to manage things.

He is a beautiful boy, determined, loving, kind and smart as a whip. He is also shy. It is something that I am trying to work on, bringing him out of his shell around strangers.

It is hard to not have time for your own feelings and to actively hide how you are feeling. It is hard not being able to take a break. I cannot imagine how single parents manage, and with multiple children.

Everything is about my son now. I am okay with that. My hopes and dreams being for him. Everything else pales in comparison. At the same time, it is hard going through all of these changes to myself. It does feel like I am fading away. I do need to set an example. I have to matter too. He’s going to look at how I treat myself as much as how I treat him.

I legitimately thought I would be dead by now growing up. Instead, I have a husband and a son. Life is nuts.

*can be helpful

Hi Tommy

My son managed to erase my first reply to you while we were eating toast. 😂 Take two! 🎬

Thank you for your kind words and advice! There is a lot of truth there; I am a fan of the truth.

We don’t have help from anyone. That is why he is shy. More shy than other babies. I have been away from him for a couple of hours maximum, when I go to acupuncture. That is all. He does visit friends and family, as well as go to his classes. It is good to hear that being around the same people is helpful. We have one neighbour who has offered to babysit, but it is difficult because both my husband and I were severely abused as children. It is hard to trust.

That is a good idea to watch educational shows. We have only put on not so educational ones so far. We don’t do television very much anymore because of our son. I have a learning difficulty and my husband has neurodivergence in his family too. Research shows that screen use can make these things worse, so we have been limiting it.

I used to be a language teacher, so he is doing well on that front. I read, talk and sing to him. He knows the words boob, yum, mom and dad. He is very food motivated. 😂

I’m trying to teach him to play with others at the moment because it is his next milestone. We are practicing rolling a ball to each other and the game where is…?

I couldn’t agree more about teaching morality and good decision making. We are also saving for him, for when he is older.

I’m sorry to hear that your mother and sister passed away. You really have experienced so much loss. Your memories are very precious indeed.

I enjoy your rambling. Have a good night!

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Anita

Thank you again for your kind words! I honestly teared up earlier. I’m glad that liking yourself more has made a big difference to your quality of life. You have worked really hard to heal from your trauma and are an awesome lady, you deserve all of the peace and the happiness in the world.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Anita

Thank you so much! You made me tear up again 😊

I think that perhaps at our core we are all like this.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

How am I doing?

There are ups and downs. There has been a lot going on. Today, I’m trying to catch up on my schoolwork.

There are times when my pain is really bad and it causes some really intense anxiety. I was feeling bad about my anxiety when I realised that for the past couple of years I have been going through a lot of stressful situations. No wonder my anxiety got worse. My poor nervous system was put through the wringer. It’s going to take some time for it to recover. And I am still dealing with the hormonal fallout of stopping breastfeeding. That can take up to 3 months to balance. I realised that I just get anxious about things that I care about. If I frame it like that. It is not so bad.

I’m glad that I didn’t end up like my mother. I feel like I’m coming out of the other side of the postpartum difficulties. My whole life I was terrified of becoming her. She told me over and over again that I was just like her. I was terrified of having children because she said that it made her become the way she was. I was terrified of being like her after having a baby.

I can understand the difficulties that she had better now. But we responded to them entirely differently. We are two different people. Perhaps if I hadn’t actively sought out to become different from her my whole life things would have been very different. I’m glad that I was able to treat my boy with nothing but love and care which is what he deserves. I think he’s happy and a teensy bit spoiled. Just in the right way.

He has toys that help him to practice standing now. The new challenges are that he cries when he does get what he wants and if I try and stop him from doing something that he wants that could hurt him sometimes he bites me. He’s after power cables. So far I just say no, drop it, leave it alone and good boy when he drops it and move him away and I either ignore or say no when he bites. He also tries to pull on the curtains. Anyway, advice is much appreciated.

I think that I might have to practice being more assertive. The dogs tend to test me. I am not as firm as my husband or sister.