It's been a bad day

Yesterday was what we call a ‘bad’ day at my house. This is a day where my mood is somewhere below ‘despair’ and I can’t seem to get a toe-hold. I do my best on these days to keep my head above water, for my little girl if nothing else, but yesterday it was particularly hard.

Unfortunately, I have some pretty severe depression and anxiety, along with a lovely case of OCD. This turns my brain into a melting-pot of hideousness, and some days are so bad that I get antsy. I can’t sit still, but I can’t cope with practicalities like cleaning or homework. I need to run away.

Yesterday, despite severe exhaustion, I needed to get out. I popped in my car and went for a drive for an hour (yes, this is so bad for the environment, but I’ve not driven at all for 3 weeks so it balances). When I got home, B was here for his lunch break, and I felt all my muscles tense up. I was 15-minutes out from kinder pick-up time, I needed that time to calm down so I wasn’t a mess when my girl got home. As soon as I got inside, B started yet another soliloquy on ‘Asshole Co-worker’, a man at work who doesn’t work, smokes while standing right next to my non-smoking husband, lies, acts like an arrogant SOB and generally makes B’s life hellish. 

I understand and have sympathy for B’s upset over Asshole Co-worker. He’s frustrated, and he’s a man with a short fuse. However, I’ve been getting at least 20-30 minutes ranting about this guy after every single work day, and quite often during lunch breaks also. That can add up to an hour a day (or more!) that I spend listening to complaints about this guy. I’m starting to get really, really mad about it and yesterday, when I’d needed the cooldown time, I snapped. I asked B if he had the time to come get O with me, to which he replied ‘no, I have to get back’ before continuing with his rant. I yelled ‘I’VE HAD ENOUGH’ and stormed out. I got into my car and screamed for at least a full minute or two, before going to get my little girl.

Every single day of my life, I work hard to put on a brave, happy face. My family deserve me at my very best, and it’s my responsibility to make situations happen where I can be that best. Yesterday, despite all my best efforts, I wasn’t at that best. That was all on me, because unfortunately some days it just can’t be helped. On these days, I only want for nothing to make it worse. I give O anything she wants on these days, because it keeps her sweet and happy, and I can cope. I don’t argue, because I don’t have enough control over my emotions to pull back. All I want from the rest of my family is minimal conflict. I want to be able to swim under that big, scary, overwhelming wave and surface on the other side. Yesterday, I felt like I’d managed to get under the wave and just as I was trying to get my head up, but B was holding me down.

I’ve been self-managed for many years now. I’ve never thought of myself as a ‘sufferer’ of my mental disorders, they’re just something I have that I deal with. I avoid medication like the plague. It takes away my personality, and I’m not ‘me’. On medication, I don’t joke with my daughter, I’m a less loving partner to my husband, I’m a zombie-lady who operates on autopilot, so I don’t medicate. The upside is total control on the good days and my bouncy, fun personality. The downside is that the lows are much, MUCH lower. Terrifyingly low. 

I ask little of my husband. Love, equality, a little financial security while I can’t work. Mostly, I ask for support. I ask him to help me in keeping my moods even, and I ask that he doesn’t exacerbate things on the bad days. Yesterday was definitely a bad day, and with this having been communicated, it made me hurt that he couldn’t pull back, as I do so often. 

I’m interested to know how this post strikes you. Do you have a mental illness? How does it affect your family life? 

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