This too shall pass

After writing Sunday night’s post, and immediately pressing publish, I felt a little better. Sometimes just writing the words helps.

Then yesterday morning, as I was responding to a comment, I realized that I am due to have my period this week. Immediately upon realizing that I felt better because I KNOW part of the hopelessness and overwhelm that I’m feeling is due to hormonal shifts. I will almost certainly feel better by next week.

I also talked to a friend and now feel better about the decision I have to make. That definitely helps.

So far I’ve been pretty good about taking this one day at a time. The uncertainty hasn’t been as anxiety-inducing as I expected (as a Type A super planner I find long term uncertainty very difficult to deal with – and yes I recognize life is defined by uncertainty but usually we can ignore that by focusing on what we EXPECT will happen – without that illusion the reality of uncertainty is impossible to ignore). I have really and truly taken it one day (really probably more like one week) at a time. But…

Since we finished school a week ago, and the frenzy of my daily schedule subsided, there was a gaping hole left in my brain and I guess my anxiety rose to fill it. Having to fill the days with my kids is not helping. My husband has been incredibly busy with work so he is basically downstairs 10-14 hours a day, leaving me to manage all the kids’ waking hours save dinner or bedtime (he usually comes up for one of them).

I’ve been taking the kids outside for 3-4 hours a day with a friend’s daughter, and that helps. For a while I thought it was stressing me out more, but then one day we cancelled all our plans and the hours marched so slowly – my kids were literally staring at the clock, trying to will it to say 5:30 so they could play videogames. It sucked, way more than getting them outside has. And realizing that even if we don’t do anything it’s so, so hard spiked my anxiety even more.

{I’m also realizing decision fatigue is at play. What should we do tomorrow? When will I fit in the minuscule amount of academic “work” I’m requiring from my kids (it’s just playing academic games! Why do they fight it so hard?!) Should I attempt a Zones of Regulation lesson? What will I make them for the three meals they will inevitably fight me on? Do the need to shower? When did they last showered?! The loss of structure to our weeks and days is making decision fatigue a real issue. It’s definitely contributing to my anxiety.}

My kids are so needy lately – they are with us more than they ever have been and yet they seem to demand our attention even more than usual. Lately they even demand we play Minecraft and other Switch games with them – so we’re not even getting that time to wind down as adults! I don’t know what is going on, but it’s incredibly draining. I try to set boundaries, but their reactions require so much management that it’s easier to just play the games. I definitely need some respite.

{I’m sure part of the issue is they are craving connection and what they get is so limited (my son has not seen one friend, even socially distanced, since this started in mid-March) that they are turning to us to fill all their needs of connection. The longer this goes on, and the more time we spend together, the more they will want to be with us. It’s a vicious cycle.}

I ended up getting both kids into camp for the last three weeks of summer so there is that light at the end of the tunnel. But man, there are a lot of days between now and then (session three camps start 7/27), and of course afterward we go back to this new normal, except harder when school starts, I’m sure.

Another thing I DEFINITELY need to do is unplug from the news cycle. Reading the same articles about coronavirus surges around the country is not helping. If policy makers aren’t going to change the way we play this game based on the new data, it’s not going to do me any good to read about it. I am extremely lucky that I don’t have to worry much about my own family as none of us are immunosuppressed or have underlying conditions. My inlaws are so careful they won’t even leave the car to wave at us when they stop by and my parents are making their own choices to widen their circle in outside socially distant scenarios (they asked to take my kids for a spend the night and I finally agreed – my kids will be there next week).

I am recognizing that I need to find my own mindset about how to proceed (within our state and regional guidelines) because this is not going away for a long time and I need to do what makes sense for me and my family. Reading a million articles is not going to help me figure out how I feel about this stuff because they aren’t providing new information. So I need to take what I know and make the choices that I feel are best for me and my family. It’s all about risk assessment. We do this all the time as parents, we just usually aren’t exposed to a constant, recurring news cycles about it we can access at the swipe of a screen.

{On a related note, I was realizing that I had fallen into the same patterns of obsessive reading and indecision that plagued my early motherhood experience – especially around breastfeeding – that made me so crazy when my kids were infants. There is no end to the articles on whether it’s better to breast or bottle feed – pump or give formula – if you enter a certain search term, but reading them will never give you peace of mind until you find it in yourself. I honestly never recognized how anxiety inducing it all was for me until it was over and I had some distance from it. Hopefully I can use what I learned there to help guide me in this new age of uncertain and currently incomplete data driving public health policy.

I also need to tackle the clutter in my house. There has been so much change as we moved downstairs and I haven’t been great about the stuff that has been displaced or moved around as we shifted living spaces. The state of the house, and the garage, is definitely causing stress, and if I deal with it I will feel better. (I know this isn’t true for all people but it is for me.) Last week I painted a room in our house and that room looks amazing. Now I need to tackle the other living spaces, and schedule a bulky item pick up so we can get some stuff out of the house (the shed is already overflowing with items I want to eventually donate).

Finally, I want to start meditating again. I think that will definitely help and I have access to two apps (Balance and Calm) so there is no excuse not to do it at least five minutes a day.

Hopefully if I focus on a few important changes, I will feel better. Just having a plan eases the anxiety a little bit. Any respite from this horrible feeling would be a respite.