Let It Be

At the end of last month I had my first appointment with a psychiatrist. It has been about four months or so of waiting to see this specialised mind doctor. Maybe longer, my brain is a bit of a fog with remembering the timeline of when my GP gave me the referral and I made the appointment. I know I sat on the referral for maybe a month. Well not actually sat on it, but hesitated to follow it up. I know I needed to follow it up, but I suppose I was hesitant to having a professional pathologising my situation, essentially dissecting my entire existence and distilling it down to a disorder, or permanent malfunction or maladaptation. In a way I was scared to start the process of untangling the messy ball of thread that my mind has become. My psychologist has helped, but a psychiatrist is a different kind of deal, they can actually diagnose you with legitimate, card carrying disorders and throw medication at you. I have had experience with a psychiatrist before. Not for myself, my daughter has been seeing a psychiatrist for three years and she is very good. My daughter has been through the medication wringer, just like me, which is unfortunate. Even though her psychiatrist is very good, you have to meet these professionals halfway in order to get better. Passively going about your recovery, is not really recovering and the right medication can only carry so much of the load. A lightning bolt is not going to launch out of nowhere and supercharge you with sanity like magic and drop happiness rainbows. I wish it worked like that, for myself and my daughter. Though I am not about to jump out in a storm with a giant pole to see if an actual lightning strike to the brain will make me better. Death is not essentially part of recovering. I am trying to avoid it myself. It is best if those of us with mental health challenges avoid the death thing. Anyway. Descending into nonsense once again. The first appointment with my psychiatrist went very well. Rapport was developed very quickly when she began our discussion with, " So you have three children?"

I replied, "Ah no, I actually have six." Her response, "Chick you're crazy!"  To which I replied, "Well that's what I am here for." 

She has four children I believe, so she gets the whole parenting/mothering thing. It's relentless, neverending hamster wheeling, with little to show for it at the end of the day. That's how it feels for me anyway. Most of the time, I feel like I am drowning in my life, in the chaos and mess, the whirlwind of appointments and errands, endless grocery shopping and drop offs and pick ups. Permission slips and throwing money at all the things. I remember chatting to another special needs Mum at school pick ups once and she and her husband were going on holiday. "We haven't had a holiday for 18 months", she said. "Oh that's lovely for you. I am sure you will enjoy yourselves", I said. All the while my brain is saying, 'We've never been on holiday. Ever. Should we be doing that?' I suppose it is again one of those instances where I feel like myself and my family are outliers, in the regular, average family sense, and even in the special needs sense. That's quite the outlierly, outliers. Holidaying though, what's it even like? To just set your regular life aside and go do something else for a little while. It is not something I have experienced as an adult, much less a parent of lots of people. When I was a kid, my parents use to take us on road trips every now and again. And there was a bit of a disaster camping trip once, but it still had its fun moments. Don't get me wrong, I was genuine in my well wishes to my fellow mother, there was no envy there as such. It was just an observation of sorts, some people do the holiday thing and then there is my family. I have often wondered if we did do a holiday would it be the release valve to the pressure cooker life we lead. One reason we haven't is obviously financial and the other I guess is me. I know I would have to organise most of everything for us to embark on a holiday adventure. And I would do all the driving to wherever and back, and wrangle kids and all the stuff. It would essentially be me doing all the things I do, just in a different location. Not really appealing to be honest. A holiday for just myself though, well that would be kind of awesome. Though a few hours in I would probably miss my kids, start worrying about them and not be able to enjoy the time away anyway. You're basically screwed as a mother. Well, that's my assessment of my situation in all the time I have been doing the mum gig. Add debilitating mental illness with the mum gig, and it is a whole other level of challenging. A shit storm of boss fights with your mind to just take on the simplest of tasks. Lately I feel like I have fallen into a bit of a hole. I feel like no one understands or even tries to. As supportive as my partner is and has been, I feel like he doesn't quite get it either sometimes. It's not his fault, he tries hard. But he is very grounded you might say, steadfast and unwavering in his moods. Me on the other hand, well I have become a whirlwind of all the moods. The derealisation/depersonalisation moments are jarring and often precede my panic attacks. But I can have panic attacks without those instances of feeling out of my body too. I can feel the panic episodes building, it's like mentally watching the tide come in. Sometimes it subsides and sometimes it is a tsunami that crashes over me. I haven't had a tsunami in awhile, I am hoping that the days of panic tsunamis are behind me. Given the chaos of life, I wonder how I have avoided the panic episodes in recent months. This past month has been full of sick children and nothing much going to plan. One particular day I had three calls from three different schools to pick up my children, it was just one thing after another. Last week I had a call from my eldest son's high school teacher to pick him up as he was unwell, it was the second call that week and he already had ten days off school because of this dreaded bug. I have been feeling deflated from all the sickness and exhausted with life. On the way home from picking him up, I was quietly having a cry behind my sunglasses when the song Let It Be by The Beatles came on the radio.  

"When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be"

My son loves The Beatles, he knew the song straight away. I needed that song right in that moment. Life makes no sense and I feel hopeless. But somehow there will be an answer. Eventually. Let it be.