Diary of a Mental Mummy

So here I am at 3:25 in the morning—no sign of sleep, overthinking, over scrolling through social media, so I decided to write.

Insomnia and depression has been apart of my story since the age of 14. I use to take sleeping pills so I could go to bed early to rise early for school the next day. I haven't taken a sleeping pill since I was about 17/18—I realised I was becoming slightly addicted becoming too reliant on them so I just stopped it altogether. They altered my moods way more than they needed to be, I would be calm one minute and then a total monster the next. So I had to stop them altogether, doctors have prescribed them again along with my anti-depressants but I try my best not to take them unless absolutely necessary.

My greatest fear when I can't sleep is the impact it has on my son especially now during his summer holidays. I mean I will have to get up whether sleep or not because I know he relies on me for everything. However, I know I will be extra snappy, my mood will be super low, won't be able to concentrate on anything because all I want to do is sleep. So I will let him do what he wants because it makes him happy and he won't bother me so much, I feel terrible just thinking about it. There are times when I will stay with family if I feel my triggers early enough to seek the help, sometimes however like tonight I got no hint of a warning.

It's almost 4am and I have just three hours till he wakes up with a ball of energy to get on with his day. As much as I can predict how I will be feeling in the morning I refuse to let my depression win this battle. So with what hours I have left I will be trying my hardest to get some shut eye as I have a load of house chores to get through plus to entertain an energetic 8-year-old. I will probably spend most of the day counting down till his bedtime and I hope after not sleeping much tonight I will sleep like a baby tomorrow. Most definitely I will have to find the strength to do some light exercise and meditation tomorrow because I can't let myself get to day two with no sleep. I remember once my insomnia lasted for three nights, that was hell on earth for me! I literally felt like a zombie just going through the motions totally brain-dead.

Day 2 - 12 AM, Still No Sleep

So when I rose this morning I was so exhausted. However, I surprised myself—I got up and did what needed to be done.

I mean, it took a few hours to actually get up, it was as if my son picked up my energy before he woke up. When I heard him playing with his box of LEGOs I thanked God he wasn't in one of his demanding moods as per usual in the mornings. He even decided that he wanted a late breakfast because he had to build something for Iron Man. I have no clue as to what he was on about, but I gladly hung on to my precious time to get some much needed sleep to get on with the day.

So after a hour of half sleeping, I say half because I'm conscious that he's up in the house on his own so I can't allow myself to fall into a deep sleep. He decides he's had enough of LEGO so there's my cue to get up and keep going till his bedtime where I was hoping I would be able to lay here and fall asleep with no problems. Well, I was wrong!

I went through the motions like any mum would, tidied the house with a sweep here and a wipe there, laundry speaking of which is still sitting in the laundry bag waiting to be folded and put away.

Next, it's dinner time, my anxiety always goes up a little due to my son's fussy eating habits but today I couldn't deal with the hassle so I opted for the easy way out. A walk on the high street finished off with a takeaway. I know it's bad but as long as his belly is full I really couldn't be bothered with the nitty gritty of ensuring he gets a nutritious, home cooked meal.

It wasn't necessarily about making things easy for me because I'm too tired to bother but more because I know myself and I know the smallest things would have me snapping like an angry alligator which in turn creates a high level of anxiety in him and we would spend the day battling against each other. Mentally I wouldn't have been able to handle it so yes I took the easy way out.

It's now 1:05 AM and I can sense myself feeling sleepy. So on that note I'm going to stop writing, lay still with the telly low, phone down and hopefully I won't have to wait too long to get my shut eye.