Peering into the absyss – and seeing daylight again

I fell off the cliff in February. It seems to be turning into an annual event. Perhaps it’s lack of sunshine, but it’s more than that. The grind of the cold months turns me into a vile beast who snaps at the kids, no longer keeps up with friends and family, eats crap and hibernates under the duvet for full weekends, increasing my self-loathing as I bait myself with the bad parent stick. It’s not a pretty place to be.

And one day, a work day – I was hungover, as it turned out, I found myself incapable of facing the myriad challenges with which the day presented me, and I refused to leave the safe confines of my duvet.

When finally I peaked out in the cold world, I put on a bath and scurried back into bed, waking the children from whom I was hiding.  Jonah later found me weeping in the bath and the scariest part is that I could tell by the look on his face that he knew exactly what sort of day I was having. You can’t hide your moods from your kids in a three bedroomed flat and he has witnessed them all. He rarely engages with it – my mood, that is, preferring to talk about his latest high score or collectible  and he’s no respecter of privacy, but this time, he actually tried to pull me out of it, which only really makes it worse.

Ava, of course, emotionally attuned, tried to comfort me, which had me in floods, and I pulled myself together long enough to get the school run out of the way.

Because I have a full time job and mortgage to service, and I can’t keep relying on my long-suffering but eternally optimistic husband to look after both kids and a semi-invalid me, I took the sanest decision I have made in a long time and hauled my ass to the docs to get on anti-ds.

It’s been a long time coming. I am prone to the odd bit of peering into the abyss. Life will do that to you sometimes, and I think it may be written into my DNA too, so there’s little point in dwelling on the why. But I’d kept off the pills for a long time – turning to therapy while I breastfed my infant daughter in the grips of Jonah related PND, rather than resorting to drugs.

This time, with my social anxiety increasing, and my bad moods starting to affect my relationships at work, it was time to take the plunge. My close friend Kate had started a course a few months ago, and was now finding perspective on her life despite the difficulties she faces as a single mum. She’s training for a new profession, and generally keeping her hair on with her daughter more often.

So, it was Kate I called on that morning in floods, and she who talked me through the process of getting out of bed, making breakfast, and walking to the doctors. The next two weekends were a write-off. With massive pupils and a cloudy head I could just about hold it together in the week, although a colleague told me one day I looked like I’d mainlined about a gram of MDMA (I hadn’t). At the weekends, I duvet surfed and slept, while Tom tended me with unfathomable devotion. And then, suddenly out of nowhere I was booking a long weekend in Butlin’s to coincide with the kids’ half term (and I am a consummate snob, although London mortgage poverty has beaten a lot of that out of me, so this was a considerable step in the right direction).

The weekend was sunny and fine, and despite a vomit and a flat tyre en route, Kate, when we met her there was in high spirits, and we drank wine into the night and entertained the kids with merry hangovers the next day, and life felt worth living again.

The norovirus I suffered this week as a result has only set me back by a tiny amount, but half term is nearly over and spring is on its way. At least, I’ve bought Ava a pink Zara gilet, so she can have one similar to Jonah’s. This means I’m thinking about the future rather than turning twisting circles of misery in my own head. Which has to be a good thing.