I‘m usually able to keep my crazy in check, I’m the girl that is often asked, “How do you do it?”. I’m not sure what people would think if I told them the truth.
I guess on the outside, I do present a very different persona, to the whirlwind that’s happening inside. I don’t like to cause a fuss or make a scene. I also don’t like to burden people with my mental and in some cases physical, anxiety but keeping it all inside is a recipe for disaster.
Last weekend, I was shopping in our local village with my husband and daughter. The card shop didn’t have what I wanted. The coffee shop had a queue down the street, that I had zero intention of joining with a 4 year old. So all in all, this trip was a bust but that wasn’t the problem. In my haste to leave the house, I had forgotten my purse so my husband kindly offered his credit card. I popped the card in my coat pocket before heading towards the card shop. I kept putting my hand on the card, to check it repeatedly. Without my purse or indeed my bag, I felt naked. Wait, where is that credit card?….ah yes ok, let’s keep going. Let’s try the coffee shop…
As my daughter and I head back to the car without a greeting card or a coffee of any sort; I help her into her car seat and once again check my pocket for that all important credit card…
It was gone.
I went from calm to hysterical in 5 seconds. I checked my entire coat and jeans, nothing. Got my daughter back out of her seat to check there, before storming off round the village square retracing my steps. No card was to be found. Back at the car, I’m checking underneath the vehicle, the footwells, the roof – I’m starting to act like a crazy person. My husband is telling me to calm down, which unfortunately had the opposite effect and caused me to yell at him through the car window!
“Stop telling me to calm down! I won’t calm down! This is ridiculous. How can I lose a bank card? I checked it a thousand times! If you tell me to calm down one more time, I will just walk home!”
To be honest, my poor husband might have preferred that option at this point.
Finally admitting defeat, my husband cancelled his card over the phone and I sobbed in the back of the car.
- How could I lose it?
- I had one job and one thing to look after and I couldn’t do it.
- What if I lost something else?
- What if I lost my child?
- If this is what I’m like now, how useless will I be in 5 years!
I was distraught and feeling like a complete failure. When I get like this my husband has no idea what to do so will often do nothing. My daughter at only 4 years old was so gentle and kind.
“It’s okay Mummy. Don’t worry. I think you need to take a deep breath. Would you like a cuddle?”
As I graciously accepted her sweet hug, I cried many tears. Under the weight of the unbearable pressure to try and keep it all together; only to watch myself completely lose it for nothing was heartbreaking, I was exhausted. At that moment she was taking care of me and doing an amazing job.
It was just a credit card and not even my credit card. My husband wasn’t bothered so why was I? Because it wasn’t about the credit card. It was about my ability to do something which on that day, I couldn’t do. I surprised myself at how quickly my brain escalated that. How all those fears that I didn’t realise I had, came flooding in. I do worry, pretty much daily, about my future but also my abilities and my impact on those around me. So much of my self esteem is wrapped up in what I can do. I’m not sure who I am without my independence. I heard something this week that hit me so hard:
“You don’t know what it’s like, to look forward to a future you might not be able to see”.
Part of my brain is obviously processing my fears, with painful clarity. The other part is strutting around with shades on, doing my best Jake Peralta, “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool!”. Whatever part is doing what, it was clear that something last weekend snapped.
I’m still in the infancy of this rather scary RP journey so I need to give myself a break. Being real with my fears and feelings, that was necessary. Yelling in the street like some fishwife was not. That was not cool.
I think I will take that deep breath now.