Missing in Action: Mental Health and My Son’s First Years

Trigger warning – this post talks quite openly about mental health and thoughts of self-harming, if you are yourself struggling with similar issues there are links to support groups at the bottom.

The first two years of my son’s life have been incredibly hard. It’s not been the parenting parts per se (though they have been challenging). No, my biggest struggles have been with the life part. The saddest repercussion? I often feel like I missed out on my son’s first years. Yes I’ve been here, pretty much every day as it goes. But I’ve not always been here. Before my son spoke there were many quiet moments, hours, and perhaps days (I’m not even sure). I sang to him and I read him books, but speaking, referring to our life, acknowledging the here and now, even for a second, even if just to tell him, ‘here’s your tea’, was too much. I only really started speaking to my son once he started speaking to me. I still wonder where he learnt those words. Who taught him?

On nights when he wouldn’t stop screaming, sometimes we would just lie together, our chests heaving in unison as we cried in tandem – both unable to help ourselves or each other. A trip to the shops often ended in tears, brought on by the wrong look of a passer-by. I don’t know what the definition of a nervous breakdown is, but I broke down so often I can’t recall the half of them. If I’m honest it started during pregnancy, like when on the way back from the second scan my husband’s emotionless state was too much to bear, I broke down and cried in a doorway in a nameless street, unable to gather myself together. Or the time when, just before my son was due, I was on my knees in tears outside the station. My husband was there, but it was a passer-by that enquired as to my well-being. He told her I was fine, she moved on. Many times since then, pushing my son’s buggy, I have been overcome with anxiety. It’s an overwhelming sense that takes over your body and soul – a shortening of breath as you feel your life is spiralling out of my control, unable to regain control of the reins.

Fighting to keep that cloud over your head from creeping down until it’s smothering you is fucking hard work. The extreme stress I experienced, the loneliness, the hopelessness and the anxiety – many times it made me want to take my own life. A none life, so it was nothing to take. Wanting to end it all is about the exhaustion of rising again and again. It’s about the feeling that no matter what you do things won’t get better and when they do, they won’t stay that way. Other times, when I knew the guilt wouldn’t allow me to take such action, I would wish for someone to knock me over, put me in a coma so my life could be put on hold. I would dream of who would come to my aid, who would be there when I awoke and would help me rebuild my life. I thought if divorce didn’t make people realise I needed support, perhaps a coma would do the trick. The feeling that people – friends and family – haven’t been there for me in the past few years has made me question so many of my relationships, some going back to my birth. Getting to where I am now, without people close to me who care enough to reach out and support me no matter what, makes me feel more of a failure than divorce did.

Now, as my son is older, I have to compartmentalise my pain and anguish. When, late at night I become distraught, I can cry loudly – rock myself back and forth until the tears stop and the fuzzing ear ringing silence descends upon me. When I have reached that point, where I have nothing left inside of me – no more screams of anger or anguish, no more tears of self pity, I become numb – speechless and thoughtless in every sense. I’m sure it’s a protection mechanism, no one can sustain themselves with that level of pain so you reach a point where you switch off. I know we only have one life and I fervently believe we should make the most of it but I can’t. So what’s the point? I want to end this pain and emptiness.

Things are getting better now. My son’s speaking draws me out. It’s hard to be silent in the wake of a bumbling, chaotic toddler. It’s hard not to respond when he makes requests like, ‘can I have a blue banana mummy?’ There are still days when the strength I need is gone though. Mornings when he pulls and pushes at me to get out of bed, crying for me to come downstairs. He pulls off my duvet and drags it as far from the bed as he can manage. On days like that we often find a compromise. I lie on the sofa in his room. Close my eyes and just be. He clambers all over me. Rarely, if ever, speaking any words to me. Somehow my mere presence comforts him and he knows I can manage no more. I lie there in silence. Not just in words, but also in thoughts. I curl into myself, physically and mentally. My head is empty, I’ve gone past the stage of anger, sadness or despair and entered the realms of silence. Deadening silence within me and around me.

Nowadays it’s rare for this to last long, my son’s presence cajoles me into getting up and doing something. It’s not as bad as the dark days. I remember one such day where I convinced my son to lie on the sofa with me and sleep nearly all the day, even though he was well past the sleeping all day stage. The curtains closed tight to convince him it was the day of the never ending night. It worked. But it couldn’t work again. I’ve had to change the tactics as he’s grown. I cannot disappear from him physically, so I have found other ways to pull away, and hide myself emotionally from my son and the world around me. As things get better I rarely want to take my own life now. But the desire to bleed, to release some of that pressure from my body, to allow it pour out of me, is often a strong one. Not one I succumb to, but when it comes it is still an exhausting mental battle to fight.

I hate that my son experiences all this negative emotion around him. I am scared of the impact that it is having on him. I know there are benefits; he’s in tune with others’ emotions and knows that grown ups do cry. I’m proud of his caring nature, but his desire to make me happy worries me. He shouldn’t be concerned with that at such a tender age. He’s always checking; ‘mummy happy?’, ‘mummy cry?’ He’s seen so much he can sense the change in me even before I can. A certain look or tone in my voice and he’ll worryingly ask ‘mummy sad?’ All he wants is for me to be happy and he gives me many cuddles a day to try to ensure this. I remember when he was really small he used to laugh when I cried, he found it amusing as my face scrunched up and tears began to fall. As he grew older he stopped laughing and started looking worried. That moment was like an electric shock, etched on my memory. So I learnt to hide it better, I’d stay at such an angle that he couldn’t see my face as tears streamed silently while I read him a book. Or I’d leave the room to stop him from seeing me break down. Again.

Looking back, sometimes it feels like I can’t remember anything of his baby days. I remember the day he learnt to sit, almost bang on six months, and then I have no other memories of him sitting. Surely he sat more than once? Did he sit up and grab the toys around him? What did he do all day? Or the crawling stage? I remember so little of it. I hardly have any photos or videos that encapsulate it. It wasn’t just about not having someone around to take photos, it was a combination of not having anyone to share them with and not wanting to immortalise these moments which, whilst they often contained bursts of happiness and amazement, were also filled with sadness and despair. Even now it’s rare that I will revisit those photos or videos, the few I do have, for fear that the sadness just outside the frame of the shot, might seep out and take centre stage again.

It hurts that I don’t remember much because I know it wasn’t all doom and gloom. I used to dance around the room while my son sat in the baby bouncy chair giggling in delight. I used to kiss and cuddle him all the time because I know how very important it is to feel the physical presence of love. Despite this far from perfect start in life, despite what he has witnessed and experienced he’s somehow turning out OK. Fuck that, somehow he’s turning out amazingly. Perhaps benign neglect and regular breakdowns are a better parenting tool than anyone ever knew possible. My son is a caring, inquisitive, lively, independent little boy and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But that doesn’t stop me worrying about his own mental health when he is older.

I’ve been writing this post for a long time. Sometimes it starts to veer towards a more positive ending. Then something happens to trigger a downwards spiral. It doesn’t have to be much – an argument I feel stuck in the middle of, an unkind word muttered in the office that is instantly forgotten, a barrage of abusive messages from my ex. The underlying problem is that no matter how insignificant, or huge the issue, it expands exponentially because I’ve no-one to share it with. If a problem shared is a problem halved, then a problem kept is a problem multiplied. I’m so very fragile. The only person who seems to realise this fragility is my son. Every time I take a step forward and hold my head up high, a right hook socks me across the face and I go stumbling backwards. I don’t fall to the ground, being a parent doesn’t allow you that luxury, especially when there’s no-one else to pick up the pieces, but my journey towards a better state of mind flounders. Sometimes it almost feels harder the easier it becomes.It may surprise you, but I’m an instinctively optimistic person. When I’ve had a good couple of days I start to believe in the hope and happiness. It tricks me into believing it’s here to stay. Then, almost out of nowhere, the crash comes taking me by surprise. It pulls me downwards, like a plummeting smoking plane, and I don’t know how to escape. Who was I to think I could do this? Who am I to think I can have happiness?

Maybe it is this feeling of having missed out on so much in my son’s first years which means I miss him so dearly when we are apart. I miss him if I have to travel. I miss him the days I work. I miss him if I’m in the kitchen cooking dinner whilst he watches telly. I don’t think I could even bear him to sleep apart from me any more (luckily for me, this is a rare occurrence). When we are having a few good days it makes me wish so much that I didn’t (have to) work. That I could be with him every day*. I’m not even looking forward to the extra free nursery hours he will get next year**– why would I want all that time without him? Having missed so much of his first years I don’t want to get to the day he starts school and be filled with regret that I wasn’t with him as much as possible. Then I remember how it is on the bad days and I think he’s better off without me.

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*Although don’t get me wrong, there are also many times when I wish I had childcare for him when I wasn’t working, expressly so I could get an actual break from him and work.

**In January 2017 the UK government will increase the free hours at nursery for three year olds to thirty hours for single working mums, or couples where both parents work (work is defined as 16 hours a week or more) see here for more details on the plans.

Support

If you are concerned about your own mental health there are a number of charities which you can contact in the UK. MIND, Samaritans and Rethink are some of the better known ones who can provide support and advice.

This is a list of mental health organisations specialising in key areas such as the elderly, youth and people with learning difficulties.

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