Another damned anniversary

Two years ago, my heart started breaking. It was a long and painful process. Many things happened before that night, many things happened after, and many things keep happening. I’ve been breaking for decades now.

Most of all, on that evening, I realized I hadn’t ever achieved my–then–lifelong goal of fitting in. I still don’t fit in. The moment when I fit in will never come. Goal trashed–new goals sought!

But it doesn’t matter, my therapist said. It really, truly, doesn’t matter at all.

And how about feeling rejected all the damned time? That was a thing I realized on that night two years ago, too. I always was and would always be rejected. Don’t ask me why, because I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I’m obviously biased in that I have no objective sense of the world–if such a thing even exists.

The question I’m increasingly faced with these days is, what now?

So you tried to fit in, for decades. It didn’t work. Anything and everything you touched crumbled to bits, too. You might have some as yet undiagnosed disorder–friends keep insisting on ADHD, commonly mistaken for or coexistent with BPD, depression, ASD, anxiety, and, my all-time favorite-slash-what describes-me-perfectly, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. My one and only point of success is: I have a husband and a family. I’m rockin’ it, eighteenth-century-style.

Okay, okay. So, there’s the rejection part, and there’s the self-worth part. Oh boy, the self-worth part is below basement level right now. I can honestly find no purpose in my existence. And, newsflash, there’s not much joy either if you don’t have a little bit of money to enjoy life with. Yes, yes, money doesn’t bring happiness, but being in a state of debilitating insecurity about present and future isn’t fun. Money does bring some measure of happiness when it takes away a mountain of stress–when it makes you feel a little safe in your present and the thought of the future doesn’t cause you overwhelming anxiety. But I’m a dumpster fire in the jobs department. Absolutely useless.

So, no point in existing. And lying down and dying isn’t an option either. What the fuck do I do?

In a sense, there’s been progress. Let’s start with the Rejection Sensitivity part. That friend from my town who’d been a constant, if somewhat rare, presence for years, and who’s been ghosting me for over a year now? Something like that would have absolutely broken me two years ago. But today? I cried about it once. This is, after all, how life is. She can do whatever she wants; she might have her own problems to deal with. Maybe it doesn’t reflect on me. Or I might be too much for her–heaven knows I’m a whole lot for people to handle. So, I only felt rejected for a little while. Didn’t fall apart. Yay, me.

That guy I sacrificed nearly two years of mental health for? In essence (but not technically!) I was the one who broke that off by, I don’t know, being scary, I guess. I wasn’t willing to give a person the lukewarm, talk-to-you-quarterly friendship he seemed to want, after us being thick as thieves for half a year. Friendships, for me, are not a matter of simple spatial proximity.

People rejecting me and leaving me in many imaginative ways happens all the time. But, these days, I’m learning to protect my time and energy, too. My friends (there are a precious and special handful of those, happily) keep telling me I’m often taken advantage of, sometimes by manipulators, conscious and unconscious, sometimes by self-centered bullies who don’t care about my well-being. There is some truth to this, which I’m reluctantly beginning to accept. It’s a process. I’m not there yet, but doing better is all you can do as a human.

As for self-worth? I don’t think we should discuss this right now. It’s abysmal. I know what I can do, what my talents are. What’s more, I know what I can’t do, what I haven’t achieved, and how every single person on the planet is doing better than me in advertising their value and getting something for it.

The question, what now, hasn’t been answered yet. Honestly, I have no idea what now. I know I want to publish books, but good as my books are, I’m an idiot in advertising and selling them. And it doesn’t help that many of the people who tell me we’re in the same boat, and they are idiots in advertising too, sell dozens to hundreds of their books. How worthless are you if people who feel worthless are way above you?

Okay, time to wrap up this anniversary post. Two years ago, someone started breaking my heart. Two years on, that job has been taken over by the most efficient heart-breaker–myself. Maybe I can convince me to give me a break.

Wanted: a win, easy or hard. Not being picky.

The past three years have been hard.

That’s not accurate. The past three decades have been hard.

But let’s not think in terms of decades right now. Let’s pick up one of the themes of the last blog post again. Namely: what do you do when you’re singularly unsuccessful in everything you do?

Okay, I can’t claim I’m singularly unsuccessful in everything. I think I’m a decent mom. Not the best, mind you, but it’s a wonder I’m any good, given all the mental health issues. And I cook well. And I organize everything for my family. Oh, the joy! To be a glorified servant to mostly ungrateful people.

But, as I said last time, I’m jobless, careerless, and pretty much prospectless and likely to die in poverty because I’ll get no pension if I keep going on like this. For a person who grew up with the ooohs and aaahs of teachers, with the how-smart-you-are and the subsequent, continuing to this day, exclamations, “Oh! Astrophysics!” it’s kind of a bitter pill to swallow to not be able to get your ducks in a row.

And, boy, are my ducks all over the place.

Last time I tried to look for an industry job, I was unceremoniously dismissed for being “too unstable.” In this case, “unstable” means: PhD in Astrophysics, half a post-doc in Astrophysics, which I quit (HELLO, depression!), then baby, ruined health, ruined body, getting back in sort-of shape, a stint in web development, then climate science. That last bit went horribly wrong, and I mean badly, horribly, you’ll-never-work-in-this-field-again wrong.

And here I am, an unemployed mom of two, with several large gaps in her resume, wondering what the hell I’m going to do with my life, and agonizing over petty cash. Watching everyone pass me by. To be forty, and highly educated, and to watch all your dreams shatter in slow motion, your erstwhile peers becoming financially comfortable and settling into careers, and you slipping into a different socioeconomic class than everyone you know and just not being able to belong anywhere anymore. To have lost twenty years to mental health problems and the inertia of a neurodiverse partner who always stayed at home–so you didn’t do anything in your youth, and now your youth is gone and you still can’t do anything, but for different reasons. You and your big brain are largely useless to the world, and to yourself.

So, I need a win. Any win, as long as it’s for me.

I don’t mind working for it. I don’t mind training for it. I don’t mind spending a lot of time and effort to make it happen. I don’t mind if it’s as small as earning a hundred bucks a month–even that is a dream, right now–or even smaller, as small as selling a couple books per month. Or getting a couple reviews on a book. Or getting editing jobs. Or getting fitter. Or being able to hike uphill. Or sleeping well three days in a row. Anything, anything will do.

I don’t know if any of this is ever going to happen. I don’t believe it will, to be honest. Things don’t usually work out for me. But what else is there to do? Sitting and waiting for death is just dumb. I’ll keep trying to make things work, although in my heart of hearts I know it’s kind of futile.

Bleak, I know. If you ask my husband, he’ll tell you that’s just my pessimism, of course things can work out.

— (What the hell does he know? Things work out sweetly for white men with full resumes. They get relentless women who break themselves to make dudes’ lives work, so that people look at them and say–oooh! A hands-on dad! How awesome!)–

But I, being strictly logical and a scientist, look at past evidence: everything I touched crumbled and burned. It’s not the jobs, it’s me. I’m unable to bring things to fruition. I know many people want to see themselves as victims, want to believe what happens to them isn’t their fault. Thing is, this is as much true for the good things as it is for the bad things – but people never credit the good things to chance, do they? They credit their ability, hard work, and challenge.

I won’t do that. If the good things are part talent and work and part luck, the bad things have to be partly blamed on me, too.

As I said, it’s been a bad three years. Burnout, a huge emotional disappointment – a betrayal, if you want, by someone I thought was my friend – my daughter’s debilitating anxiety, the near-disintegration of our family, which took dozens of hours of counseling and a large change in school to save, the discovery husband’s high-functioning autism; all those things have left us reeling. I’m reeling. And my own inability to do anything with my life, earn money, be productive in any way…

But then again, maybe I’m too harsh on myself.

My daughter’s five-year-long anxiety, which culminated in her not sleeping and not being able to go to school, was resolved only last fall. We’re still recovering from that.

My husband was finally able to get evaluated by a professional re: autism. After lots of family therapy – he can’t go to therapy on his own; he literally doesn’t know what to say, so he ends up not resolving anything – he exhibits great progress with the regulation of his emotions and temper. He’s more open, calmer – and people notice. Our house isn’t the arena of daily shouting matches anymore. Our daughter sleeps at night. She goes to school. She does homework, on her own, for the first time in her life.

But this all doesn’t count, does it? Because that’s not how success is measured. It’s all unseen, unappreciated, unpaid work. And so, the danger remains that if I don’t manage to find or create a job for myself, I’ll keep not being able to follow my friends to outings and trips. And from there, greater dangers – like old age without pension – loom ahead.

Five months and five days, or: it never goes away

Sometimes, I’m convinced I don’t count.

I could tell you exactly for what and to whom, but I suppose the important thing is: the answer must be, to me. Because, let’s face it, I’m not in anyone else’s head, and I can’t know if I count to them at all. I only have their words and reactions to judge from, and I attach myself to people whose words and reactions don’t match. And I don’t know how society in general sees me, victim as I am – as we all are – to confirmation bias and other fallacies of the brain. And my brain has never been kind to the rest of me.

But, yeah. All that’s irrelevant, because it’s how I feel, and if there’s one thing I learned in the past two struggling years, it’s this: you have to at least try to accept that your feelings matter.

As with everything, this is an uphill battle. Some days are good, and I can put my foot down and say, “No! This is what I feel, and you won’t gaslight me!” Now, granted, this happens mostly with my husband, who’s already doing his best – jury’s out on whether his best is best enough – but, anyway. Small victories.

So, back to our subject: I quit the SSRI a few weeks back. It’s been fine. No particular anxiety – except the usual, like, “I’m the only one in my neighborhood, circle of friends, town, or maybe the universe who is highly educated but has no job, no career, no prospects, and will have no pension and die in poverty, nevermind those few trips I dreamed of taking and things I wanted to experience in my already slipping-through-my-fingers life.” Or, “I got fat again.” (I did. I have learned to accept my body, but my body can’t take me places anymore. I used to do ballet and hike uphill, although with difficulty. Now, I’m really overweight – because the last months, years, decades, have been hard and I’m very consciously allowing myself to binge-eat a little – and feel bad about it, because my knees hurt and I can’t even do the ballet trainings right.) Or, um, other things of sensitive nature. The not being a woman, for example. I struggle with that, too. As I always did, as I always will. And other stuff, too personal to mention. Yes, more personal than being in love with a guy that used to be my best friend, and publishing a book about all the pathetic details of it, and him abandoning me in every possible way you can abandon a person, and me being a freaking mess on-and-off ever since.

The latest “off” phase lasted five months and five days.

I hadn’t cried about it, or him, or whatever it is I keep crying about, since September. I know the exact date, because I wrote it down, as I write too many things that happen down. September 13 is where I closed my memoir, thinking, that’s over. I’m healing. I have friends, I am loved, I have my children. There’s a sort of life to be lived here, unimpressive as it is.

And then, last week I made the mistake of looking at the book’s reviews. There was a new one, by a woman who wrote, “I must admit, I wanted to march to Munich and shake Ioanna quite a few times. Her patience is inspiring, she must be a truly great friend to have and know.”

Yeah. Great friend, inspiring, patient, whatever. I still don’t count.

Right after I read the review – and quite a bit dazed by the fact that a stranger, number one: wanted to shake me back to my senses as she read about how I lost myself to a person who according to most of my friends didn’t deserve a tiny bit of me, and, number two: came to the conclusion that I’m a great friend while I’ve been agonizing for months about whether I’m the one being unfair to him, I reached into my nightstand, where I keep proof copies of all my books, and took Until We Meet in Denver out.

That was a mistake. Because, as you’ve already figured out, I’m not over that story yet. I was over it, for five months and five days. And then I wasn’t.

Does it ever go away?

I’ve been talking with one of my most loyal readers, Phil, since the book came out. His answer to my question was, no. If you’ve been hurt deeply, it doesn’t really go away. You learn to live with it. You kind of get over it. You even forget about it and have a nice time, and are grateful for family and kids and those friends who didn’t abandon you, and maybe also for the coffee you can afford this week (because you’re moneyless, careerless, jobless, and prospectless, and generally fat and useless – whoops, RSD brain got out of control there for a while), and you think it went away.

It doesn’t go away.

I’m still confused, and hurt, and I haven’t really had closure – although I’ve accepted that I probably never will, because he won’t give it to me, since this has grown larger and more horribly painful than what either he or I ever imagined it could be. And, although I thought the crying part was over, because it’d been, let’s not forget, five months and five days, on that day I took the book out, I started reading the epilogue, and again, I cried.

It’s not only the lady who wrote the review, or Phil, or my friend Dimitra, or Sasha, or James, or everyone who’s ever said to me, “he’s an asshole, forget about him.” Every woman and most men who’ve read the book shrug and say the same thing. It’s almost embarrassing how often the “shake Ioanna back to her senses” thing is mentioned. And, for some of the more hotheaded ones, “if he ever crosses my path…” They are quite emphatic about all of it. In my mind, I wrote a book about how I loved a wonderful person, how I tried to understand him, and how I got very, very hurt through a combination of circumstances, mental health disorders, and life. But what all those people, friends, acquaintances, readers, got out of it, was: this dude is just an asshole.

And you, Ioanna, you are naive.

The thing I don’t tell my friends, readers, reviewers is: I don’t care what any (or, more precisely, pretty much all) of them say. He is not an asshole. I know this person. He is my friend. Was my friend?

So, the point is – and thank you for reading up to here, because I’m just venting and ranting, aren’t I – I don’t count. I don’t count as a woman, never did. I don’t count as a professional, or as much of anything. And, last but not least, I don’t count to him. He will keep going on his trips and his excursions, have his diverse experiences, which is (was) all he cares (cared) about, and I’ll keep being here, fat, careerless, jobless, prospectless, and crying over the pages of a paperback once in a while.

Life.

Wading out

Like so many other things, mental health sneaks up on you.

In June, you can’t breathe. You wonder if this torment that calls itself life is ever going to end.

In July, through sheer effort and lots of time to yourself, you can begin to exist within yourself again.

In August, hope is on the horizon, although the pain is still very much present.

In September, the tears are starting to melt down the pain.

In October, you face the facts.

In November, you decide to care for yourself.

And December? In December, your energy comes back.

As my faculties return, I marvel: is this the level of mental energy humans have at their disposal when they’re not overwhelmed and obsessed and running two parallel processes on the single processor that’s in our heads? How can I describe this transition from the absolute brain dullness–too long my companion–to the lucid state of my mind now? It feels like wading out of the sea. First, the water is up to your neck, and it’s such an effort to take a single step. You think you’ll never make it. Then the water is up to your chest, and you have to keep your arms raised to reduce resistance, and it’s slow going, and you’re panting, but your determination carries you on. By the time you’re knee-deep, it’s child’s play. It can’t get easier, can it?

But then you hit the shore and you run like the wind. This is easy!

Was life ever so easy?

In the past weeks, I’ve even started entertaining thoughts of going back to work. I have no clue what kind of job I can do or will be able to get, and it’s not going to happen soon anyway since my family needs me to care for them right now. But, oh–my–God, is this possible? The mere thought of it doesn’t exhaust or terrify me anymore. I occasionally clean the house. I keep my family fed and clothed in clean clothes. I kind of sleep. I sleep. I can cope with everyday things.

And why did all this happen? Because I gave myself license to feel.

Feelings tucked inside eat you up from the inside. I say, let them out. Okay, maybe you don’t want to write a 65-thousand-word memoir about them and share them with everyone in the English-speaking world–I am, after all, an extreme case, the eternal over-sharer. But don’t let feelings fester. They can become malignant.

Oh, man, it’s so good to be able to run on dry ground.

Can I overdose on…

I have ten Lorazepam pills left.

Why am I googling this? What the fuck’s wrong with me? Of course I can’t really overdose on ten milligrams of Lorazepam. I envisioned drifting into a nice deep sleep, just maybe not hurting that much anymore, if only for a couple hours. I mean, sure, if I didn’t wake up from said sleep, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Not that I’m suicidal. I’m not. Never was. What an absurd idea. I’m strong. This is why I have to suffer. Life doesn’t throw metaphorical bricks on people who bruise easily.

I used to have more of those pills, but I gave some to that friend I tried to care for last year. I couldn’t bear the thought he’d be left alone with his panic attacks, with nobody to help him. Of course, I knew he’d taken them before, and he wouldn’t be in danger of an adverse reaction – I do think of everything, after all, I wouldn’t endanger someone like that. Well, friend’s gone, so are my pills. My soft heart might have saved me from, I don’t know what. Temptation? I don’t think you can do much with sixteen milligram either, so nothing’s lost. Nothing’s gained either.

The pain is growing. In the past months, years, decades, I’ve been verbally and emotionally abused, accused, ignored, even neglected by people who should have been there for me. I’ve been made to feel as if I were completely worthless. I used to attribute that to my Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, but it’s not only that, I realised – and Dimitra agrees, so this is my sign that I’m on to something. Some folks just treat you like that, won’t even realise they’re doing it, or, even worse, they’ll feel justified in doing it. My former boss did it. My husband, the man who I now know always loved me, neglected me – unknowingly, because of his emotional handicap. Although now he has understood, and he’s transformed into my greatest supporter. Still, the hurt remains. Can I detach my worth from having been treated like that? Maybe. Can I detach my worth from still being treated like that by some people? Am I worth anything, after all?

The pills. I have a whole bunch of SSRI in the box. Can you overdose on those? Would my husband notice if something was wrong with me? I guess he might. He’s getting better at this. A couple years ago I bet he’d find me dead in the morning and wonder what’d happened. But now I think he’s more sensitive to signs of depression – like me lying in my bed all day, crying, and not being able to do anything at all. Which is how today has been.

I mean, I did put on pants. They’re pyjama pants. I still count it as a win.

How am I going to take care of my kids? They start school tomorrow. And, whatever do they gain from having me around, always in tears, asking myself why, why this is happening, why does everyone else seem to catch a break – lots of breaks, some of them. Why don’t I get to catch a break, too? Is this how it’s going to be? Dreams being broken, one after another, until you’re too old to make any of them come true, and then you just die?

I mean, if this is how my life is going to be, why not accelerate the inevitable?

Of course I won’t accelerate the inevitable. These are just thoughts. Depressive thoughts. I might need to up the SSRI dose.

To tell you the truth, I’ve never had such a bad case of depression before. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how I’ll survive this.

I found this beautiful sign on an excursion yesterday (an excursion which, happily, kept me from crying for a whole day – thank you, Nicolas, for such a nice time!). It says, in German,

“Always have more dreams than reality can destroy.”

It seems to me that reality is winning.

About (my) privilege

I can’t watch anything on TV – concentration isn’t there.

Books. How about books? I said I’d spend the kids’ holidays reading. But today, my thoughts keep drifting.

Okay. Take a walk? But it’s stormy outside.

I could try yoga, but yesterday’s attempt didn’t work out. I can barely climb the stairs today. Something’s wrong with me.

Something’s wrong.

Was it the attempt to get off the SSRI that caused this, one of my worst bouts of depression ever? Or was it, oh, I don’t know, the fact that I’m finally strong enough to start thinking about the future, which includes my rather hopeless job situation and all the plans I’d made for a life whose best – they say – half is now over, which never came to fruition? Is it that I constantly think of my 86-year-old dad, and the fact that he dreamed of going to Bergen someday, and all the things I’ve been wanting to do someday, so that it’s been someday for the past twenty-odd years, and how these things still haven’t happened, just as my dad never got to go to Bergen, and his someday never came to be, and how – I see it, and it fills me with despair – my someday will not come to be, either?

Or is it my bad habit of comparing myself to the luckiest and most privileged people I know instead of taking a good sane look at my life and being grateful of where I am and what I have? I should be grateful, after all, given my initial conditions: I grew up in Greece. I’ve done well, all things considered, even if it’s only by getting married to someone who can give me a quasi-secure life in Germany while I keep struggling with mental health disorders for decades. In Greece, I’d be the village fool. I wouldn’t have the extensive mental health care I have here practically for free. I wouldn’t be able to go for hiking in the Alps. Now, the Alps are a short drive away, and that’s worth something.

See, what most people don’t get is that more important than any amount of work you can invest in anything is pure luck. Where you’re born, to what parents, in how educated a family, to how steady a home, in what country, with access to what schools, with what kinds of opportunity around you, which gender you have, who you happen to meet and marry (although, I should get some credit for that, because I only ever liked the safe and boring guys – those who are solid and loyal and steadfast). Sure, there are those rare cases of people who’ll pull themselves up by their shoestrings, rising from a very underprivileged position to heights nobody in their environment ever reaches. But these are memorable exactly because they’re not the norm. You can’t blame the rest for not making it – and sometimes they don’t, no matter how much they try and how much effort they put into it, because, in all we achieve, there’s a crucial factor: the random factor; in short, luck, whose importance for our achievements we all tend to underestimate.

So, why should I be bitter? I’ve been very, very lucky, even if my kids complain because the neighbours have a pool and all their friends have Playstations and Nintendo Switch and their own iPhones, and we can’t afford any of those things. We can’t really afford our house, to be honest. We’ve been overoptimistic – mostly about my employment prospects – and now we’re paying the price for that. But I’m still lucky. Many would give a lot to be in my position. Okay, no career prospects, sure, but a super-loyal and loving man, two wonderful children (yes, even with all the mental health problems), a home, even if mortgaged, and an acceptable level of health, even if it’s after a lot of bad luck and trouble. And, as much as I want to travel and see the world (which will not really happen – finances, time, you see), I still have Greece. Home. If you can’t afford holidays, how lucky is it to be able to go home to Greece and hop off to amazing tropical beaches, sparkly Aegean islands (the obscure cheap ones, every bit as stunning as the more known ones), mountains, forests, gorges, archaeological sites, medieval settlements, all that condensed wonderfulness that is my home country?

What a fail it is to compare yourself to others. What an absolute, soul-straining fail.

So, what to do now?

I’m going to try to earn some money, for starters. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to do that – either with editing/proofreading, or by finding a job. “Oh, with your skills you can definitely find a job,” all my male friends say, while the women chuckle under their breath and nod condescendingly, because it’s the truth we don’t like admitting that a woman with a family at the age of about forty has about one fourth the chances a man in the same situation has – not to find a job, but just to be called to an interview, and from there it only gets worse. With my patchy and erratic CV that includes mostly academia and multiple changes in branch and type of job, and with my non-native speaker status in Germany (I’m perfectly fluent, but have the suspicion they don’t believe me when I write it in my CV) these chances are even more diminished. A couple years ago, a recruiter – overoptimistic himself – tried to suggest me to a consulting company that hired PhD physicists, only to be told I’m too unstable (which, in a funny twist of fate, was accurate in more ways than they knew). Add to that being female, with kids, no industry job experience, and you see how much fun I’ll have as I try to enter the workforce. Stick with me for the next few months. It’s going to be soul-crushing. We’ll have a blast.

Luckily – a female friend said a while back – I’m growing out of the age when women can have children, and this will increase my chances a little. Not by much, of course, but still, it’s something.

Just think about that. Go on, stop reading and consider that statement, which – I’m not afraid to say – gave me some relief. Very well, men, tell me: how happy are you to be men? Imagine all the shit you’re going through trying to find jobs, magnified by, I don’t know. Pick a number. Chances are, whatever number you pick, you’re underestimating.

But enough about the work issue. I haven’t started searching for industry jobs (again) yet. All I’ve done is look for editing jobs (ha, those don’t come easy – and to be employed as an editor for a company or website you have to be a native speaker anyway, so that’s out of the question). I’m going to go the self-employed way for a while, because there’s nothing else to do right now. It doesn’t pay, and I don’t get social security, which stresses me quite a bit.

But I’ve made a mess out of my life anyway. In all categories, I’ve fucked it up, big time. The only thing I did right was find a man who won’t leave me, no matter what I do to him. I’m not sure he’s in his right mind, to tell you the truth. No idea why he’s still here. I’m nothing but trouble. Delightful, if I believe my friends, but still trouble.

In any case, the one thing I will certainly do is keep writing and editing. It’s pretty much the only thing that keeps me close to sane. This, and the very few people who came through for me. You know the name: Dimitra.

Funny story: today, I told Dimitra I shouldn’t compare myself to others; it causes nothing but pain. And she pointed out – tongue in cheek, I think, although it’s true – that, no matter what these people have, they don’t have her.

She’s right. I’ve never had a more loyal, self-sacrificing friend. And, you know what? She has to factor in in the evaluation of the worthiness of living my life. Family, luck, wealth, opportunities, friends. Well, on that last front, there’s no way you can do better than Dimitra.

So you think you know what fatigue is

A couple weeks ago, and just as we’d finished the lunch I’d lovingly prepared, my husband told me, “I’ll go out for a walk, okay?”

By the way I looked at him, he knew how I felt about that. He didn’t understand, so I told him how hectic my day had been up to that point, at just about 1:00 p.m.–not even halfway into the day. I hadn’t gone for a walk, of course. After the first three sentences, he shouted, “Stop, I’m already stressed!”

So, let me explain to everyone who’d like to listen what mental load is.

I wake up groggy and tired. My neck’s hurting again. Bad posture at the computer? Who the fuck knows. Husband is sweet–he makes me coffee. Daughter has school at 8:30, which means my office is hers for as long as the zoom meeting with her teacher lasts. Her teacher says it’s always one hour long, and if it’s going to be longer, then she’ll send an email with the info. I haven’t gotten any emails today, so I decide to go out for an hour’s walk. I’ll be back when her lesson is over.

Another ten minutes of quiet to finish my coffee–I’ve allowed Son to listen to an audiobook while Daughter is in “school”–and I put on my hiking top and shoes. I have to do some walking every day, and if I don’t do it now that it’s early, I won’t do it later, when I’m swamped. Our health has been deteriorating during this lockdown. Our eating habits, too. We’ve had fries for three meals in a row. I don’t have ballet right now, which was my way of staying fit and active, and I’m only getting fatter. It’s okay, you’ll think, but it’s really not. I don’t get fat in the “nice” way–or what is considered acceptable in today’s society, at least–not at the hips or butt. My extremities remain matchstick-thin while my midsection bulges. When I’m fat, I have a fat belly, a fat back, and no waist. I’m like a barrel with legs. It’s unacceptable.

But that’s not even the main reason I have to go outside: I have to go outside every day because otherwise I ‘ll lose my god-damned mind.

It’s not only exercise, either. I take with me an invitation to Son’s birthday celebration, which I’ll throw in his friend’s mailbox (only one guest allowed. Corona!). I also take a lot of change with me. Some people don’t bother with small coins, so I regularly have to see that I do something with Husband’s change. It’s such a bother for him to deal with the insignificant details, so he just doesn’t. But my thinking is, we shouldn’t be throwing money away, now should we? The change is for buying eggs at the nearby farm. They have good eggs.

I pop some Ibuprofen before I leave. I can’t count on the walk to fix me–if the neck-related grogginess continues, I won’t be adequately functional today. And there’s a lot of shit to do. Ibuprofen wakes me up. Lately, I totally get why soccer moms in rich neighbourhoods take stimulants. I’d be tempted, too.

I start my route tracker and go first by Son’s friend’s house. Letter in, check, first thing done. I’ve walked 4 km by the time I’m back in my neighbourhood and at the farm. Workout, check. It takes me a while to count all the change, but when it’s done, I pay, and, check! Another thing taken care of. Along with the raw, free-range eggs, I take six cooked, coloured ones (pink, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple) for the kids. Maybe it’ll improve their mood, and they won’t freak out when I tell them to do their homework. Maybe it’ll just make them happy for ten seconds, and I’ll have ten fewer seconds of grumbling.

I’m back. Run upstairs, Daughter still in front of the computer. Why the hell do they make the kids sit in front of a screen for so long? This is not healthy. They get pale and lethargic. Son is playing some game on the old iPhone I’ve given him, so I tell him to stop and get up from the chair. He gets headaches if he plays for too long. He can walk around the room or do some stretching while he listens to a book. No child should be sitting for ninety solid minutes.

Back downstairs. I have to prepare food. Look in the fridge. It’s a whole logistics nightmare to make sure we have everything we need but still not too much, so that it doesn’t spoil, and heaven forbid I forget to buy Son’s favourite sausages or Daughter’s favourite muesli.

Not that I ever forget. I have a detailed database in my head. This is where all the sugar I eat goes: the planning capacity of a caretaker’s brain is endless.

The boiled potatoes have been in the fridge for several days, so has the salad and the rice. I have to figure out how to make meals everybody likes without throwing stuff away. That’s an everyday struggle. Okay, we have lots of cheese–so, potato gratin for lunch, a salad for me and Husband. Phew, that takes care of two out of three. I can make a stir-fry with the rice for tonight; I still have those expired vegetable cans that can go in there, after all. There’s also chicken stock, so I’m thinking noodle soup for the kids (they don’t eat Asian food, the soy sauce and all the crunchy vegetables are just too weird for them).

The kitchen’s a mess; I have to cook and clean at the same time. The plates from breakfast are still on the table. As soon as I’ve put one in the dishwasher, I see the stuff in the sink that needs to be washed by hand, so I do that. Then I run upstairs again. Is the lesson finished? No. It’s been nearly two hours–Daughter is going to be exhausted after this. My blood pressure rises just thinking of the torture that’s going to be convincing her to do homework. She’ll blow up and cry, she’ll get stressed and start fidgeting, she’ll start shaking. I’ll have to be her rock, keep her sane, hug her, tell her to give me all her stress. Mommy’s here.

Is Son playing instead of listening to the audiobook? No, he’s on his feet, listening intently. Phew. Lower probability of hyperactivity and headaches later. Back downstairs. Dang, why are there still plates on the table? Did I get sidetracked again? Duh, of course I did. And, gosh, I should wash the bedding today. Haven’t done it in two weeks. How grubby can sheets get before they’re too grubby? Never mind, I’m never getting this done today. I have to cut potatoes and grate cheese. Clean salad, soak the buns for my french toast tomorrow morning. I made banana buns last week, and nobody’s eating them–and I refuse to throw away food. My breakfast for the week is settled. Fine by me.

When am I going to finish the proofread I have to hand in next Monday? I only managed ten pages yesterday. I don’t even know if I’m doing a good job. My brain’s just too addled and distracted these days.

I have a first appointment with a child therapist tomorrow, because Daughter has been depressed, crying, stressed. I have to take care of her mental health, because nobody else will. Don’t get me started on Husband’s family. They’re willing to ignore all elephants in the room. I’m talking about roaring, stampeding elephants. If they can pretend a problem doesn’t exist, they will, and we all know humans are perfectly capable of pretending problems don’t exist. And the problems I sought a therapist for are only the recent ones, which are on top of all the issues Husband’s possible autism and my chronic anxiety have been causing for years: the hypersensitivity, the panic attacks, Daughter’s debilitating anxiety, her insecurity, her difficulty sleeping. I’m in charge of the family’s mental health. I have to fix it.

Husband’s coming with me to the therapist tomorrow, so that she gets a complete view of what we think’s wrong. My mother-in-law calls to say she can’t make it to babysit, but grandpa can come here and stay with Daughter for two hours so she’s not alone. She gets so insecure. I think it will be nice for her to spend some hours with grandpa.

Mother-in-law and I agree to talk again at 13:00. I set a reminder on my phone because there’s no chance I’ll remember.

I’m grateful I’ve been able to get help for all the members of the family, and at the same time I’m just a little resentful that nothing happens if I don’t do it. Our daughter would be irrevocably traumatized hadn’t I stepped in and set the wheels in motion. Now three of us–all except Son–are in therapy, plus there are the family therapy sessions. The progress is slow but significant. We need a lot of work. Husband doesn’t always see it. One little success, and he thinks we’re finished. I have to convince him anew every fuckin time that he has to continue therapy. (Yes, that’s my job, too. I have to keep this family together.)

Husband has his first autism evaluation appointment next week. The family therapist has been insisting he do it for six months now. I almost had a breakdown during our last family therapy session, so this time the family therapist told Urban, “You’ll keep postponing it forever, so do it now. Call the autism center. Today!”

Really, I’m telling you, I was close to burnout for a couple days there. It was touch and go. Now, second burnout in a year, that would have been an achievement. But that’s Urban. His inertia is a thing to behold. I still love him, for whatever reason. (I know the reason: he’s the only absolutely logical person I know who’s absolutely secure in his skin and nevertheless has no ego–he admits what he does wrong and he’s willing to correct it. If the inertia doesn’t take over, that is. Which it usually does. Still, have you ever met someone who’s 100% secure but not selfish and insistent on his opinion? The line is so fine that pretty much everyone falls on one side or the other. Not Urban. He’s just absolutely okay.)

Where was I? Ah, Husband and his possible autism. He goes to therapy, but I’m not allowed to talk about it with him anymore. I posed too many questions. I was too critical–of the therapist, mostly. If you ask me, his therapist knows nada about adult autism. She thinks the person who has to have everything at right angles on his desk and freaks out if you touch his stuff just had an overprotected childhood.

Fuck. There are still two dirty plates on the kitchen table. Why are they still there?

Daughter comes down after two hours of zoom lessons. She’s exhausted. I have a plan for homework, but if I tell her now that we have to do homework, she’ll explode. I’ll be there for her, of course, like yesterday, and I’ll sit her down and gently insist we do it. I’ll write down the math exercises for her, while she tries to soothe her trembling and her nerves by drinking some water or eating a snack. I’ll try to soothe her by showing her just how good she is at math. This is how we do things these days. She can do everything on her own, of course, under normal circumstances–her teacher can’t believe I have to help her so much at home since she’s a model student in school. Her teacher doesn’t get school is different from home. Her teacher doesn’t understand the difference between having to obey a person of authority and the insecurity caused by an emotionally unregulated parent. Every single time Husband berates Daughter has her questioning his love for her and freaking out about whether she’s made him sad. Teacher doesn’t get any of that.

So, no homework. I reckon it’s snack time. I know they’ve barely had breakfast, so I sit them down and cut some bread. They dive in, and the ham and salami are gone in a second.

Mental note: buy more salami. Open app on phone, note down salami. While they eat, I sit and help them. I’m actually sitting!

Now I tell them to get carrot leaves and parsley to feed the piggies. They must stay occupied for half an hour or so. The piggies are fun. Thank God for the piggies. They make me feel less lonely—you already know about my husband and my loneliness.

Maybe I can steal a couple minutes’ work while they play with the pets.

Daughter does her schooling at my desk, so I have to sweep the eraser bits to the floor. Who cares about some dirt—next week it’ll be swept by our cleaning lady. She’s not all that good; if I have a basket on the floor, she wipes widely around it, not even bothering to push it to the side and wipe beneath it. But again, who cares. The important thing is that we’re not filthy.

Trim nails (I hate my nails hitting the keyboard when I type), light candle (soothes me!), get my cold tea. Ready. Open document. It takes a while for me to concentrate. I have to be well concentrated for a proofread. Am I doing a good job? I did a second pass yesterday, and I found things I’d missed. In my mental state, I’m terrified I’m still missing things. Okay, then, it’s settled: two passes for everything. Even if $4/1000 words aren’t worth the time I’m investing. But I want to do the best possible job. Four dollars are more than zero dollars, after all.

The kids come before I’ve done two pages. They want to watch TV now, or play on the phones. But there’s another drama: they want to use my computer (it’s the only place where they can play a specific game), the same one on which I’m working. You’d think giving them a smartphone each to use for the time I’m indisposed would be entertainment enough, but no. (Mental note: tell Urban to finally make a kids account on his computer so they can play when he’s not here.)

Okay, new idea: I’m buying Minecraft for Son. I promised it would be his birthday present. His birthday is in just two weeks. It’s fine, he’s just getting his present early. It’ll keep him occupied. Then maybe I can work for this meagre fee I’m charging. Maybe I can even make the 7.99 Euros I spent for the game in the little time I have until lunch.

Probably not.

Son returns with the phone. I have to remember my Microsoft account password to log into the game (why? WHY?). Fat chance. I set up a new one. This takes another five minutes. While I’m doing this, Daughter comes in and wants my face ID to download something. I berate her—”You see I’m writing something right now,” I tell her, “why do you think I can do it? Wait, please.” I kid you not, she came yesterday to ask for my fingerprint to download a game while I was on the toilet. But if I open the door while she’s on the toilet, there’s hell to pay. “Do you like it when I do this to you?” I asked her, and she was mortified. But still she stayed until she got the ID. Kids don’t really have boundaries, but hell, they’re big enough now, they’ll have to learn.

Where was I? Work. Let’s continue the proofread until Urban comes back from his therapy. Darn, he’ll be back any minute. Lunch. I got to make lunch. I’m hungry.

Deep breath. Another one. A sip of my nice cold tea.

I can proofread a little more. On to the next page. I do my best to concentrate again.

Son comes back. “I can’t play!” How the fuck do you play Minecraft? Holy cow, why does this have to be so fuckin hard?

Okay, I need to start with the salad now. I’ll proofread tonight, when the kids are asleep. Theoretically, I like to shut down the computer in the evening and wind down, but yeah. Ha-fucking-ha.

I managed seven pages. Maybe 1.5k words. 6 dollars, maybe 4 Euros or so. Well done, Ioanna.

I go downstairs and make lunch, leaving them to play. Daughter comes down the stairs, and I tell her to leave the phone and come for lunch now. “But we have barely played!” she starts–already in the ear-piercing half-crying mode I can’t stand. “I don’t give a shit,” I snap. Of course, she deteriorates to sobs, and I immediately regret it. I apologize, hug her, hold her until she’s calm again. I apologize again and again. No matter now swamped mommy is, no matter if she needs to work on her computer and the kids insist they want to play on there too, no matter how much of a struggle it is to make them do homework, cook, get groceries, do wash-up, keep them fed, physically healthy, mentally healthy, coordinate as best as possible so that Husband doesn’t get overwhelmed (hint: everything that’s not organized and figured out overwhelms him, so basically everything in a child-full life), no matter what, Mommy has to stay calm.

Okay. I’m calm. Lunch.

We sit down. Daughter’s not eating, she’s just sitting there. The three of us are happy with the food Then we’re finished, and while I clear the table, I tell them about homework. Daughter very nearly has another meltdown, but I hold her and soothe her and tell her we’ll do it together, and it’s going to be fine. I don’t know why she keeps having these meltdowns. She can do her homework all right. It’s not too hard for her.

She brings the printouts of Monday’s exercises (it’s Wednesday today, but we’re taking it slow. She wasn’t doing any homework until last week). She makes a mistake. “I don’t want to show my teacher that,” she says. In the meantime, Son is climbing on and off his chair, fidgeting, looking at the simple (for him) math sheet in front of him, he grumbles, he throws the pencil around. He doesn’t do math. I try to convince him to do it quickly and go play, but no dice. “Go tell daddy to print the page again,” I tell Daughter, “so you can do it as nicely as you want.” I try again to motivate Son. “Come on! We’ll do it together! I’ll tell you and you’ll write!” We’re cheating, but who cares. He’s good at multiplication, it’s just such a drag to write everything a bunch of times. But he doesn’t stop moving and fidgeting. He just won’t sit down and do it.

Daughter comes back. “Daddy was in a meeting, but he turned off his camera and talked calmly with me! And he said he’d print it! And he wasn’t mad at all!”

“YAY!” we say together and throw our hands in the air. Daddy is patient! Daddy is learning! Daddy didn’t shout! Yay! The little joys!

Son is grumbling, mock-crying, fidgeting, while Daughter is trying to do math. She starts half-crying, too. “Come on,” I tell her, we’ll do it together!”

I turn to my other side, to Son. “Come on,” I tell him, “it’s easy! You wrote three times two is six, look, the same calculation exists in all exercises! Write it in all of them and you’re halfway there!” I binge on their Kinder chocolate all this time. Who fuckin cares about weight right now. I have to stay sane. I have to get them to go out today, too. Since I started forcing my daughter to get out of the house every day, she’s less pale and doesn’t cry all the time.

Husband can’t do homework with both kids at the same time, he says. Too confusing. Too demanding. Too exhausting. It can’t be done.

Not like I have a choice, right? But he does. He has a choice. Why does he always have a choice?

After a while, I don’t feel like torturing them (and myself) anymore. I let them do whatever they want with the phone and come to my den to write this post. I could have proofread several pages in the time I wrote this, but I didn’t. I wanted to write it so that you know and I remember. This is my life. This is why I collapsed last year. This load, emotional, mental, and physical, that nobody–not even your closest person–can understand.

This is what most of the people I know don’t get: the mental load of doing yet another thing is almost insurmountable. So much mental energy is expended in overcoming the mountains of doing things that are emotionally difficult. Do you know how much strength it takes to know Daughter’s meltdown is coming and steel yourself, and stay there, and be their rock, and push on? Most people leave. Urban leaves. The emotional strain has reached destructive levels.

And this happens every day.

But I fuckin stay.

“It’s easy,” a violin-playing friend said when I said I just can’t muster the strength to practice every day. But it’s not easy, because I truly, honestly forget. God knows I have a shit-ton of things to keep in my head, to organize, to bring to fruition. “You just have to practice for five minutes a day,” he said. “Do it in the morning.”

Thing is, I know it only takes five minutes a day. Only, before the five minutes, you have to tune and figure out where you left off. You have to make sure your music stand is steady (you had to disassemble it–floor cleaning, kids throwing stuff around, you know) and then you have to make sure people who barge in the room every three seconds are otherwise occupied. Before you do all that, it already feels like a huge hurdle to overcome–never mind that you feel the weight of all you have to achieve in the next eight hours already now, now, which raises stress levels already to red. And, by the time you’ve tuned, flexed, practiced, re-tuned, wiped down, loosened, tucked in, put together, disassembled, at least have an hour is gone. And in your state of exhaustion and anxiety, going to the other floor, where the instrument is, is a hurdle. Opening case, tensing bows, tuning, wiping, it’s all a hurdle. Trying to concentrate: huge hurdle. It’s not a five minute thing. The mental barriers of stress, tiredness, reluctance are the worst. Why don’t we all have good habits if it’s as simple as that? (Hint: read James Clear’s Atomic Habits and all your questions about habits will be answered. This is not product placement. I just loved this book. It helped me make my walks into a habit. Thank heavens. Thank you, James.)

This was half my day. A chaotic process of jumping from one subject to the other every four seconds. Brain science and psychology tells us it takes a lot of energy to change focus all the time. This is why multitasking is a huge drain of mental energy. And let’s not go into the emotional energy, of which you need to have endless reserves in order to deal with a possibly autistic husband, a child with anxiety, and all the rest. Emotional load is a real fuckin thing. It’s crushing.

Thank goodness I’ve dealt with most of my own issues–the Rejection Sensitive Disorder, the chronic anxiety (really! I didn’t even get dizzy once today!), the borderline borderline, the body dysmorphia (but see “barrel with stick-legs”–am I really over that?) and whatever else there was. They’re not gone, not all of them, but who has time to think of her own mental health right now?

I still have to make dinner, make sure the kids go outside for at least half an hour, do homework with them (stress levels hitting deep red), send Daughter’s teacher her exercises, work some, tidy up Daughter’s room with her. (Tidying up is a long process. We started one week ago. There was no floor to be seen. Now we see the floor. It’s going to take a month or two. Her room was like a rubbish damp. I won’t start.)

The kids have to shower and wash their hair today, but Husband can take care of that. All in all, it’s 15:38 and I haven’t really finished even half my tasks of the day.

“That, my friends, is a great book.” –Rebecca Hefner, author

19. Discovering you matter

<< 18. When he cries

It’s been eight months since my last post, and as you might imagine, a lot has changed in that time.

Where do I start? There have been so many discoveries about my husband, myself, my children, my feelings and their feelings and even other peoples’ feelings, about perceptions and misconceptions–some of them truly astonishing–that I find it hard to focus on one.

But let’s try. The biggest thing is something both my therapist and our family therapist suggested after observing us for a while: my husband might be on the autism spectrum.

Now, this was a shock, but maybe not for the reasons one would expect. To me, it was mindblowing for the simple reason that I finally realized I matter. You might not be able to understand how someone in a long-term, devoted relationship might be horribly lonely and think they don’t matter, but this is exactly how my life came to be after years (and years!) of being lonely while being with someone.

The times I screamed at my husband, “If you don’t want to be with me, just leave!” are too many to count. Nearly every evening of our life as a couple I spent practically alone–he had his computer, his programming books, his podcasts, the videos about fountain pens. Excursions were hell. Okay, we had small kids, which does complicate trips a lot, and it turned out I had high levels of chronic anxiety, so excursions were bound to be a strain, but still: my husband got squirmy, he resisted, he shouted, everyone got stressed whenever I tried to get us out of the house. Not a nice way to spend days that were supposed to be relaxing. But staying home all the time wasn’t an option either. Kids need fresh air and movement. They go crazy if they’re home all the time–something that has become obvious to many parents during this long, torturous lockdown.

So, here I was eight months ago: I’d never traveled as I wanted, because Urban never wanted to move from his favourite place–which is a chair in front of his computer. Stressed, juggling the emotional health of the family, dealing with a sensitive daughter who suffered from anxiety issues herself, and trying to keep dad on an even keel because his outbreaks were seriously damaging the peace in our family. And on top on all that, I realized I didn’t even want to spend time with my husband. I didn’t even feel remotely inclined to have a meal with him at a restaurant anymore, because there was nothing to talk about. I was bored. I knew there were things that interested him, but he sure as hell didn’t talk about them with me. So, I’d have meals alone, with a book, with a friend.

When I told my therapist all of this (and a bunch more), she frowned and asked, “Is he autistic?”

Welp, turns out the family therapist had the same suspicion, which is why he was insisting on Urban starting therapy ASAP. We found some online tests (on serious websites!) in which he scored highly, which means that there’s a high probability he’s on the spectrum. My husband was shocked. It couldn’t be. Could it?

Then we started thinking about what we knew to be his quirks. Never tolerating help at tasks like repairing things (trying to help him is a surefire way to cause a serious meltdown). Not being able to cope when days don’t follow their usual pattern (this is why Saturdays have been hell for the past 8 years). Not understanding what others feel. And, most of all, not being able to connect emotionally with me, although–it turns out–he actually has feelings. Strong feelings. Feelings he thought were clear.

Now, as you might expect, getting a diagnosis of adult autism during a lockdown is, to put it mildly, nearly impossible. There are precious few experts on the matter of adult autism, and stats show that high-functioning adult autism is often hard to detect because individuals learn to adjust and mask so well when questioned by others. The reason we came to the conclusion was that I knew Urban so well. In a conversation with someone who doesn’t know him, he appears perfectly neurotypical. This is why his therapist, I think, isn’t convinced. She doesn’t see the meltdowns. She doesn’t know about the fidgeting.

Anyway, next week Urban has a first appointment–with volunteers, not a therapist or psychiatrist, sadly–for a first assessment. We don’t know if they’ll find anything, or what they’ll find, but I surely think the suspicion of ASD has helped us already, if only by making me understand things aren’t always what they seem to be. Hostile reactions can have reasons other than mistrust or dislike. Being overwhelmed by tiny things as an adult is perfectly possible. And, most importantly, just because you don’t feel love from your partner, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It might just mean his way of making connections is underdeveloped.

Anyway, that’s it from me for now. I’m writing, editing, trying to fix my family’s mental health, and as you might imagine, I’m exhausted. Still, I decided to not postpone publishing my books anymore. My writing is what brought this change about, and I’m going to keep writing and publishing for as long as life and our mental health journey can perplex and inspire.

“That, my friends, is a great book.” –Rebecca Hefner, author

18. When he cries

<< 17. Confirmation, contradiction, confusion / 19. Discovering you matter >>

“Did you find a therapist?” the family counselor asked Urban.

My husband hasn’t found a therapist. I understand his inhibition. It took me years to pinpoint and accept my issues and finally ask for help. God knows it’s not easy. You need some time for the idea to settle inside you, for it to stop feeling intrusive, disruptive. He needs to reconcile himself with how things are. I can’t begrudge him that.

“Why didn’t you?” the counselor asked.

“There’s always so much to do, with work and the kids… I didn’t have any free time…”

The psychologist, calm as always, explained that, in all probability, there’ll never be time, so Urban will just have to bite the bullet and do it. I contributed my insights: he’d have to, 1. Pick up the phone, 2. Talk to someone he doesn’t know, 3. Explain the situation and 4. Impart its seriousness (he’s always lukewarm in his expressions, things are “not bad” or “fine,” mostly accompanied by a shrug). It is a huge feat of willpower, and he’d have to overcome his rather strong inertia. And therapists are busy, they don’t take on patients who don’t have serious problems.

The counselor wanted to help, and so he asked Urban to repeat a sentence which, in his opinion, imparts the seriousness of the situation in a concise way:

“I must learn to deal with my anger, which threatens to destroy my family.”

Oh, boy, that was hard. Getting out of the car, Urban fell in my arms, crying. It doesn’t help that our daughter—increasingly sensitive to his slightest change of inflection, just like her mother—keeps breaking down in sobs at the slightest provocations, shows physical symptoms of stress, and insists that “papa doesn’t understand me.”

“I made it all so bad,” he kept saying as he melted down in my arms. On the next morning, out of the blue, he started crying again. I hugged and soothed him. I’ve only seen him cry three times, all of them in the past five weeks.

I don’t know if he’s just now realizing it. I’ve been telling him for months that I wouldn’t last long in this situation, there were signs, my stress became overwhelming, my fatigue unsurmountable. Still, he just wouldn’t register my words, weird though it seems now. I think he’s one of those people who need to feel the effect various situations have on you. He doesn’t lack empathy, he just can’t access it through academic disquisitions.

I’ve been resting for six weeks now, and he’s been working, taking care of the kids at least half the time, cleaning a little now and then. I know it’s already exhausting—duh, I did this and more for years—but I let him do it, at the same time doing my best to suppress my feelings of guilt for not helping enough (he says I do more than enough, but I suppose this is not easily measurable). I figure, he has to come closer to his kids, so that the daughter doesn’t feel that “papa doesn’t get it,” so that the son bonds with him a little more. They’re so cute, the three of them together. There’s lots of love to go around. I think we’ll make it, but it will take lots of effort, and time.

Yesterday, I heard him saying to our daughter, “I haven’t had a minute to myself the whole day.” He gets cranky in the evening, he wants the kids to go to bed so that he can sit down and relax for a little while. I understand it all, but still, there were months, sometimes years in a row when I didn’t have single minutes to myself the whole day, nearly every day. Is this a strange, new occurrence to him? Was the distribution of mental labor in our family so skewed?

I think it was, and my guilt is probably misplaced. I should take time to heal—I still get tired, although not as much as three weeks ago—and I should do my best to sleep more and spend more quality time with the kids. I’m still the emotional pillar of this family, after all. This takes effort, it sucks so much energy out of you. It’s no wonder I find myself so often exhausted.

And I have other plans for taking care of my mind and soul. I’ve decided to do something I’ve always wanted: learn how to play the violin. But more on this in the next post.

15. Don’t be a superhero

<< 14. Unemployment and anxiety / 16. Reassessing two decades >>

Yes, that’s my advice. Don’t be a superhero, like my mom was, like I tried to be. Don’t take care of the household, the kids, make sure everybody’s safe and fed, bring in money, put everyone else’s needs before yours and ignore your own physical and mental health. You have to pay attention to the signs your body and mind are sending you: if you break, you can’t help anyone, now, can you? The others can share the load. Even children can be taught to help with nearly every chore, including organizing their own time.

Urban is adamant that we’re going to share the load from now on—and I’m not talking about housework, I’m talking about those most insidious of burdens, which break down your defenses from the inside: the evil twins, the mental load and the emotional load. And yet, I’ve ordered takeout a bunch of times in the past couple of days because he doesn’t always remember to cook. And let me tell you, recovery has now made me hungry! I need big, nourishing meals!

You might think I’m spoiled, expecting my husband to work and cook every day, and you might be right. But think of the fact that, for twelve years, I made sure we had three good meals every single day. Every day I asked myself, does Urban have enough food? And when the kids came, with their incredible appetite and their hypoglycemia-induced tantrums, this became a real need. Small kids don’t wait for the food to be ready; they cry because for them, hunger is a dramatic occurrence (all right, I’ll admit it, I’m also a drama queen when it comes to food). I don’t know if it was love or my near-OCD—I suppose it was a little bit of both—but I always had good food in my home, even when things were tough, sometimes even when I was sick or when I was leaving for a work trip. Now that I’m not well—and that Urban is temporarily working part-time due to Covid—I was kind of expecting a similar treatment. I wanted there to be food before I get hungry, because I get hangry. Urban is the kind of person who, two hours after our usual lunch time, will come and say, “Shall I make something?” By that point, I’ve already raided the fridge and I’m already feeling neglected and not at all pampered.

Anyway, lack of pampering aside, the point I was trying to make before that brief excursion was: don’t be a superhero. I had this crazy idea that I can do everything, that I should be able to do everything, that my endurance and energy would just never run out. On the day of my breakdown, mere hours before, I told Tyler, “I have so much energy! I have so much to give!” Little did I know, a few days later I’d be on the couch, barely able to keep my eyes open at six o’clock in the evening. All right, the sleepiness might be because of the medication, but still. I crashed, hard, and it took days to be able to even go from the bedroom to the bathroom. Don’t do that. Don’t push yourself to exhaustion. Don’t be me.

So, from now on, we’re sharing the load, apparently. Do I believe that? I know that Urban’s intentions are sincere, but he has this tendency to get comfortable and let others do the work, although he does do his share without complaint when he has to. But by not being physically with me and the kids most of the time, he gets off doing a lot of stuff, and this I’m also a little resentful of. I understand that I can’t have everything be done my way, and I don’t expect to have my way in every issue that comes along. But there has to be communication, which is a skill Urban was never trained in. You can see it in his parents: his dad is the same kind of uncommunicative introvert—when he tries to engage you in small talk, it feels like an interview, or rather an interrogation—and his mom just takes care of everything—no communication needed there. Urban is, moreover, used to ignoring us when we speak, which is no wonder, since his mom will just go on and on, and if you don’t have that skill, you can barely survive ten minutes in her household.

I’ve started cooking now, and I think it helps us all to have regular meals again, when we can sit and eat like a family, instead of the kids getting hungry and munching on random stuff and me getting cranky and irritable. And I also think it’s a good way of starting to be active again: cooking is one of the easiest chores for me. When Urban cooked, we were a little scattered, since all the snacking meant that the kids weren’t hungry anymore at mealtimes. I am assuming again the role of the manager of the household, I guess.

But it has to be different this time. It can’t reach the point where I break from the strain of fixing everything. I know I have to let them figure it out, even if it causes some agitation in the house.

So, yep, no more superheroes here, folks.