Overwhelmed and Underappreciated.

Written on Thursday Night…

I’m sitting in the bathroom on the toilet right now. My body is tired as it just spent the better part of the last forty-five minutes being emotionally backhanded as I bawled my eyes out. I hate how I feel almost every night and I hate not being in control of my own emotions and actions. But, most of all I hate that when I am feeling this way, overwhelmed and pushed to my limits, instead of having a shoulder to cry on, C pushes me harder. I’m not sure if he truly doesn’t understand the range of stress I’m under or if he is refusing to aknowledge it because, as always, he won’t stand down.

Today was a hard day. Everything started off discombobulated-like and it just perpetuated itself. Cash woke up extra early and extra whiney. I was especially tire and short of patience. I just couldn’t get the scheduling right. I didn’t get us ready fast enough and missed the bus I wanted to catch. Caught the next one an hour later but by then Cash was already in need of a nap and my fuse was burning low. Went to playtime island, which was quiet and nice. I felt like I finally got to relax a bit for the first time in the day. That was short-lived and before I knew it I was scrambling to get the boys ready to catch our 2nd bus of the day. I just made it. My connecting bus didn’t wait for us even though our driver radioed over a request and I ended up riding the bus around a secondary route to get to where I could catch it. Finally I got to where I was going, did a bit of shopping and figured out how I was getting home. It was just a long, tiring day.

Finally after I get home, clean up a lovely diaper mess, deal with an epic tantrum and begrudgingly put Cash to bed early (early to bed means early to rise) he-who-shall-not-be-named comes home and before I could even tell him how stressed out I am he gets to business working out and doing his other post-work stuff. That’s fine, whatever. Even though I need a break from baby, I wait. I think he’s done working out and I ask him to take Carter so I can relax a little and with a really snide tone he tells me he’s not finished yet. Oh kaayyy. 

In the interim Carter falls asleep on me. Great. C asks me to put him down in the bassinet. I know that if I do that Carter will wake up immediately and it’ll just be one more thing I have to do tonight and I can’t take it anymore! Not only that but C wants to “be alone” with me. It’s not that the idea grosses me out or anything, I’d love that, actually. But tonight it just feels like yet another person who needs something from me. All I want to do is stop everything. Just relax. Why can’t I ever just relax?

So even though I don’t want to and I know its going to wake Carter up, I put him down as gently as I can in the bassinet. He wakes up. I am starting to get upset. I can feel the emotion building up inside of me. C tells me I shouldn’t be getting upset and I should’ve tried harder. I want to slap him. After that everything becomes a blur. I’m yelling. I’m overwhelmed and frustrated and I just need a minute. Just a minute. But it’s too late. I’m crying. I give the baby to C whether he likes it or not and I go to the bathroom. It’s been an hour and I’m still in here. I don’t want to leave. I hate everything about the way I react, the fact that I can’t deal with stuff right now. What is wrong with me?

Written Today (Monday)… 

Friday afternoon I went to my parents house. I am just tired of feeling overwhelmed and being unable to lean on my partner for support. Taking the boys to my parent’s house means I get help, even if it’s only a little bit, its there at least. How is it that there are 5 adults living in this house (my in-laws) and yet rarely do I get an offer to hold a baby? I have to ask and even then it’s literally for a split second when I absolutely need to (ex. Cash’s diaper exploded and I have to bring him downstairs immediately, so I get C’s step-sister to hold Carter while I literally bring Cash downstairs and then I run back up and get baby.) It shouldn’t be this way.

Thursday night’s meltdown sucked. I am getting to the point where I literally can’t cope with my anger or irritation and I try so hard to ask for exactly what I need. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Spell it out for them? So why isn’t it working?

Going to my parents helped a bit because on Sunday he came to get us and we went out for ice cream and talked about things. I tried Thursday night to explain how I felt and everything just poured out of my mouth, verbal diarrhea-style. I was just at such a loss. I do EVERYTHING I can for my family, and yet it seems like more often than not there isn’t anyone to stop and see that sometimes I need taking care of, too. I guess that’s the plight of being a mom, but it sucks. And it sucks even harder when I feel so overwhelmed and stressed out from dealing with an almost-two-year-old who I love so dearly but yet still want to lock him in his room sometimes. I want this feeling to go away. I want to stop feeling.

Sunday’s talk helped and I feel better about where we stand at least. I don’t feel like he’s just going to shut down and walk away and I know that he cares about me and how I’m feeling. I just need him to be compelled to act. Hopefully we’ll both take the steps we need and soon I can start healing.

“Healing” ugh. I sound like a new-age hippie.