Mental Health During COVID-19

Today has been an awfully hard day for me and it started bright and early at midnight when my four-year old decided he was done sleeping for the night. After trying everything that normally works, I gave up. Gave him the TV, some food he wanted, and tried to fall back asleep on the couch. According to my Garmin I got some brief moments of sleep, but nothing restful. Between the bright light of the TV, my talkative son, and him jumping on me at random times it was terrible. Even laying around and having many cups of coffee, I was still unmotivated to move until almost 9am.

Today is an off day for me, but it is something worse. My mental health is bad today. I have no interest in doing much of anything. I wish my children would go away and leave me alone. I am not even pushing my first grader to do any of her work because I do not care, and I cannot fake caring anymore. I wish I could fake it for and my kids longer, but I just cannot.

Ohio has been under a stay-at-home order for six weeks now and little did I know how many emotions I would go through during this time. I am rarely happy but end up somewhere between okay and pure anger. Today I am leaning more toward anger, but I am trying to hold on for my kids’ sake. They do not deserve a mom who is angry and takes it out on them by yelling about stupid stuff. 

You see my life changed a lot and not a lot at the same time. I have one kid in school full-time before this and another in a half-day program, two days a week. My husband worked all day. I got to see friends, workout, go on playdates, girls’ nights out, and get some quiet time. Now I have two kids at home all the time. I am supposed to get one to do schoolwork on the regular while keeping the preschooler entertained. My husband is still at work full-time because he is considered essential. Now I have had my quiet time taken away because my kids are never quiet, and one does not ever sleep without me for long. I do not get to see my friends. I do not get to work out in the way that helps me the best. My kids and I do not get to go on playdates. I cannot even let them go play at the playground. I do not get the break and fun I use to by going out with friends. I am now mom and wife 24-7 without even a small break. For me that is hard.

I am feeling irrational anger at the most random things that would not bother me before. Like friends who are super happy with this slow-down. Or people who are posting a bunch of positive, happy quotes. People who cannot see how bad this closure is for a lot more people than the government tells them about. Most days I can muster through. I have removed myself from being on social media as much and I've even unfollowed people for a bit. It just does not always work. I would just love to meet someone who is struggling like I am. To know that I am not alone. I get some people do not like being vulnerable, but what kind of life are you living if you cannot be vulnerable with friends. I do not want to live like that. I like talking about my feelings and how I am coping with things and I wish others would be like that too. 

The okay part of me gets what this whole thing is for, but I am losing my patience with it. I cannot even imagine the possibility of this going past May 1st. I try not to think of it because I am certain I will have a nervous break-down of some sort if I must stay in or near my home for much longer. Having the parks have been great, but my kids need a playground. We do not have the luxury of putting one in our backyard for them to use. My kids and I need people. We need to bond and enjoy other people company. I also need a safe place to drop my kids on bad days and that was what the YMCA gave me. Childcare gave us an extended family we did not know we needed in Brandy, Jena, Jennifer, Reaven, Brit, and Katie. It gave my kids other people to love on them when I was struggling. It gave them new friends to meet and play with. It also showed them the importance of working out and taking time for yourself. 

Grief is not something I thought I would experience during this time. Grief is hard. Hard because nobody wants to talk about it, or people are afraid to talk about it. It takes me back to all the grief I held onto from when my grandmother died when I was kid and the grief, I felt last year when my aunt passed away unexpectedly. I find this to a hard emotion for me to deal with. It is something that took me a lot of therapy and learning ways to cope. They do not always work and right now nothing seems to be working. God love my therapist for hearing probably the same things repeatedly just in different forms. 

Today despite some stuff that normally helps me I have been breaking down crying doing random things like taking sheets off my bed to wash them. I had a moment of grief right before I walked down the stairs to help my son with something. I am feeling some grief right now as I fold laundry and write this. I am trying to not think of the grief that is probably ahead of me. Like a lost summer with friends, a lost summer of traveling, and just traveling altogether. Lost time with our families who do not live here.

Today is hard. Is this hard for anyone else? Let me know how you are doing.