Nutjob flu

I have three settings at the moment - depths of despair (proper, heart wrenching, sick to my stomach, can't breath despair), reasonably normal, and insane, borderline uncontrollable, anger. The changes between these three states are lightening quick, and completely unpredictable. And of course, the reasonably normal setting is brief and elusive.

So far I've been awake a little over an hour. Let me give you a brief run through - I slept reasonably well, and got up to get the kids dressed. M didn't want to - flashpoint number one and I had to walk away. Then she wanted to make her own porridge, which she decided she didn't like because I helped her. Followed by the usual bout of 'I don't want to go to school because (insert any reason at all here. Today? I don't like the stories) repeated at volume. I'm reasonably confident that any parent with small people will recognise the above scenario. It's nothing unusual, and ordinarily I would just ignore it. But today?  Today, I'm just about holding it together and FUMING. As Hubby goes to drop them off, I have to tell him to give me a wide berth when he comes back - nothing to do with him but I don't want to snap for no good reason and take it out on him. All this emotion, all this turmoil, within 40 minutes of waking, for no real reason at all.

Anyway, they leave, I stamp around the house unable to find the laptop (eventually locate it under the cushion which is under the small dog), come upstairs, and watch this. And boom, we're back to tears. Honestly, I'd take tears over anger any day. Tears leave me almost paralysed, but the anger scares me, because I have to keep it in. I cannot and will not take it out on those around me. But holding it in makes me feel like a pressure cooker and eventually something will give. Thankfully this morning's give came in the form of a heartstrings video which made me cry, but it could equally have been me punching a door. This is the impulse control thing I've talked about with Therapist. The pain of punching the door works because it distracts my brain from the anger and forces me to concentrate on something else. But it's hardly a viable solution and really just leads to a whole other world of problems if I continue to act on it. So instead, I write. A lot, as you may have noticed over the last week or so. I have to get it out somehow.

When Hubby came home from work yesterday I was a wreck. He's taking the kids away to Kildare for the weekend to give me some space, and was so kind about it that of course, of course, it had me in tears again. As did the creme egg across the floor incident. Kindness is my undoing at the moment, I quite literally cannot handle it.

Want to see instant waterworks?? Say something really nice to me (please not in public though. We'd all be embarrassed)
I was feeling massively guilty, both because I hadn't done enough around the house yesterday (???!) and because I felt I was forcing him out of the house for the weekend. To which he had some very logical responses - if he had the flu, and I came home to find the breakfast dishes still on the counter, would I be pissed off? Duh, no, he's off sick. Secondly, the kids are now going to be spoilt rotten by not one, but two sets of doting grandparents and an adoring aunt all weekend. Hardly punishment.

So there you have it. We've now christened this little storm we find ourselves caught in the nutjob flu. Symptoms are everything I've described above, and the only cure is time, space, and quiet. Later this morning I'm going to meet a few lovely friends for a natter and a hot chocolate, and I just know that they will lift me firmly out of my head for however long I'm with them. After that? More quiet. More walking. More yoga. I just need to ride it out.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,