Settle...

...petal. It's my mantra. Saying it doesn't help much. Getting help has helped a bit. But ultimately I'm a bundle of anxiety and stress most of the time. For seemingly no good reason. By the end of the day, couch time is critical (see new lounge area?? Ooooh, I know!).
I've always been rather nervy by nature. I'm highly strung and pretty intense. So, after having a couple of babies and a few other major life dramas, the anxiety levels became seriously out of hand. I thought it was just me.
But, having spent the past four years snatching a chat and a cuppa with a range of Mums of small kids (I'm calling it research) I've started to smell a rat. He's a big fat stinky rat, too.
Something is amiss with many a Mum of little children. When I talk about heart palpitations, shortness of breath and feelings of being out of control, I get quite a bit of concurrence. I then follow on with my spiel about the government issue, postnatal mental health survey. The one where, having ticked none of the self harm, suicidal boxes, I was repeatedly sent on my merry way, sane as sanity itself. Except I wasn't. And nor were lots of Mum's I've spoken with.
I don't think it's enough to screen for postnatal depression alone. The kind of anxiety I talk of is damaging and harmful too.
I think the oversight is easy. Those of us shattering on the inside from stress and anxiety, keep it hyper together on the outside. We are super functioning to the point where we are unravelling in silence beneath our shiny facade.We are often the Mummies with tea on the table, forty eight projects on the go and a sparkling house all the time. We are also the Mummies laying awake at night catastrophising about all the things we can't control. We are the Mummies taking out our problems on our families. We are the Mummies who fall in to a blubbering heap regularly.
Is this sounding familiar? It's far from normal and I resent having wasted so many days, weeks and months of my children's early years so wound up I was incapable of relaxing and enjoying them. Largely, I was emotionally elsewhere. I worry (here I go again) damage has been done. I worry I'm not the only one.
But, if we can recognize it, chat about it and make it known, I think we can shift this big fat, stinky rat. I think if we can concentrate on being in the here and now and raise the royal salute to all the Mummy guilt media garbage, parenting manuals (grrr) and bitchy comparative mothering we do ourselves, we might get back on track. I think the whole homely hippy, earth mother vibe of my last post is a method we are subconsciously combatting the crazies with. It's pretty simple, in the moment, real stuff, and it's definitely helping me.




Buntyandsars rolled into her last market on Sunday. Well, for a little while at least. It's part of me reigning in my anxiety and stress and making a choice not to do it all. I've got a busy few months coming up at home and I don't want to compromise my beloved little brand by being too busy to fit her in. I'll still be at it where I can and I'm keeping up the online thing, I can't quite seem to stop, but the market circuit can do without me for a couple of months, me thinks!
Piccadilly Market in Geelong was fabulous. What a great market Janina has created. It's amazing what passion creates. I'd love to do a revisit in the future.
It was also the scene for a bit of schmoozing with the lovely ladies behind www.ohhellogeelong.com. They came by and did a little write up for buntyandsars on their gorgeous blog. It's a top read if you're familiar with or heading to the G town. Highly recommended (yep, I am a tad biased).
Now, I'm off for some quality time with a child or two, if you don't mind...