Mom Guilt, Jealousy, and Anxiety

The past two weeks have been some of the longest weeks ever. Mostly because I've been driving to multiple appointments in different cities for a multitude of different things. I struggle to find time to take care of my needs when the needs of my kids are so high.

Thursday we had our typical 45 min one way trip for therapies (SLP & PT) in Hudson; Friday Bennett had an overnight sleep study at Children's in St. Paul; yesterday we had a consultation with Bennett at Marshfield's Child Development Center in Marshfield and then Miracle League last night, and Thursday, Bennett has an MRI for some ongoing knee/hip pain he has been dealing with.

It's been nothing but a whirlwind to where I forget it's only Wednesday today. I feel like I'm forgetting something and my three calendars are not helping me at all. I know for a fact that I have undiagnosed ADHD and it's been a struggle for me to manage everything for the kids but I manage. It's actually extremely common for women to mask and go completely undiagnosed so I included info below about missed symptoms. My husband told me this morning I'm becoming his calendar for everything and I told him I'm going to start stapling sticky notes to his forehead and maybe one of us will remember (JUST KIDDING!!!). But it's true of many parents and caregivers: we're burnt out and trying to manage so much that it can be very overwhelming and then it tends to create anxiety and guilt on top of things because we often feel we're not doing enough. For example, Bennett struggles with language arts. The provider we saw yesterday suggested looking into graphic novels because of his limited attention span. Thank goodness for Amazon as I found some sight word comic books that I'm hoping will help him with phonetics and learning sight words. But am I doing enough to help him? I should be spending more time reading with him, working with him, but he gets burnt out and frustrated too and then it's just not productive work. All I want for my kids is for them to be successful, especially with education because SO much depends on education. Both kids are SO smart, but in their own sense. So fingers crossed these comic phonetic books help keep his attention more!

This is also where mom guilt and jealousy come into play. The jealously has really reared its head over the summer with families being able to go camping, experience so many different things, travel, etc. The simple act of being able to do something is NOT simple for us and we really struggle. There's times where I want to just completely block everything on Facebook or social media because I get so jealous and angry that we're not able to do these same things. Even with school shopping, getting the latest styles or name brand clothing, or the best of the best, on a single income it's just not an option for us so my kids get the best of what I can afford. I know everyone is just excited and sharing what they got and excited for their kids to be going back to school so I do celebrate with them, but inside sometimes I get angry at myself that I can't do this or that for my kids or that my kids have higher needs and it's my fault. That mom guilt can be suffocating at times to the point where my mood significantly deteriorates and I feel like I'm failing my kids and am not doing enough. I fear them being bullied and picked on for being different or not having this or that. I was bullied as a kid and I never want my kids to feel the way I did growing up. It haunts you and becomes a core memory and will always be a part of you and I want my kids to just be happy, loving, amazing humans and not have that social anxiety that I had and still have.

I know I shouldn't fear taking my kids places or worry about things, but I do. Not to mention the amount of work that goes into planning a simple trip somewhere is exhausting in and of itself. It's not a simple grab your purse and keys and walk out the door for anything, including even going to the park, but they deserve to experience everything that every other kid does and my goal is to be more flexible and do things with them and pray luck is on my side.