As lockdown 3 limps disappointingly across our screens, it’s one sequel too far. We are trapped in Home Alone 3 and wondering why anyone thought it was a good idea. We are so depleted after the last 10 months, it’s safe to say the membranes holding us together are paper thin.
First time round we had sunshine, rainbows, clapping and street parties. Second time round we had an end date and some degree of normality remained. Then lockdown 3 hit us hard. We were scrambling round home-schooling our offspring, clinging on to jobs which are either intensely difficult and traumatic, or under threat from financial hardship.
Time seems to stretch out ominously beyond the horizon. The adrenaline of the crisis is all burnt out, and we are left with the slow dull realisation of getting through hard days and long dark nights. Alongside this, we know too well how lucky we are to have made it this far – so many have not. Grief sits with loneliness, our face masks hide our worn and blotchy cheeks but not the redness of our eyes.
For me it hit me hard when our daughter had to isolate from nursery. It had seemed a long hard stretch through the Christmas holidays with minimal interaction and a lively toddler. Then we faced ten days with her. Now I know how spoilt and selfish it will sound to many but I struggled with the thought of another period of round the clock care. I continue to need breaks from mothering: to work, to care for others, to care for myself. My threads had been worn right down and now seemed to about snap.
For me parenting is made harder by mental illness. Toddlers are not yet able to regulate their own emotions so need their adults to help them make sense of their intense and irrational desires and disappointments (mine wept like her world had ended the other day because I had a plaster on my hand and she did not). The trouble is I don’t have a stable sense of myself or my own emotions. My systems were broken long ago and I have not yet been able to piece them back together. When she screams and yells, the fragile structure of my mind shatters. I can’t think or respond as I need. I either go blank and numb or I cry too and we are locked in a frenzy of tears.
This doesn’t happen all of the time. Mostly I manage to keep a façade she can grab onto. But for me it helps explain why I struggle without breaks from parenting. I need time to glue myself back together and fortify so next time I don’t shatter – I hold her emotions in a way that helps her make sense of them.
Writing this I do feel hopeful again. That by understanding the reasons behind our struggles we can recognise ourselves with kindness. By being honest about how hard things are maybe we can accept ourselves in all our imperfections and shortfalls, and in doing so help others to accept themselves too. As I look out onto a rain drenched evening, the days are creeping ever longer and a certain quality of light holds the promise of coming spring.