Blognonymous : Trapped
This post was submitted to me within the ethos of Blognonymous. The author said to me that she felt a bit better after writing it all out, which does go some way to prove that writing is cathartic, but she is in such a difficult situation that she definitely needs some words of comfort or someone who has experienced the same.
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Sometimes I feel like I’m suffocating, I potter along day to day and then it hits me again, I feel a panic and I can’t find a solution so I cry, I look around at the things to be done, cleaning, washing and tidying and I just cannot motivate myself to do them, I feel like there is no point. I try to pull myself together and stop being silly – there are people worse off than me, I am very lucky really and should be grateful for what I have but this makes me feel guilty for feeling this way and I’m back to square one again.
I love my blog and it’s usually great for not only sharing the good stuff but also getting the random things in my head out and I often find it therapeutic to write, but I went public a long time ago with it and my friends, family and neighbours read it. (I think!) Anyone who reads my blog I’m sure will figure out that I’m writing this but I don’t mind my ‘online friends’ reading it, its too much for my own space.
A couple of years ago I moved to sunnier shores with my hubby and baby, it was not necessarily a clever thing to do but we did it anyway. It’s not been easy but it’s mostly been fun and I couldn't really imagine it any other way. Like many people both here and at ‘home’ we've struggled financially but we survived and then last year my husband suddenly lost his job.
Due to paying his social insurance payments he was entitled to unemployment benefit for 6 months, which is paid in random amounts at unknown times. We've been on the job hunt now for 7 months with no success at all. We are months behind on the mortgage and are basically relying now on my lovely parents for shopping and petrol. I feel terrible that we are costing them so much money, money we have no way of paying back for the foreseeable future.
In December, in an amazing spot of ridiculous timing we discovered I’m expecting our second baby. In a way this pleases me as it’s become my focus and something to look forward to but it adds a whole new world of problems. We live in a small 1 bedroom apartment and it’s already tight for space among other things – although I may have said for years I have ‘nothing’ to wear, it’s a lot more accurate these days – I have boobs that have doubled in size and not a single piece of underwear that fits!
Throughout the winter I feel like I’m living Groundhog day, it’s been the coldest winter for 50 years and these homes are not built for the cold. With no money we’ve had no where to go and my toddler and I are crawling the walls with boredom. Even now it starts to warm up the sunshine doesn’t feel me with its usual optimism. I feel like I can’t remember the last time I felt truly happy about anything for more than a fleeting second.
Increasingly I wonder if we did the right thing by moving abroad, I can’t help but think how much easier it would be with help, - child benefit etc paid regularly, looking for work in an English speaking job market but in many ways I do not think we’d be better off. I just feel a bit trapped without the money for a plane ticket for a trip back home.
Many years ago I fell into this same pit of despair I find myself in now, and I frequently arrived at a friend’s house for endless cups of tea and sympathy. That same friend now has a small baby and is 3000 miles away, this is not a conversation that works over the phone. I have friends here but it’s not the same, we all have children which make the ‘heart to heart chats’ of the old days impossible and they don’t’ really ‘know’ me. Instead I carry on while everyone assumes me to be ok.
I’m finding toddler hood more than challenging and it fills me with dread to think how I’m going to deal with two children, not helped by everyone’s comments of ‘You think it’s difficult now! Just wait until you have 2!’
I want to snap out of it, get on with things and power through. I want to get back to the old me and although I know it’s not at the other end of a plane trip I feel like I’m trapped. I feel so ungrateful as I have a husband who is a great Dad, a gorgeous son and another on the way and I know these years go by so fast, I feel like they are passing me by right now.