I just need to cry for a really long time

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A long time ago when I was a teenager in London I boarded a coach to Budapest on my way home from work and spent a week walking around that beautiful city crying my eyes out. There was nobody I knew. I didn't need to hide my pain away. I just walked around with tears streaming down my face. Then I felt better. Then I went home and life restarted. It was what I needed and I was able to take it for myself.

I need to cry. I am so exhausted. I feel like the weight of the past 4 years is finally making itself known. I am just shattered. I hate feeling this way. I am strong, I am unshakeable, now I feel any tiny little thing will make me crumble. I hate that. It is not like me to be vulnerable to external pressures and change.

But there is just no time for me to give myself what I need. I just have to keep going. Picking the kids up, taking the kids on, feeding them, being the support they both need, even falling asleep with them at night as my daughter can't sleep alone. I can't go and sit in an airport or train station and watch the world go by and feel the endless possibilities and see where they take me.

What can you do when you can't meet your own needs? I worry if I start crying, I won't be able to stop.

At high school I took a random city bus to see where will it take me.
I went to a forest with sandwiches and a thermos in my backpack so I could spend all day finding out where any path I chose leads.
Can you leave your kids at school, take a day off at work and do something like this?
Or just stay at home crying?
Or come to Warsaw, we will cry together.

Is your husband/father of the kids a good partner?

Perhaps he could provide you with at least one days’ respite.

That is about the best offer I have ever had! The philosopher and mathematician crying together in some dim corner of a bar in Warsaw! We'd probably end up having too much fun! Anyway, right back at you, anytime you need to get away, my home is your home, come here!

I'm feeling much much better now. I had the first big meet at school this morning to discuss my daugher's diagnosis and provisions they will put in place for her. I figure I just got real 'come down' after that meeting. It felt fairly intense to finally have people believing me that she has special needs and taking them seriously and being so lovely and open about accommodating her. It has just been a long lonely struggle to get here! But it is all good really. Just need a breather from it all now!

And then my 3 year old won't EVER stop talking. She is like a little voice in my head all day long. She wants to know about every tiny little thing. Even when I put the radio on in the car to get a moment quiet inside my head she starts asking me to break down and explain the lyrics of songs. This is my last year at home with her though as she starts school soon so I just have to hang in there. Going back to work will have its own challenges but hopefully nobody will talk at me 24/7!

He is a very good father although exhausted from his own work and quite narrowly focused on his own needs at the moment.... And my girls are both really needy at the moment and given my aspie-daughter has had some friendship issues this week I have planned a sleepover for her with her friend and to take them out and so forth, stuff only mummy can do!

I will be fine.

Perhaps there is some other outlet where I could dump all this excess emotion. It has just built up as pressure inside me and I need to release it somehow (quickly and efficiently! so I can get back to everyone else's needs!)

I wouldn't mind taking a trip to Warsaw.

Could I meet you both in one of the cafes in the plaza section---with all the great architecture?

Intellectuals commiserating over things bought to mind St. Thomas More's "Utopia." At what may be termed the "prologue," three people sat around discussing weighty things--but did so in a mostly amiable manner.

Now, that would be really lovely. Put a smile on my face!

Thomas More was actually a most interesting chap.

He was considered a "modern family man" in his time. He did not share the views of many of his time when it came to women. He believed in women being equal partners in things with men. He had respect for women.

Of course, he wasn't perfect. He made his mistakes.

I've read a few of his biographies---but, oddly, have never seen "A Man for All Seasons."

Getting drunk used to help me conjure up the tears. Yeah when I was going through stress beer would help flood away the tears. It felt really good to cry like that.

Thank you Sarah. This is a lovely idea. The problem is that the only free time I have at the moment is between 9-12 in the morning and then I have to drive to get my daughter. So alcohol doesn't work so good. But I do have a meet up with my best friend in a few weeks, he catches the train 4 hrs south and I catch the train 4 hrs north and we are getting a whole 8 hrs together in the middle. I will definetly follow your advice then. Thanks.

Ha ha good hope it works for you

You can get drunk on knowledge, Elsa

What about an evening?
Well, if you don't do dangerous things when drunk, then just leave putting the kids to sleep to their daddy and you don't even need to wait till they are asleep. Well, unless you are in Norway, I guess. I've heard horrible stories about social security in Norway... they would never accept what in Poland is seen as normal, a friend comes, we get pizza and beer, beer is for adults, pizza for everyone, everybody having fun. But the social security in Norway could remove a child for things like this.

So, are your evenings available?

My evenings are a nightmare. My husband is working a lot at the moment. He is currently extremely grumpy and has very low tolerance with regard to my aspie girl and her temper. So, in some ways he just adds to the problems and I find myself just having to be the diplomat between them the whole time and he gets grumpy with me as he feels I side with her (which in fairness I do as I feel she is a child and he has too high expectations..... and yada yada yada... you get the picture). Then finally he will get the picture too and apologise but then I am already fed up! Things will get better once he gets some time off and can do some things for himself and therefore have higher tolerance for family life but right now he is just working flat out with work.

My aspie girl either doesn't sleep at all (like takes 2 hrs to fall asleep and wakes up several times during the night and can't get to sleep again) or sleeps soundly if I sleep with her so I just take the easy option. She is fairly high maintenance as it is, add sleep deprivation to the mix and we will all go under within 3 days or so. So, I usually fall asleep (by accident) when I am settling her to sleep at around 9pm. It can take an hour for her to fall asleep. I then wake up again in the middle of the night, wander around for a bit and then try and get back to sleep! So, not ideal by any means! On a good night I manage to stay awake whilst settling her (biting my finger as hard as I can to not fall asleep! ) and then my husband and I get a brief and very late evening together.

That sounds insane about Norway.

Greetings from Norway! No, it's not that crazy. There's a difference between getting a bit drunk and totally hammered, though.

Elsapelsa, I totally know how you feel, though. There was a time when my daughter was a toddler that I felt just like you. I was afraid of crying because I might never stop. I became very numb emotionally, which I don't think was healthy. I would seriously think about trying to make some deal with your husband, maybe in exchange for him getting some alone time another time?

I remember walking around Berlin all by myself after a stressful time. It was magical to be in a strange place, where nobody knew me, it was as if I was outside time.

The really good thing about returning to work is that you can go to the bathroom by yourself and have a stream of thought that doesn't get interrupted.....given that you have some time to yourself at work, that is. It's generally a lot less stressful than dealing with a three year old! I think mommies need to work to stay sane.

Oh, yes, I know perfectly well what you are talking about. And my husband has agression issues and eating disorder which he refuses to treat on the top of that all. And he works himself to death, I sometimes suspect, to avoid facing his other problems. But he becomes my problem that way and it becomes my problem to keep the family functional, protect the children from his outbrusts and keep everybody calm enough.
All my coping strategies are now exploited to keep four persons functioning, not just me.

Yeah, I often fall asleep with my kids at 9 too. But then I just sleep till the morning, dammit, I need decent sleep to carry on!
I had hard time falling asleep as a child, too. I remember looking at strange faces that toys and clothes became with dim light of a street lamp outside the window.
My mother remembers waking up in the middle of the night to hear me telling stories to myself.
TBH, nowadays I take prescription medicine for insomnia.

My more-aspie girl couldn't sleep without her pacifier. She was four and had severe open bite when I decided to go brute force on it. Two months of sleepless nights ended with my mental health a ruin. The cost of freeing her from pacifier addiction was my misdiagnosis, a few months of me on wrong but heavy medication and probably my spouse's trauma because of this. But her bite is now correct.

Is there something that calms your daughter? Reading? Singing? Meditation? Maybe she could lie down by herself in some arrangement?



Well, maybe I just got some extreme cases that made it into the news. Or maybe immigrants are watched with more suspicion than the locals.

I actually once got totally hammered in a presence of my kids – it's the best cure for colds I know, wrap yourself in really warm blankets, knock yourself out and sleep till the morning. So my husband remained sober to control the situation and I proceeded.
The kids were scared because they couldn't wake me up. But apart from this no harm was done. It was much harder another time, when I got heavy prescription medicine, really.