A Message For The Exhausted Mum. (It’s me, I’m So Tired I’m Actually Talking To Myself.)

I really didn't want to write this week.

I'm exhausted. I feel like shit. I have a baby who is suddenly moving everywhere and wants all of the attention, and I felt like I just didn't have it in me. For the first time in six months I actually asked my husband to come home from work. Not because I need help, I'm the queen at cracking on and getting shit done, but because I felt like I needed him. My nervous system needs its safe place, and I need my husband, because he's the only one who can make me rest.

And since I'm the queen of cracking on and getting shit done, I decided to write the blog anyway. So if there are spelling mistakes, if it's imperfect, just know that it took so much for me to sit down and write this.

So here are the things I'm reminding myself this week, while I'm fucking shattered. And if you need to borrow them too, they're yours.

It's OK to rest.

This is the one I struggle with the most. Somewhere in my head there's a voice that acts like I get some kind of badge for burning TF out, like the more depleted I am, the more I've earned my place as a "good mum." But that's nonsense, isn't it. Nobody's handing out medals for running myself into the ground. Rest isn't a reward I have to earn by finishing everything first. I'm allowed to put the baby down, leave the washing, and just stop, not because it's all done, but because I'm running on empty and I matter too. Say it with me ladies… “Mums matter too.”

Needing my husband isn't weakness.

I'm the queen of cracking on. I can cope, I can sort it, I can carry a lot without asking for a thing. But today I asked my husband  to come home, and it wasn't because I couldn't manage. It's because my nervous system needed its safe place, and he's the only one who can actually make me rest. Wanting my person isn't me failing. It's one of the most human things there is, and I'm allowed to need people, no matter how good I am at pretending I don't. The reality is I knew he was coming home anyway, I just wanted him here, like, yesterday.

I'm still a good mum, even when I'm tired.

The fact that I'm lying here worrying that I'm doing a shit job is the very proof that I'm not. Being exhausted and touched out doesn't cancel out how much I love this little boy and that no matter what I’ll find the energy I need to keep him fed, safe and happy. I can be shattered AND be a brilliant mum, both are true at once. And let's be real, I'm probably going to be tired for the next 18 years, so if tired cancelled out good, none of us would stand a chance.

What a privilege it is to be wanted this much.

When he's clinging, following me around, refusing to be put down for even a second, it can feel relentless, and I'm allowed to admit that. But my gosh, what a privilege it is to have someone who wants me this much. Out of the whole world, I'm his safe place. His calm. His home. And for years I dreamed of having a little baby of my own, and he’s here. It’s an honour to feel so wanted and so tired at the same time. 

Feelings are not facts (and hormones are a bitch).

When I'm this tired, my brain will straight up lie to me. It'll tell me the light at the end of the tunnel is moving in the wrong direction, that it’s getting further away instead of closer,, that it'll always feel like this, that everyone else is coping better. None of it's true. It's just exhaustion talking, and hormones are an absolute bitch. As someone who has battled with her hormones since the second that first period landed on Christmas Eve, 2001, I’ve become familiar with this rollercoaster, and I know it’s not me. Feelings are real, but they are not facts. This heavy, foggy, can't-be-arsed feeling is a season, not a sentence, and it will lift. But for the time being…

Done is enough.

Not every week is a thriving week, and it doesn't need to be. Some weeks we’re just fucking surviving. Some weeks the win is simply that everyone was fed and loved and made it to bedtime in one piece. That is enough. Done is enough. Imperfect is enough. Writing this blog with the typos left in is enough. "Good enough" is still really, really good.

The bit I want to hold onto, for all of us…

If you're reading this shattered too, feeling like you can't be arsed and like you're getting it all wrong, you're not. You're just tired. Human. Carrying a lot, and doing so much better than your exhausted brain will let you believe. Because our brains love to convince us of the negative before the positive. 

Ask for your person. Take the rest. Lower the bar. And remember this heavy week isn't the whole story, it's just one tired chapter, and you'll feel like yourself again.

I'm allowed to write the imperfect blog. I'm allowed to have the imperfect week. And I'm still, always, a bloody good mum. And so are you, Mama.

Sending love to every knackered mum reading this today. Come find me on Instagram and tell me how you're really doing, I mean it. 🤍