There are only a few times in life that I feel my mental health has been this shaky, and I think it is important to talk about it openly (because so many are dealing with it quietly).
Like many mornings, lately, the list of everything in my head and on my heart won out over the much needed sleep I had hoped to get. So I decided to do some reading. I needed to find someone else’s words to get out of my own.
This morning I was grateful to run across “Not Every Situation Has A Silvery Living, And That’s Okay. “ Thank you Scary Mommy for sharing author Dris Wallace’s words and honesty in a time that it is so important to talk about how we have all been brought to our knees during this time.
I sat reading and re-reading the article because I saw in print what I was feeling internally and seeing externally.
Let’s look at some of Wallace’s words:
This pandemic has brought so many moms to their knees.
I see you hurting, exhausted, anxious moms.
I see you running on empty.
I see the toll that it has taken on our children and on our families.
And then, Wallace offers some advice that I think is a key that we all need to remember.
I want to offer some advice that I know I would appreciate getting. Next time you see a mother and want to offer support in a way that won’t kick her while she’s already down, rather than tell her to find a silver lining in this chaos that we are living in, simply respond with “I am here for you. We will get through this together. I know it’s hard.”
Don’t try to find a silver lining or a solution, because sometimes there just isn’t one. That isn’t being negative; it’s being realistic, at least for the time being.
And then Wallace dropped this last gem that I bolded – I was like “YES! Yes, this is the honesty we need.” It is a different version of the saying “it is ok to not be ok.” Instead of pretending we are living the social media version of life, it is far healthier to live the honest version of life. When we are just honest and realistic we grant ourselves the permission to sit in the emotion and the feeling instead of burying those emotions to only wreak other havoc in our lives and in our bodies.
I can not agree with her sentiments more, and not just in this current pandemic moment, but in many other tough situations that we face in this life.
Let yourself not just bury your emotion, but instead reach out to your trusted tribe in these tough times. May your tribe surround you with support and an opportunity to be real. None of us have the answers, but may we all strive to just sit with one another in these moments.
Modern Cavemom 