Looking Inward

May 31, 2020 11:21


10:00am

The kids have been playing nicely on the porch all morning, and I am so thankful.  It is a welcome morning to begin with a cup of tea and a book in bed while I hear their small discussions and [mostly] innocent squeals on the porch just beyond my window.

Perhaps I'll have a minute or two to process some of my recent thoughts and feelings here.

The summary of my recent realizations is this: this ongoing quarantine has exposed many of my vulnerabilities, motivations, and short-comings in the starkest light in which I've ever seen them.  I've never been home with all three kids this long with so few social resources at my disposal, with so much upset to my personal rhythms.  With so much time to contemplate the deeper meaning behind what I observe in myself and my environment.

Not all of the quarantine has been bad so far.  In general, the slower pace and uncluttered calendar are a relief to this anxiety-prone introvert.  I've enjoyed the time at home with minimal expectations from the outside world.

But this time at home has also been unexpectedly hard.  At times, it has felt like imprisonment, like an inescapable trap, like an endless marathon, like living in a zoo, like endless overwhelming noise, like complete helplessness...  I've experienced glimmers of despondence that give me a startling, heavy new empathy for the "deaths of despair" predicted as a result of this quarantine.

My attempts to homeschool have been incredibly frustrating and humbling, and several times I've described them as the least successful project I've ever undertaken.  The tension and distress related to Charlotte's ADHD have been especially acute.  These struggles with unrelieved parenting and emergency homeschooling have highlighted many of my fears and most primal needs and motivations with a vividness I've never experienced before.  There are pieces of my personality that are crumbling under this pressure.

With little external novelty or escape, I've spent more time looking inward.  Listening to podcasts that process other peoples' emotional struggles during the pandemic, beginning to learn about the enneagram and the concept of understanding ourselves based on our deepest fears and driving motivations, reading about parenting to find validation and advice...

10:40am (after a snack break with the kids)

In the process of trying to understand why I am struggling under these circumstances, there are certain long-standing issues - positive, negative, and neutral - that are starting to bubble into my awareness.  Perfectionism, the powerful need for safety, control vs. helplessness, performance/achievement, the complicated balance between introversion and loneliness, physical health and its relationship to anxiety, anger as the face of frustration/grief/panic/depletion/pain, fear of disorder and destruction, blaming anything and anyone to cover my own insecurity, the guilt and self-worth tied up with parental outcomes...  Not to mention the stresses and adjustments to the ACTUAL VIRUS that is circulating in our community.

I have struggled to find meaning in my life, legitimate reasons to get out of bed (other than making the whining in the other room stop) without the external structures and expectations of normal life.  Even as a child I struggled with depression in the summers, presumably because of the lack of structure and connection.  This forced "summer" before summer has been hard, and exacerbated by the neediness of my young children who don't understand my need to retreat.  I hate it, but on the worst days, it is hard not to view them as interruptions who demand much and return little.  Even my husband sometimes judges my need to retreat, criticizing it as being unloving - creating an impossible demand to be my best self with my family while not being able/allowed to escape and recalibrate to my best self.

I have had to give up the popular idea that "The extra time of quarantine is the perfect opportunity to tackle all those projects on the back burner!"  I have become increasingly less functional as anxiety gives way to depression.  But perhaps I can find purpose in this inward journey.  Perhaps the connections I can make about myself during this time can give value to me now and in the future.  Maybe the ruminating at my puzzle table can have value that stretches beyond the occupation of my fingers as I sort and twirl the physical pieces into place.  Perhaps I am working on the puzzle of me and the picture will become more clear after all of this....

In a podcast I listened to recently, Brené Brown quoted Carl Jung, "The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents."  (And I JUST stumbled upon this essay while looking for that quote, and I identify with it so much. https://brenebrown.com/blog/2018/05/24/the-midlife-unraveling/)

I find myself at a point of difficulty and opportunity.  Can I cut through the facades and figure out the real me and how to operate as myself?  I am desperately trying to self-actualize.  Partially for me, and partially so my family and children can benefit from my best self (who I truly believe is still under there somewhere)...and so they can escape my lashing out in pain and frustration at everything I am guarding, everything I am grieving.  I don't think there is any other way out of this "midlife unraveling" - thanks, Brené - than through it.  And I don't want my children to carry the weight of the work I was unwilling to do.

There are so many pieces to sort out, like one of my 1000-piece quarantine puzzles...  One piece at a time, I guess.  And for now, in this quieter season, I have the benefit of time to do the work.

Hopefully,

Melinda
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