Sunday Night: The Start of the Spiral

Sunday night didn’t quite go to plan. The kids went to bed without too much fuss. Kike and I even went to bed at a reasonable time but I didn’t sleep well.

Around 3am, Summer began coughing. We checked on her but she was fast asleep. I tried to go back to semi-sleep but at 4am River woke up and wouldn’t settle. I took him into bed with me and he lay there playing with my face for around an hour before announcing, “River’s bed.”

I took him back and sat with him till he was calm. I crawled back to bed around 5.30am and lay there listening to him rhythmically tapping on his bed. He was awake. I couldn’t get back up I’d barely been to sleep.

At 6.30am, Kike got him up and I lay there thinking about the day ahead. My head already hurt.

We managed to get everyone up and dressed with only a few loud screams of “NO NURSERY!!” and all set off to school. He went in surprisingly well after his protest at home. I made him read the timetable and he said, “Bye, bye Mummy.”

I left the nursery and headed to my meeting with his main teacher. The meeting went well, they all love having River back. He’s affectionate and funny. We talked about his EHCP, how he’s already progressing towards his targets and which areas we need to focus on. He apparently loves his group sessions and enjoys adult interactions, which I knew he would.

It all sounded very positive and I felt happy. Then, just as we were finishing, she asked:
“Have you thought about where you’d like River to continue his schooling?”

I said that I wanted him to stay here.
She nodded kindly. “Of course he can, but I’d advise you to look at all the options now that he has his EHCP, there’s more open to you.”

She listed a few schools I could look at, even if just to rule them out.
As always, I talked too much, realised I’d run over time and left her to get back to her work and headed off to mine.

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Monday: Too Much to Know

I got to work and my head was spinning. Processing the good news but fixating on the next steps again. I had to shut it out. I was at work.

I started preparing for a staff meeting I’m helping to lead next week and tried to focus. I taught for the rest of the day, had a staff meeting after school and then came home to find the kids eating dinner, happy with their iPads.

Kike and I caught up in the kitchen about the meeting and, inevitably, about River’s future.
This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation. Kate and others have said we should look around at other schools to see what they have to offer.

The problem with being both a teacher and a parent is that you know too much. You know how much pressure teachers are under, how overstretched schools are. You know not every teacher has a solid understanding of SEND and I’ve been honest that the only reason I know more now is because of River.

I know what his teacher was alluding to: yes, he’s doing great now in a free-flow environment but what about when school becomes more formal? Will there be a space for him to regulate? Will he end up isolated, which defeats the whole point of mainstream schooling to begin with?

Then come the logistics: when will I find time to look at other schools? Who would take him there and collect him? Do I have to go back to the council to request a change? When exactly am I supposed to do that?

Kike tells me to breathe. “We don’t have to do anything right now.” He packs his bag and heads out to Jiu-jitsu.

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The Night That Never Ends

I start the bedtime routine, two and a half hours later, everyone is still awake. I give up and go to bed, as soon as Kike walks through the front door.

I lie there listening: River’s protesting sobs turning into a sad little “Good night” finally replaced with his bedtime music, Summer’s podcast, Kike typing while silent jiu-jitsu videos play on the TV.

Summer recently told me she hates silence, she can’t sleep or concentrate without noise. I was the same. I always had a radio, TV, or my Walkman under my pillow playing Blackadder tapes when I was younger.
Now, I crave silence. It rarely happens but when it does, I breathe it in. It calms me.

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When the Body Says No

I must have eventually drifted off, because I woke up and it was pitch black. No crying, no shouting. Why was I awake?
My chest hurt. I couldn’t breathe properly.

I got up, had some water, took my inhaler but it didn’t feel like asthma. I went back to bed, drifted in and out and kept waking up until 6am.

River was awake. I got up, dizzy and realised I couldn’t go to work like this. I messaged the doctor an hour or so later and they rang almost immediately.

She listened to my chest – clear. No asthma flare-up. She booked bloods and an ECG, just to be safe. Then she asked about stress.
I started crying before I could answer. I told her I was tired, explained a bit about home life. She nodded. Probably panic or anxiety attacks. “Have you considered counselling?”

I smiled weakly. “When exactly would I have time?”

After my postnatal depression with Summer, I was offered counselling both before and after having River. The ‘before’ sessions were brilliant, probably why his birth went so well. The ‘after’ ones, not so much.

In one session, Summer came in to ask me to open her juice. The counsellor asked who it was. I explained, and she looked horrified. “I can’t continue if you’re not alone. You need a quiet, safe space.”
I told her that wasn’t possible right now and that was the end of the sessions.

As I left the doctor’s office, she said, “You’re doing a great job.”
My inner voice whispered, How would you know?

But maybe she does know. Maybe the fact that my body’s going into fight-or-flight every time I think about the future means I do care – too much.

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No Time for Help

I get home, put on the TV and sit. The usual mess surrounds me. I go to clean the breakfast things away and the chest pain returns immediately. I sit back down and breathe.

The doctor messages me details of local support groups. I don’t want to but I do as I’m told and email them. Immediate reply: This service closed in March 2025. Of course it has.

I pull out River’s paperwork on support services: coffee mornings, workshops, parent groups.
All great, but only available between 9am and 3pm, Monday to Friday.

So if you work full time, sorry, no help for you.

Is it just assumed that SEND parents don’t both work? Or are there more of us out there, exhausted and unseen because there aren’t any spaces for us to meet?

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Trying to Breathe

I know I’ll get through this. I’ve got through tougher times before.

I remind myself of what’s good:
We’re healthy. We have a home, food, safety. We have each other. We love each other.

I have to separate the noise, stop the spirals and focus on each day.

One day at a time, it’s all any of us can do, really.

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Why I Write

Writing has become my therapy. It’s something I can do in my own time, with my kids still around me. I don’t need privacy for it, I’ve always been an over-sharer anyway. But more than that, I like to think it helps others who might be feeling the same. You don’t have to have the same circumstances; you just have to know what it feels like to be overstretched, when there isn’t enough of you for everyone and everything and there’s definitely no time left for yourself.

But the writing helps.
It calms me. It forces me to slow down and really think about what’s making me sick. I can’t fix all the things at once, maybe I can’t fix any of them yet but I can acknowledge them. I can sit with the feelings, breathe through them and still be OK.

And maybe that’s my progress.

I genuinely didn’t know what photo to add for this post. I’m not one for taking pictures at the doctors office, or videos of me being upset – I find them weird. So, instead you can have a photo of my homemade Cottage Pie. I haven’t made one in a long time so it felt good.