Sometimes it's just easier to be silent

I’ve said many times in numerous blog posts how important my friends and family are to me. Friendships especially, take a lot of work and I have spent many years nurturing those friendships and I’m so lucky to be surrounded by amazing people.

Having a baby means you have so much less time and sometimes even a text message can take days and even weeks to reply to. It’s never the case that I cannot be bothered but sometimes there just isn’t the time and sometimes I’m having a bad day and cannot face messaging people.

Pre Little A and actually even pre Mr N I was always on my phone and would message people back almost instantly. I liked being in contact with my friends and finding out what they’d been up to. It was one thing that used to stress me out when I first had Little A; I didn’t have the time to respond to people as quickly as I once did and I would worry about all of the messages I had waiting to be replied to. I can be in the middle of a long message to someone and I’ll suddenly be distracted by Little A and often I forget what I was doing before. This can happen for days in a row and by the time I come to reply, the previous message doesn’t even make sense.

I get upset that I don’t have as much time as I did before and I worry that my friends will grow tired of waiting a year for a reply. I hope that the many years of me being easily contactable will give me some grace and people will understand.

As much as I can say that I am slowly beginning to get better, I still have really bad days. On those days I find it easier to withdraw and block out the world. It’s exhausting just getting through the hours till bedtime on days like that and it’s even more exhausting plastering on a brave face and pretending that I’m okay when in fact it’s the complete opposite. Many of my friends will notice the silence and check in on me knowing that I may not be doing too good and I love them for that. It then makes it easier for me to open up about how I’m feeling.

People have told me throughout my battle that I should call or text them if I ever need a break or if I’m having a tough day but it’s not something I will probably ever do. No one likes to admit that they’re struggling at the best of times but when you’re battling a mental illness it’s even harder to open up. My Mum messages me every day and has done since I gave birth to Little A and so she knows instantly if I don’t seem like myself. Part of this is probably her motherly instinct but it’s also because she’s in regular contact with me.

If you want to keep an eye on your friends who you know are struggling for whatever reason, check in on them regularly. See how they’re doing, how their weeks going. It doesn’t have to be an essay or full of advice but a short text message every few days just to see how they are will mean so much.

Now Little A is older and crawling it’s easier for him to entertain himself for longer periods. It means that I can get away with sending a few texts whilst he’s playing which I wasn’t able to do before. I want to be better at replying to people.

Thank you to my wonderful friends and family for being patient with me and understanding my silence. I can’t promise to reply instantly but I will promise it won’t take forever.