"why Are You So Stressed Mummy?"

[DMerish]

Wow! You did a great service to yourself and your daughter. I tried to hide things from my kids, who are now adults. I finally told them a couple of months ago. They were very understanding and said they knew (they never inquired - they knew I had secrets I wished to keep secret).

I wished I had talked with my children way before they were in their 30's. They were great children and good people now. If I had said something sooner I don't think I would have felt so alone when dealing with things. That would have been good for me, and probably saved them a bunch of time and effort trying to figure out why I behave weird sometimes.

Kudos to you, Helen!

 

[HelenB]

I have been wanting to reply to the last couple of comments for a while but been in a pretty hard place and couldn't bring myself to write anything on here even though I wanted to get my head round it.

Scout86 I read your comment when I was struggling a lot and really felt so much like i was failing my children so much and failing with everything else and really appreciated what you wrote so much. I know it is true that I am far from perfect, but really am trying to do my best and also know it is true that things are very different for my children than they were for me, and really am trying to not let myself get into that downward spiral as I know it doesn't help anything.

DMerish I think the main thing with me wanting my children to understand is that I really do not want them to take it on for themselves and blame themselves and I know that I do find it so hard with all the pressures of having them when things are so hard with me and am just so glad that they do understand as much as they do and am sure that once they are also older I will be able to talk more to them about it.

I am glad you have such great children and that you are able to be so real with them and know that really is such a massively important thing.

Thank you again so much for all our encouragement and positive comments.

Helen