The Elephant In The Room

Written by Deborah Louise Feather for her blog, Operation Arse Wiping.

You can follow her on Facebook here!

There’s two little words that you cannot speak about. It’s the elephant in the room, but no one dares to say a word.

You can feel the question in your friends eyes burn as they stare, but you won’t break the silence. Not you. Pride is holding you back from speaking up. Memories that feel like forever ago are on repeat, all because of one sentence that started with; “Do you remember when..”

Life changes when you have a baby. It changes more than you could ever imagine. Mentally some people are fine with that, but some people aren’t. It hits them in the face like a bag of bricks, and you feel like you’ve watched yourself die. There’s no other way to describe it.

You will grieve your past life, you will grieve a life you once lived. Because it’s gone, and it’s never coming back. It doesn’t mean you’re not coping. Or you’re not able for it. You can be the most perfect parent in the world in every aspect possible, but that elephant can be in your room at your every waking moment.

I honestly didn’t expect this when I started my family. It happens to more than 1 in every 10 women in the UK, and I’ve never been one to get the short straw. You could give me a number between 1 and 3 with a chance of winning a thousand pounds, and I could guarantee you I’d never get the winning number. I have never been ‘lucky’, I have never been that single person in a statistic. I’ve never been the one.

I’m still not sure how to overcome this. Or what I can do to make it better, make it go away. But I do know there are people out there feeling exactly how I do. So I’m putting myself out there to let you know you’re not alone. You are not a bad person for feeling this way. You are not a bad parent. And most importantly, you have not failed.