When Momma Has A Meltdown

This week has been rough. 

The thing that I haven't been able to put my finger on is exactly why this week has been rough. Life has happened like it does on most days. 

Oh! Maybe that's it!

Why is it that most days life can go on and on with its foibles and frailties and it doesn't seem to affect you while other days a butterfly breaking wind is enough to send you plummeting face first into the abyss?

This past week has been my butterfly breaking wind.

We've had some struggles as of late. Financial struggles that, while I don't wish to lay out in graphic detail here, are to the point now where some decision making has to be done. Rent that is more than 50% of our monthly income, utilities (specifically electricity and heating) that are more than your average car payment, a vehicle that has been coming apart little by little, gas for the aforementioned vehicle so that the fam and I can continue to get back and forth as needed, and the ever looming possibility that there is to be a move in our not too distant future. These things, conspired with a hubby that's been knocked for a loop with a nasty sinus infection, getting the oldest mancub prepped and ready to leave for school in about another week and a half , me fighting my own brand of cold, and two younger kids that seem to think it's a day without orange juice if they are not at each other's throats from the time their feet hit the floor at 6:45 each morning until 9:00 at night when it's time for them to head upstairs to bed, have just worn the fabric of each one of my nerves to the brink of nonexistence. And of course, on the work days, what kind of a day would it be if either the customers or the co-workers weren't treating you like you're a complete and total moron? Anyone? Yeah, I have no idea either!

And then, as if all of this isn't enough, on Thursday I got a call from the kids' elementary school. The call that no parent wants to get. The call that says, "Your kids have head lice!" Talk about the cherry on the cake of what was otherwise a red letter week! Shampoos, sprays, vacuuming and washing everything that could be squeezed into the washer/dryer, nit combs and Cheyenne screaming every step of the way. Oh yeah, good times!

Suffice it to say, I ended up having a meltdown that made anything my boys ever whipped up look like a Sunday School picnic. I screamed. I cursed. I wept. I pulled tighter and tighter within myself. Every nerve in my body was wide awake and felt like they were on fire. At that moment I was ugly. I was whipped. I was defeated. 

When I was learning about my boys' diagnoses, I read a lot about meltdowns before I actually witnessed them and it didn't take long to decipher what was a meltdown and what was a tantrum. I learned what to do to draw them out and bring them back. I learned how to redirect them. I never learned what to do when Momma has a meltdown. Truly this had not been my first one. I'd had many before and I'm sure I'll have even more after. This one, however, just shook me. 

Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. I sometimes forget I'm not called to be Super Girl, Wonder Woman, or any other brand of super hero. I'm just supposed to do the best I can. Some days, more than I care to think about, that doesn't seem like enough.

I get tired of wearing my poker face when inside I feel like raw hamburger. I get tired of smiling through my problems when want I want to do is sob in a corner somewhere. I get tired of being brave; sometimes I want to chuck it all and run away. I grow weary of opinions and judgments that come my way and the ones sending them my way don't know thing one as to why I'm where I'm at or why I do or don't do things a certain way. I just get tired.