You may, or may not, have noticed that last week I near dropped of the face of this digital space I live in. No blogs posts, no Instagram, no chatting on Twitter. Radio Silence.

I know I don’t have to explain myself, or justify anything, well I had to explain to a couple of PRs why posts hadn’t gone out, but other than that I don’t really answer to anyone other than myself. But the thing is, I did disappear and I feel it’s important I explain why.

It started quite simply, I was feeling tired, run down and overwhelmed. I took some time for me, time that didn’t really matter as I was on time of things and had posts written and ready to go.

Then L got conjunctivitis and needed a few days off school, even then I kept on top of everything. Housework was sorted and blog posts going out, though a few other things started to take a hit.

My general feelings of being run down and a bit under the weather then developed into a full blown cold and I felt rotten. I had a lot of hours to make up at work though, so no days off to recuperate, I had used that time looking after my son.

That nice little stockpile of blog posts had run out and my nice little stockpile of energy had also completely disappeared. It was more than that though, I was genuinely struggling mentally and no one, not a single person would have known.

Because I didn’t tell them.

I’ve got an amazing group of friends and people surrounding me, I could have just shouted out but I didn’t. I should have done, O really should have done. But I didn’t.

You see slowly things had been building and almost imperceptibly I’m good at dealing with my emotions, very good, I’ve been at odds with them for more than half my life. So even I didn’t really notice, not until the point I nearly cried because my husband hadn’t put the laundry away whilst I’d been at work, he done other house work but the thought of having to deal with one more load of laundry was too much.

I sat there the next day and had to explain that the laundry was actually really getting to me, L still isn’t dry at night so I am always washing bedding, always! Plus still having to wash the clothes and deal with the school uniform and out everything away and even doing three loads a day wasn’t making a dent on things and it was (is) really getting to me. So all of the housework he had done didn’t really matter to me, because it wasn’t too much for me, but the constant monotony of the laundry was and by not doing that it wiped out all the other things.

I had almost missed parents evening, not actually due to any fault of my own, the school’s communication is shocking, but it really bothered me. To the core bothered me. Unreasonably so. Especially as I didn;t even miss it, I managed to get the last slot and everything was fine.

I also had to cancel lunch with one of my very dearest friends because a reading cafe at school had completely wiped me out and having to make small talk with a governor for the duration and dealing with all that noise had left me just needing some quiet. There was no need to make excuses, I just apologised and said I need quiet time and she got it. She is amazing.

My dad has had a quadruple heart bypass, it’s half term next week and I’ve a million people to see, I’ve foolishly decided I need the house to be tidier and have embarked on a cleaning mission and then there is everything else, the job, the blog, the child, the husband and life. Oh and did I mention we are getting an extension and have the mortgage applications to deal with, husb needed to renew his passport and guess which mug had to go the post office because he works and there’s talk of a huge family holiday that I just can not face, let alone afford!

For me it’s never one big thing, it’s all of the little things that add up to something big but they got too much.

So I took some time. Time for me. Time to feel ill. Time to feel stressed and sad. I took time to feel better.

I took time to do some nice things as well, to cuddle with L and watch TV. We had a lovely valentine’s meal and I made sure to get some early nights in and actually sleep!

As I mentioned above, I’m not here to justify myself, or apologise and I’m most certainly not looking for sympathy but I know that if I am feeling this way and no one would know then there are loads of you out there feeling this way and no one knows.

So I guess I wanted to say it is normal. If you can tell someone then do, it helps. Take some time for yourself and be kind to yourself.

I often feel as though I can’t complain as my problems are small but if they leave you feeling unable to cope then they are big to you and that makes them big to the people who care about you, so find those people and use them.

Anyway that’s it. A really long ramble to say nothing at all. Just I’ve been there, I am there and if you need someone then shout!

Briony xx