Im 38, though time in dreams stretches and folds. For years, I believed the fault was minesomehow a bad mother, a poor wife, something innately flawed. Despite juggling it all, I felt an inward vacancy, as though I was pouring from an emptied pitcher.
Every morning was an odd ritual, rising at five as if the sun called me by name. I made toast and kippers, sorted uniforms with unwieldy crests, filled lunchboxes with cheese and pickle sandwiches. The children, Alice and Harriet, bundled for school, Id scatter cushions and straighten books, then slip out into the greyness for work. Day after day, I ticked boxes, met deadlines, sipped tea in meetings and stretched my lips into smiles no one ever questioned. My colleagues called me dependable, efficient, stronga portrait of order and English sensibility.
At home, the routine spun on, like an odd mechanical parade: lunch, chores, bath time, supper. Id listen as the girls recounted strange playground tales or asked endless questions about Henry VIII and the Magna Carta. Id break up their squabbles over crayons or the blue-eyed cat, Mr Whisk. I was the hug-giver, the tear-wiper, the fixer of jammed zippers. Outwardly, things seemed perfectly ordinary, British even. A family, a job, our health. Nothing visible amiss, nothing tragic enough to merit this silent sense of collapse.
But inside, I was hollow.
It wasnt sorrow exactlya strange dream-fatigue drenched me. I slept, but woke no less weary. My limbs ached inexplicably; noise made my skin prickle. The same questions, again and again, felt like a dull thumping in my skull. I caught myself thinking things Id never dared utter aloud: that perhaps the children would be better off without me. That I simply wasnt made for this. That some women were born mothers, and I was not among them.
I never missed a task. Never late. Never lost controlnever more than a typical British flare of temper. So no one noticed my unraveling.
Not even my husband, Geoffreyhe saw only the smooth surface. If I confessed exhaustion, hed say, Every mum gets tired. If I said nothing appealed, Youve just lost your spark. And I ceased speaking.
Sometimes, as evening pooled around the house, Id shut myself in the loo and just sit, staring at the faded tiles, counting seconds until I had to return to being the one who can do it all. No tears, just an endless stretch of silent minutes.
The thought of leaving drifted through like a faint English fog. Not a tempestuous urgejust a cool, creeping idea: disappear for a few days, become unnecessary, just for a while. Not for lack of love, but because I had run dry.
When I struck bottom, it was almost comically mundane. A Tuesday, as if that meant anything in dreams. Alice asked for help tying her shoes, and I just stared back at her, mind as blank as the North Sea. A tangled knot rose in my throat; heat flushed my chest. I slid to the kitchen tiles and simply sat, unmoored, for minutes that rippled and buckled.
Harriet looked at me with wide, frightened eyes and asked, Mum, are you alright? And I found no voice to answer.
No one appeared to pull me up, no knight in tailored tweed. I realised I could no longer pretend.
I sought help when my strength ran out, when Id reached the far side of coping. The therapist was the first to say the unspoken thing: This doesnt make you a bad mum. She gave shape to my invisible weight.
I learned no one had reached out before because Id never quite stopped functioning. As long as a woman keeps the cogs turning, the world assumes she can roll on. Nobody wonders about the one who never stumbles.
Recovery wasnt neatno instant magic, but a slow, awkward, guilt-tinged climb. Learning its alright to ask for help. To say no. To stop being eternally available. To understand that taking a rest doesnt make me a bad mother.
I still raise my girls. I still work under a sky that sometimes droops low and strange. But Ive stopped feigning perfection. I no longer believe a misstep defines me. And most of all, Ive learned my longing to vanish never made me wicked or unloving.
I was simply, utterly, exhausted.
