Being Your Own Mum in Emergencies
No matter how careful you are and how well you take care of yourself and your little humans, emergencies happen – someone falls ill, someone may bump their head, fall over, or a pet may need to be rushed to the vet – and suddenly you are in emergency mode. You might need a trip to A&E, an urgent GP appointment, or something urgent suddenly takes priority.
In these moments, one or both parents are called to action and the whole day is different suddenly.
These times are always scary for a parent. If one of your children injures themselves or gets really unwell, or you do, it feels incredibly scary, and all of your resources are needed to get everybody what they need and to where they might need to go. So many worrying thoughts enter your brain, as well as logistical and practical things that need to be organised.
These times can be chaotic and difficult, and when you don’t have a village, this is intensified.
When you don’t have a village in an emergency, it means you have to hold all of this urgent energy yourself. There is no one to call, no one to help with practical tasks, childcare, or to hold you when you are worrying. All of the planning, worrying, organising, and decision-making falls onto one or two people, and there is no one to take a bit of the intensity off of you, which can make it all feel harder and emotions run even higher.
Being your own mum in emergency situations can look like reminding yourself to breathe and do things step-by-step, reminding yourself you are capable of handling things, reassuring yourself that things will be okay, helping yourself to feel calm and steady while navigating an emergency situation, and giving yourself validation afterwards of how tough it was and how well you handled it all.
It can feel really hard to do all of that yourself.
It can also be really hard to feel like there is no one to chat to even when you have all gotten through whatever emergency there was and it has turned into an anecdote or update – it feels like there is no one listening or holding your family’s experiences with importance, like if you had a village or other supportive people around you.
It can also create a feeling of chronic independence. The less support you receive, the less it occurs to you that support might be available at all. You become so used to handling everything yourself that reaching out stops feeling natural.
You are carrying so much in these moments, often without anyone to steady you while you do it.
It makes sense that emergencies feel heavier without a village. You are so used to being the steady one in the crisis, the one holding everything together.
But you deserve people who help steady you, too.
You deserve support, care, and softness alongside all that you carry.
Be gentle with yourself this week