Being A Mum With Chronic Illness

Parents all have their own circumstances alongside being a parent. Working a full time job, single parenting, healing trauma, navigating mental health issues, the list goes on.

As well as being a parent, you are also, of course, an individual.

It is hard to feel the truth of that sometimes when you are a mum, though, as when you become a mum, often your identity shifts to just being mum. It is hard, often in the early days or when your kids are very little, to see yourself as an individual most of the time.

But we do have things, as individuals, to navigate alongside motherhood.

One of those utmost important things, is your health.

As mums, there are a lot of health issues that can pop up. Whether that be from pregnancy and birth, lack of sleep, being on our feet and a bit stressed, not having enough time to focus on ourselves and our nutrition, or long-standing health issues that have been there throughout our lives.

Either way, navigating health issues in motherhood can be a challenge, when you don’t get so much time for yourself, but it is also vital that you are healthy for your little humans and family, as well as yourself.

When you have a chronic health issue, this can add another layer to motherhood.

Frequent GP visits. Frequent pharmacy visits. Medication that needs to be taken daily at certain times, no matter how the day is going. Symptoms you have to manage alongside setting up activities or imaginative play, or outings with your little humans. You have more to physically do and mentally keep track of, amongst everything else that is involved in motherhood.

Without a village or anyone around to offer support to your family at any time, this becomes more of a prominent issue at times.

Little kids with you at every GP appointment, patiently waiting while you talk to them about a health issue. Pharmacy trips before going to the park. Always taking medication at points in the day that you need to, whether or not they are asking for another snack or for you to help them with something.

Feeling unwell, or struggling with symptoms, and needing to push through and do everything anyway. Sometimes feeling miserable because of your symptoms, but still showing up and creating magic in the day for your little humans.

When you don’t have external support around you, there is no one to absorb any of the extra load that parenting with any chronic illness entails. No one to help you with snack time while you have an inhaler puff, no one to pick up medication for you, and no one to help you keep an eye on things while you lay down on a day that is extra challenging.

If you are parenting with any kind of chronic illness, without extra support to rely on, you are showing up every day and giving them your best even when that’s quite an exhausted version of yourself.

Be gentle with yourself this week.