Starting Back

After taking April off, we got back to a slow start today. No major problems, although the girls did have to remember not to throw fusses.

If it were up to Brighteyes and especially Sunshine, we would have been back at lessons after the first week. But I fell into a major depression at the start of spring. I've had chronic depression and PTSD since childhood. These days I can usually take care of myself, but this year I was too exhausted to do the maintenance. I fell off the deep end, and I'm only now starting to climb back.

I usually don't talk much about my mental health problems. My mother hated it whenever I brought it up as a child. She would berate me for mentioning it; or for "giving up", being "soft", being "lazy", and so on. Of course, she was the main reason I came down with depression and PTSD. No wonder she hated seeing the signs of her handiwork.

But I'm almost 40. That's far too old to blame my problems on my childhood. I knew the signs. I knew I had to devote some time out of the day to taking care of myself, and I knew what would happen if I didn't. I screwed up because I can't stand having a chronic condition that I have to monitor and work on all the time. It feels undignified, to have to constantly attend to my own Inner Baby. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but it's not an easy thing to change.

So we're back with lessons. Unschooling is even more exhausting for me than lessons, because these girls go at super-sonic speeds. At least with lessons we don't tear off down quite so many rabbit runs.