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“Mamma, Rahul’s mother is so nice. She makes so many things every day and you can’t even make some Jalebis for me!”
“Why do you have to come in between my work video calls with tea? You just keep thinking about finishing your chores and don’t even understand how unprofessional it looks. ”
“Beta, khana banane se pehle mujhe ajwain wala pani laadena – Papaji ko chaas de dena - Beta humare liye alag se kamcheeni wali chai banana.”
Ever since the lockdown started, I haven’t got a single moment spare for myself. Yes, I’ve been a homemaker for many years of my life and I wouldn’t be lying if I said, I wanted to be the perfect homemaker. But for the past two months, with everyone at home managing being a homemaker is the most stressful thing ever.
I have been swamped with never-ending household chores. In spite of working around the clock, at the end of the day I feel I have hardly achieved anything—the dinner didn’t please anyone; I could not manage to make the dessert; and the clothes are still lying in the washing machine to be put out for drying. I don’t feel I am one coherent person anymore. I am the house help of this family, mother, wife and daughter-in-law, errands boy, the dhobi, the masseuse…everything but me.
Before this pandemic, I genuinely loved doing things for my family and looking after their needs and caring for each one of them. But for the past few weeks, things had started to get on my nerves.
Everyone wanted me to be available to them. Anmol, my son wants me to play with him, sit with him while he tries to study, and cook special food. Sitting at home, I am his play buddy, his friend besides being his mother too. My in-laws have their own preferences for food, meal times, medicines etc. On top of it, my husband being home throughout the day, though feels warmer, is tiring me out totally. He locks himself in his room for his work and any disturbance is attributed to me. He expects me to maintain peace and quiet in the house when he is working. I have no help from him in housework, now since the domestic help is also on leave. But at least getting the groceries would be helpful.
]I was so exhausted with all the work and kept on thinking, why am I supposed to do everything? Was the lockdown my fault that I have to do all the work in the house? Everyone is doing what they want at home, learning new things but I don’t even get a break to sit back and consider my own health concerns. Last week all the work had piled up so much that I started to have anxiety attacks over unfinished chores. My back had started to hurt and due to so many things on my mind, my sleep cycle had become an absolute ruin. I didn’t even remember the last time I had a good night’s sleep. Every day I used to wake up with the list of things I had to do and every night I was going to bed thinking about what I had not been able to complete during the day.
Things had turned so bad for me within a few weeks’ time that I had wanted to run away from the house. I don’t want to be a perfect homemaker at all, at least not at the cost of my well being. I was feeling lonely in my own house amidst my own people. I had no one to talk to and all of this was making me feel emotionally burdened. I started to get angry with everyone, even yelling out in frustration at small things.
I was a mess. Physically I was exhausted. Mentally I felt incompetent, low, out of control and even a burnt meal made me feel like good-for-nothing. I was slipping silently into a depression full of bottled up rage—for everyone and everything around.
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That was when I realized I needed to get help. Two days back I interacted with an online counsellor. My counsellor helped me clear my perspective. She made me realize that the things were surely difficult, as they were for everyone in the house, but blaming myself or taking the responsibility of what everyone felt and wanted was not necessary. This was the reason why I had started to feel drained. She helped me with a couple of suggestions as follows;
1) How to make a priority list: With everyone at home, the workload was sure to increase. But if I would maintain a priority list of the tasks that need to be done on urgent basis, it would be less stressful for me. Also, there would be a time limit to each job. Whatever didn’t get finished today would be moved over to the next, for example: ironing clothes. I would iron as many possible today for an hour and push the rest for tomorrow. This way I was able to factor in sometime for myself too and not run around like a headless chicken.
2) How to prioritize my health and issues:The most important point that my counsellor mentioned was that I should address my health issues as and when they occur without any delay. If I had a backache, I should take the painkiller, lie down and request someone to give me a massage. No delaying that.
3) Delegate tasks: Though I am the one who knows household things, I don’t necessarily have to do everything myself. Asking my in-laws to look after Anmol, giving Amit the list of things to bring home whenever he gets time off his work, asking Anmol to help with small things like keeping the dishes in their place or keeping the laundered clothes in the respective rooms would take some pressure off me.
4) Don’t try and be a perfectionist: We are all humans, and it is okay to falter. There might be less sugar or more salt in the food, the furniture might be a bit dusty even after the cleaning – it’s okay! It is okay to have a ready- to-cook a meal once in a while, it is okay to ask for help and it is okay to be open up about your pains and troubles too. You are not a perfectionist and trying to be one will only make you feel lonelier and anxious every moment of time.
5) Don’t try and fulfill every person's expectations: My counsellor made me understand that I was responsible for making everyone take me for granted. I wanted to be the perfect homemaker and I tried to fulfill everyone’s expectations to be so. It was okay to let my family know that certain things are difficult to execute the minute they want them to be done. Instead, try and initiate an alternative for their expectations that might help me take a breathing break as well.
I do realize that these suggestions are very important now. I am trying to execute them slowly and steadily. It is difficult for them to accept the new me, but they have to. I want them to accept it for my own sake.
For IWill Therapy to overcome depression, anxiety, relational discord, please download
The IWill app for therapy
For iOS - iPhone:
https://apps.apple.com/in/app/iwill-your-support-system/id1520039748
For Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epsyclinic.iwill