10 Signs that You’re a Depleted Home-ed Mum

Being a home-ed parent involves carving out a new path, unfamiliar and experimental. Miles apart from our own experience of being schooled and intentionally so. However, our social systems are not set up to support us when we deviate from the norm and so we can end up feeling depleted.

Here are 10 ways that could indicate that you are experiencing a depleted state:

1. Low Energy

You wake up feeling as though the tank is already low on fuel. It’s hard to engage with anything energetic as you just don’t have it in you. You feel like you’ve become a boring mum, always saying ‘no’ to the fun playful things. Exercise is a thing of the past, something you can’t ever imagine happening again.

2. Fatigue

Whenever you do engage in fun and lively activities, you’re left with a kind of fatigue that makes you fear if you’ll be able to manage the next demands, even if its ‘only’ getting home, unpacking the days lunch bags or making an evening meal. When you do go out for the day, the following day is blocked out as an indoor rest and recovery day.

3. Tiredness

You crawl into bed at 7 o'clock feeling relief that the day has finally ended. You may have had intentions to enjoy some gentle ‘me’ time, but you fall asleep before you even have a chance to try. Your sleep pattern is dysregulated, and you wake at odd times, often early morning and can’t get back to sleep. It’s a struggle to get up in the morning.

4. Reaching for the Sugar & Carbs

Breakfast and lunch can be a little haphazard. Sometimes it involves healthy nutritious foods, and often it doesn’t make it to the table. Often you don’t even make it to the table. Eating healthy food is important to you, it’s just another thing you’ve not gotten around to. Now you’re hungry and craving sugar. You grab the rice-cakes and protein, hoping it will be enough. Tomorrow you’ll remember the fresh veg. Blood sugar slumps are remedied with regular snacking.

5. Needing Stimulants

Coffee or chocolate are constant companions that you can’t imagine life without. It’s what helps you get through the day. Gives you that immediate pick-me-up motivation so you can keep calm and carry on. Except you’re feeling that little be edgy again today. Could it be the caffeine?

6. Avoiding Commitments

You notice events happening that you and the children would benefit from, however, it involves a commitment to arrive on time, stay until the end, and turn up on an ongoing basis. You fear you lack the capacity to make it happen. The structure feels like a demand that you can’t meet without having a mum-melt-down.

7. Guilt & Shame

You feel guilty that you don’t have the energy or motivation to get stuck into projects and groups. Guilty that your children will miss out or that you’re not 100% present for them. It seems everyone else is managing these simple things with ease. You wonder why everything is such an effort for you and conclude you’re not cut out for this. You wish you felt more capable and are ashamed not to be.

8. Low Mood

Things don’t seem to uplift you at the moment. You’re more likely to cry than laugh to release pent up emotion. Even smiling can sometimes feel like an effort. You wish you could be more cheerful around the children and other home-ed families you meet. You try but it all feels like a show.

9. Feeling Isolated

The combination of all of the above can leave you feeling more and more isolated. It then begins to feel even harder to get out and interact with other home-educators. You feel lonely and disconnected. Longing for company.

10. Declining Health

Your health just doesn’t seem to be as robust as it used to be. You’ve been getting more and more flare ups of old conditions you thought had gone. You seem to get frequent infections, and new health issues seem to keep arising, but they are vague and confusing, and you have no idea what to do about them.

If you are experiencing a combination of any of the above, I am here to help you. As a long-term home-educator myself I have ended up in a depleted state. With a combination of personalised herbal medicine tonics and aligned coaching, I was able to restore my energy and motivation. My smiles are now spontaneous and true, I feel well connected and trust I have the capacity to manage whatever comes up as a home-ed mum! You can have this too!

Contact me for a free 15-minute discovery call where we can connect and get the ball to recovery rolling.