Each scream is a flattening of my soul, rupturing the connection to myself, leaving my soul a little bit more depleted.

Whilst on the outside I say, “Good boy for eating your sandwich,” teeth gritted, eyes smiling -but not. Faced with the knowing stare of my child who screams again, and it begins again.

At the end of the day I collapse in a heap, stretched, ironed out, flattened by the constant and never ending demands of my children. I crumple in front of the TV, trying to refill my soul with films devoid of character and chocolate lacking the life giving lustre I seek. Stuffing myself to oblivion, hoping to fill my soul again, till the onslaught begins again the next day.

So it goes on, this motherhood cycle, want, want, want all day: give, give, give; and myself given up in meeting the constant ego demands of my offspring.

I feel myself disappearing in the process. I try hanging onto a bit of me, but I’ve forgotten in my sleep starved, catatonic state what me ever was. What I looked like or felt like. With the next scream a wisp of me disappears into the ether, lost again. I wonder if there’s a place in heaven where I’ll be able to pick up the lost and forgotten remnants of myself. I just wonder if I’ll recognise them or need them by then.

Being a mother is like a sort of subtle Chinese Water torture – drip, drip, drip: want, want, want. Not only did I lose my figure, but some days I feel like I’m losing my mind too.

It’s a fine line between love and hate. I love my children. But there are days when I hate them too. The thought flashes through my mind as I bath them, hardly visible, like a sunbeam glancing off a dewdrop. I swoop them up in my arms, drop a guilt edged kiss on their heads, and hope they can’t read my mind.

This pendulum of love and hate swings through my mind, resting like a veil over my thoughts sending me into flurries of anxiety driven action and play dates. The children watch with wide eyes wondering what’s coming next.

I’m just hanging on, hoping for good days to get me through the bad ones. Knowing that a scream can swing mother love to mother hate in the time it takes a sandwich to be thrown to the floor.