Looking after yourself
What you need to do to look after yourself really depends on your personality and situation, the reasons why, and the manner in which, you and your ex-partner separated. It might be important to ask yourself what you would like to see happening now. Reflecting on this might bring some clarity for you. Subsequently, it might be helpful to explore resources you have to make this happen. Firstly, you might want to think about whether you need someone to talk to about what is going on in your life. Just as for your children, it is important to recognise that it might help to talk about your thoughts and feelings. It is well established that talking with someone who is good at listening can make a huge difference to a person's ability to cope and general mental health. It can be a friend, a relative, a neighbour, a colleague, a Counsellor, a health professional such as your GP, a help line such as 'Lifeline', or anyone that you trust.
You can try to think about whether there has been any stage previously in your life when you have gone through a difficult situation, and what you did to cope then. Could you use any of the same coping strategies? Again, firstly for most people it is significant to have someone to talk to, but these strategies might also include trying to find some time for yourself to relax and/or do something you enjoy. This can be whatever you would like to. It is well-known that some 'time out' can be extremely powerful in rejuvenating yourself. It might be very difficult to find the time to do this, in particular if your children are young. Could you think of anyone that could look after your children for a while?
There are various resources that you might find helpful, depending on your particular circumstances. For your children's sake it is extremely important that you can cope, and utilising resources might be very powerful in helping you to do that.
Looking after yourself also includes being aware of some alarm bells. If you are feeling depressed and/or extremely tired for example it is important to contact your health professional and/or someone else that is in a position to help you. Depression is something you need help to deal with. If reluctant or uncertain about seeking help, remember that in order to help your children you need to feel OK yourself.
Maybe it is hard for you to think about your own health and well-being at this stage, yet alone trying to actually do something positive for yourself, however, this is of importance to both you and your children. As such it really does deserve to be taken seriously.
