Quiet Confessions: Chronically Overwhelmed Mama

In this episode of Quiet Confessions, Chelsea steps away from the chaos of everyday parenting to give a transparent update on where they are at—both physically and mentally.

Recording from their bedroom while their three-year-old watches TV, Chelsea admits to being in a season of intense overwhelm, chronic illness flares, and the exhaustion of navigating a "neurosparkly" household during major transitions.

Instead of forcing a deep dive before they have the emotional capacity, Chelsea models what it looks like to honor your current limits. They share the highly requested chronological roadmap for their upcoming solo series—covering their postpartum PTSD, their brain tumor diagnosis, the lasting effects of medical trauma, and what it’s truly like parenting as a disabled, chronically ill individual. 

This episode is a gentle, comforting reminder that if you are currently drowning in the messy middle of a difficult chapter, you are not failing, and you are definitely not alone.

Key Takeaways & Mindset Shifts

• Honoring the "Not Ready": It is entirely valid to know you need to tell a story but recognize that you do not currently have the emotional real estate or safe environment to open that door.
• The Whiplash of Parenting: Navigating the boundary-testing phases of a toddler alongside the big emotional transitions of an older child can leave perinatal individuals feeling entirely overstimulated.
• The Myth of "Not Good Enough": When physical and mental health flares occur simultaneously, doing your best might not feel like enough, but surviving the day is a victory.
• The Chapter vs. The Book: Hard seasons feel permanent when you are trapped in the thick of them, but they are just single chapters in a much larger story. 

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:42)
Hey, welcome back to another Quiet Confessions. Little mini episodes where you and I get to hang out and I catch you up on what's going on in my world. And

Last week's episode was just a really quick update to let you know where I'm at. And not much has kind of changed on that front. I'm still really stuck in this difficult space with my physical health and my mental health. And I don't know if that's a common thing for parents right now, towards the end of the school year. ⁓ my oldest kiddo still has a few more days left. And I just I I don't know. I don't have it.

in me to do like basic functioning for so many reasons. But I don't know. You guys tell me is the are you feeling it too? Are you feeling like everything is just like way too much and you don't know where to start or where to end or where to even like where is the middle? I don't know. I'm I'm rambling and I'm making no sense. But that's just where I'm at. I'm

Trying really, really hard to show up every day to the best of my ability, and my best doesn't feel good enough. But I'm not here to whine and complain, even though that's totally valid. And if you need to do that, go for it. I'm a safe space for that. I am here to update you in terms of my series and which order I'm gonna go in.

And I think the most logical place to start is with the PTSD that I experienced postpartum.

And I think that it makes the most sense because in my brain I like to follow timelines. And if I'm following a timeline, PTSD is what I struggled with not only, you know, in my postpartum psychiatric hospitalizations, but beyond that, it went far beyond that and followed me home and made life so much more challenging than I anticipated. So

I don't think this will be a 10-part series like the psychiatric hospitalization series was, but I am gonna break it up into chunks, like initial PTSD and then how it evolved and how it changed. And then I think from there I will go into my brain tumor journey. Because again, chronologically, that is what happened.

Next. Like I had just started kind of getting back to a or not even getting back to, but finding a new normal. And then I was slammed with a brain hemorrhage and the discovery of my brain tumor. ⁓

So yeah, so if if you're keeping track, we did my psych hospitalizations. I'm gonna do a series about PTSD. I'll move into my journey with my brain tumor. From there, I'm gonna talk about lasting effects from the whole postpartum experience and the brain tumor experience. And then I think I'll wind up this round of

listener requested series with what it's like to be a parent and also be a disabled and chronically ill person.

So that's the goal. and to be completely transparent with you, like I don't feel ready. I don't feel ready to talk about these things, ⁓ especially PTSD at this point in time. I don't feel ready to open that door again.

And it's not because it's something that I am avoiding, because it's not. I've done a lot of work on it and around it. But the place that I'm at right now, just wholly as a person, like completely, I I am so beyond overwhelmed. I feel like I don't have the time. I feel like I don't have the energy.

And I don't feel like I have the capacity. I'm literally recording this hiding in my bedroom while my three year old watches an episode of Thomas All Engines Go. ⁓ because she I mean, she needs me. She is out of school. And we're struggling right now. I mean

I knew about terrible twos and I knew all about the three nagers, but this second child of mine 

Absolutely in awe of how much she has grown and how smart she is and how funny she is and and how just incredibly creative she is, and then getting whiplash from being so insanely frustrated with the pushback and the stubbornness and the flat out, like just

Disrespect, I guess. I don't I'm not really sure where it comes from. Maybe it's not disrespect. It's it's definitely disregarding boundaries. It's disregarding my physical boundaries, disregarding our boundaries just around like rules for the house and f that we've always had for our kids. Just very, very much in a no phase. And

It's loud and it's wild. She even says she's wild. And what boggles my mind the most is that we haven't changed we haven't changed our parenting style. There haven't been any big changes in the home. She's just she's about to turn four and she's changed and she's changing. So yeah. I that's exhausting.

And then I have my 10-year-old who's making a big transition from elementary school to middle school. And she has a lot of big feelings about it. And you guys all know we are all a very, very neurosparkly family. And right now it seems like all of our stims and all of our like just triggers are triggering each other. So it's kind of chaotic.

And then on top of that, like I said before, I just I have been flaring more often than I ever have. I have been carrying a lot of guilt and a lot of shame. And I'm just so exhausted. And I find myself really, really sad a lot of the time. Sad and frustrated and angry and overwhelmed. And I say that.

So that you know, and I and I think that you do know if you've been around long enough that my life is not rainbows and sunshine. And I love connecting with everybody online and I love connecting with every guest that comes on the podcast. And like I say, every time I connect with one of you, it brings me a little glimmer and it like shines.

A little light into the darkness. For me, it's that selfless selfishness that I like to call it. But outside of that, I'm I am really, really struggling to stay afloat. And I feel like I'm not, I'm not doing that. I feel like I'm failing. And I'm reminding myself that that's common and that I'm not alone.

And that this is like I say, just a chapter, not the whole book. So when approaching my series, I'm still completely committed and I they're still incredibly important to me and I am going to do them.

I just don't feel ready. And I may feel ready tomorrow. I may feel ready a week from now. I I also have to find the time. I have to find the time to be able to do these things and to talk about them in a safe space and 'cause I don't talk about these things in detail in front of my kiddos. I talk to them

About my experiences in an age-appropriate way when the time is appropriate and or if they have questions. But otherwise, the way that I talk to you about them is not the way that I talk to my kids about them. So again, finding the right time, the in the right environment, and being in the right frame of mind. ⁓ I'm not there today. So this is again.

Just a little update. And I I guess it's not much of an update, but at least I feel like I can give you an order of events that you can expect. And it I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. Big breath.

So just to recap, I'm struggling. And it's okay if you're struggling to. We can struggle together and know that tomorrow or the next day or the next day, it'll be different because nothing is permanent. Not even struggling. We're not gonna struggle forever. Can you tell that I'm trying to convince myself? So yeah. Based on

What you guys let me know that you wanted to hear about. I have decided that my next series will be PTSD, followed by my brain tumor journey, followed by lasting effects, and then I will do parenting as a disabled and chronically ill person. And then I'll put it out there to you guys again and see what else you want to know about.

But for now, I literally have to go because I can't hide in my bedroom f all day. I'd love to. I'd love to take a nap. It's only eight o'clock in the morning. Is that too early for a nap? I don't know, you decide. Anyway, I will catch you next week, and who knows? Maybe everything will be different.