The Emergency Contact

I bought bread today.

Just… bread.

A loaf. From a shop. On purpose.

And I want a certificate. Or a cake. Or one of those ridiculous banners people make for babies that say “I smiled today”, but mine would say “Functioned like an adult.”

It wasn’t part of a bigger shop. I didn’t grab it on the school run.

I got dressed. Left the house. Went to a shop. Found the loaf the kids actually eat. Paid for it. Didn’t cry.

It was a miracle.

An executive function win that no one saw but me.

And all I could think, standing there in the kitchen holding it like a trophy, was:

“Someone praise me. I did the thing.”

Because these small wins, they’re not small inside my brain.

They’re Everest.

Especially when I’m burnt out, under-slept, and holding it together with dry shampoo and defrosted fish fingers.

But the real win wasn’t the bread.

The real win came later.

When I finally met someone who saw the mountain too, because she was climbing it, barefoot, holding snacks.

It started the weekend before.

I’d dragged myself out

, against every fibre of my introverted, overstimulated soul, for a rare night out.

I was craving adult conversation. Not networking. Not pleasantries. Just… being around people who don’t lick walls or scream at toast.

My friend brought a friend.

Only, my original friend misunderstood a joke I made about my kids falling asleep “no problem thanks to melatonin” and apparently told half the group I drug my children to sleep like some toddler sedative kingpin.

So that was fun. Needless to say we are not friends anymore.

But the other woman?

Quiet. Observant. Wearing earrings and tired eyes.

She laughed at the joke. Not politely, honestly.

Like someone who’s been there, ordered the prescription, and cried in the car park after a CAMHS call.

We barely spoke that night. But something stuck.

I messaged her the following weekend when the kids were at their dad’s.

“Come over. I have tea and bad decisions.”

She replied,

“On my way.”

And I swear, within ten minutes of her sitting down on my sofa, it was like we’d been living each other’s lives on parallel timelines.

Her eldest, five, is deeply sensitive and fiercely particular.

Her youngest is four & doesn’t say much, but notices everything. The kind of kid who watches the world like it owes him answers and always spots the one thing out of place.

We fell into conversation like people who’d been rehearsing for this moment for years.

Finishing each other’s war stories. Quoting the same phrases back to each other:

“If I hear ‘just set boundaries’ one more time…”

And “You know it’s been a week when you say ‘oh good, just wee this time.’”

By the second mug of tea we were both crying laughing.

By the third, we were comparing EHCP trauma and giving each other actual ideas, like two exhausted, underfunded unicorns building a system out of scraps and sarcasm.

She shows up at school looking like a high-functioning Pinterest board.

But I see it now, the tiny cracks around the edges. The pressure behind her smile.

She’s running on empty, on lists, on guilt and dry toast.

Just like me.

And the honesty of that night, the loud laughter, the silent understanding, made something in me unclench for the first time in years.

“I’ve never had a friend who gets all of it,” she said.

And I replied without even thinking,

“You do now.”

She didn’t flinch at the chaos in my house.

She didn’t blink at the broken blinds, the chewed fidget toys, the fridge note that says “DO NOT MICROWAVE SLIME AGAIN.”

She just… belonged there. Like we’d been doing this side by side the whole time.

She messaged the next morning.

“We’re out of bread. Think I might try the shop.”

And I wrote back,

“You’ve got this. I’ll clap from here.”

And I meant it.

Because when someone sees your invisible effort and says,

“Me too,”

you finally feel like maybe you can actually do this.

Not because it’s easy.

But because you’re not doing it alone anymore.