By Ashley Butler 
I love my kids. I do. Fiercely. Irrationally. Intensely.
But some days I want to disappear into a locked room with a snack I don’t have to share and absolutely no one touching me.
Not forever. Not even for long.
Just long enough to breathe in a room that doesn’t include someone’s sticky fingers on my neck, someone’s elbow in my ribs, or someone’s voice in my face while I’m still trying to remember if I brushed my own teeth.
My 4-year-old is currently in her Velcro era. She wants to sit on me, lay across me, stand next to me, and sometimes just physically melt into me like we’re the same person.
My 8-year-old doesn’t cling, but he talks. A lot. And he moves. A lot. And sometimes both at once, with the volume of a leaf blower and the questions of a philosophical drunk.
So even though they’re older and technically more independent, I still end most days feeling like a human jungle gym who accidentally opened a 24-hour help desk with no off switch.
The truth is, I’m touched out. And still very much needed.
There’s no break. No reset. No “we’ll come back to this later.”
I can feel like I’m at my absolute limit, one loud noise away from unraveling, and they will still ask me to open the applesauce pouch and find the exact blue dinosaur from three years ago that they just now remembered they needed.
And they’re not wrong for needing me. I know that.
They’re kids. They’re learning.
But I’m also a person. And sometimes I feel like a storage locker of emotional, physical, and logistical needs that everyone else gets to access, but no one else maintains.
I used to feel guilty for needing space. For flinching when someone touched me for the ninth time before 10 a.m.
For wanting to sit alone in the car for five extra minutes just to avoid being perceived.
But now I know this: needing space doesn’t make me a bad mom. It makes me a real one.
A real mom who loves hard, shows up, and still wants to scream into the fridge some days.
A real mom who needs a little autonomy without being followed into the bathroom.
A real mom who gives her entire self to a family she adores, but sometimes just wants to sit in a room without being needed for a while.
We don’t talk about this enough.
We don’t give moms permission to say, “I love you, but I need to not be touched right now.“
We don’t normalize overstimulation as a form of burnout.
And we should.
Because I know I’m not the only one hiding in the laundry room for a moment of silence.
I know I’m not the only one who startles at the sound of “Mom?” because it feels like the 800th time.
So if you’re reading this after peeling a child off your lap or stepping over your 8-year-old doing parkour in the living room, you’re not alone.
You’re not selfish.
You’re not ungrateful.
You’re just touched out.
And it’s okay.
You’re still their safe place.
You’re still doing the work.
You’re still deeply, relentlessly loved.
But you’re allowed to need yourself too.
by Aphinya Dechalert 
by Stephanie Hanrahan 
by Kayci Villarreal 
