Instead of the usual TV-before-supper routine, I tell my children to do some drawing at the table. The results are interesting. "This is of a man abseiling down the Gherkin," says my elder son, holding up a sombre charcoal drawing of a man with a rope around his neck. Then I'm handed a piece of paper dominated by a square that has been wildly scribbled over in clashing colours. "This is the angry house," my youngest son says defiantly.

The humour and the pathos is evident in both of these images, but I wonder what is really going on in their heads. I also wonder what I would come up with if I was handed pen and paper right now.

I would probably try to express the lack of balance that exists in my life at present. A seesaw perhaps, with me on the end weighing everything down. Or, because Halloween has just been, a brain – my brain – exploding.

I am tired. Dog tired.

"I just didn't realise that being a single mother would be as hard as this," I tell my sister in an email. I'm also exhausted by the idea that this could be the future: the chances that R and I will get back together seem to be diminishing as each day passes. Our lives are drifting further apart and our reasons for staying separate outweigh those of staying together.

I cry in front of relative strangers. I can't help it. I see the tears as a slow drip of indefinable emotion. Like a mystery slow puncture, this release of upset is not going to be easy to explain, or indeed expel.

At the door of my son's child-minder, the tears begin. She asks me inside and just lets me sit. She gives me a cup of tea and tells me that things will improve. My son keeps coming up to me, in his little voice, to ask, "Are you sad, Mummy?" and this makes me weep more.

I feel guilty that he should see my like this at all, but I try to make him feel safe. I tell him that I am sad, then I hug him and say that I'll be happy again soon. He seems satisfied with this and bounces off my knee to play on the floor with his friend.

As I step outside the flat, I cry more, but not through upset. I feel immense warmth to the woman who, until just a few minutes ago, was just my son's childminder. Now she feels like a friend. I am able to go about my day and work with a clearer head. A simple act of sharing has improved things considerably.

In the past few days, I've felt choked by responsibility, and I have not reached out for help. I am trying to keep everything afloat, but it's not always possible. I wouldn't expect anyone else to be able to manage everything and stay calm throughout, but somehow, I put pressure on myself to be able to cope. But now I have admitted defeat.

R is drinking, I am sad, I am angry, I am tired, the children are demanding, I want more help, I need more hours in the day for work. I would like the reassurance that the children are not shackled by extreme damage created by all of this. Rather selfishly, I'd also like to have a bloody big drunken blow out with good friends, where I can forget everything and wake up after a lie-in, in a bed that has not been squatted in by my children.

That's what I think I'd like, but I'm not telling anyone any of this. So in my support meeting, I tell the group how I feel. Then at the end, I summarise by saying, "What I really want is to see my mum," and I'm left with the echo of a voice that sounds like that of a homesick child. But no one laughs and they all offer comfort.

My mum would help. She knows me and the children and our situation. She knows how to cook onions and run baths and fold laundry and pour wine. She understands the importance of early nights sometimes, and company and finding the humour in all sorts of dark situations. She has been through divorce, raised five children, dealt with difficult men, faced addiction in the family and juggled work and a huge extended family.

She sometimes fails, but she does not give up. She is by no means God, but she is as close to it for me.

"Mum, I have a massive work deadline that I just can't handle because I have no time. The children are sad, R has gone Awol and I feel like I'm losing my mind."

She's on her way.