Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Fuck! Please distract me until I hear back from DS- he’s got in a car with a stranger to me

107 replies

GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat · 11/12/2018 08:40

I thought I’d taught him so well.

The school bus has broken down, replacement will be sent but running about 20 mins late. He text me to tell me and was happy to wait. I’ve since had another text to say don’t worry X’s Mum has come and picked us up.

Very lovely of her but I suffer with anxiety over my children’s safety and currently in panic until I hear he’s arrived at school. He’s year 8, he knows this boy (I don’t or his mum) so chances are he’s very safe and as I said it’s kind of her but I’m so worried.

Please chat to me. I’m thinking of calling school- wwyd?

OP posts:
Bekabeech · 11/12/2018 10:18

OP I hope he got there fine.

Deep breaths. And it's another trial survived.

Avrannakern · 11/12/2018 10:23

@Littledidsheknow

Her son is getting a lift with a friend and look at the reaction it has gotten. This is not someone who seems to be managing their condition well.

There are things which most of us would see as nothing but would cause anxiety in others. And then there's things like this, which really shouldn't cause he to feel she needs to phone the school. What would she say "he's getting a lift with a friend and I'm scared". The office staff are busy enough. When your anxiety is on the verge of impacting the other people, then whatever help you are getting isn't working.

Imagine being her son. You get a lift with a friend, which is totally normal, and your mum ends up in this state. Imagine the guilt he'd feel if he found out. Growing up with that hanging over you is no fun So she needs to seek more, or different, help.

DoingMyBest2010 · 11/12/2018 10:31

MacarenaFerreiro so what are you doing to try to deal with it?

Wrong thing to say with someone who suffers from anxiety. No need to be so snappy.

DoingMyBest2010 · 11/12/2018 10:31

@MacarenaFerreiro
so what are you doing to try to deal with it?

Wrong thing to say with someone who suffers from anxiety. No need to be so snappy.

Littledidsheknow · 11/12/2018 10:35

This is not someone who seems to be managing their condition well

How the flip do you know? For all you know, OPs anxiety could be a fraction of what it was a couple of months ago and continuing to improve.
She took the simple step of seeking reassurance on a chat forum rather than phone school sobbing hysterically.

When your anxiety is on the verge of impacting the other people, then whatever help you are getting isn't working

If the impact on her DS is that he has to send a quick text to him mum to say he's arrived safely that's not a big deal. Again, you have no idea what treatment OP has had or how well it's worked /is working. There is no quick miracle cure.

she needs to seek more, or different, help What qualification do you have to say this? You've never even met or spoken to the OP and you feel you can comment on her treatment (about which you know nothing)? Wow.

RB68 · 11/12/2018 10:37

just text your son to message you when he gets there.

In Secondary we have to learn to deal with this low level stress/anxiety - they are spreading their wings and we won't always know what is going on or who they are with necessarily.

Learn to trust him and his risk taking - he knew to tell you with friend and friends Mum - prob 3 or them in the back of the car whispering and giggling whilst poor Mum is Taxi.

Mine is in yr 9 now and in yr 7 I was having kittens when she missed the bus etc - starting to get used to it. But have also made a point of getting DD to point friends out at parents evening with parents and saying Hi and finding out from DD what they do etc.

Wolfiefan · 11/12/2018 10:38

OP isn’t coming back. All is fine.

Littledidsheknow · 11/12/2018 10:39

I don't blame her.

And yes, I do hope so.

Wolfiefan · 11/12/2018 10:40

It is.
Have a good day all.

Avrannakern · 11/12/2018 10:42

@Littledidsheknow

My degree is in psychology so I'm sure I know more than you do.

Her son got a lift with her friend, and look what she went through. He's getting older, this will happen more and more. OP cannot function if this will be her reaction. She needs to find ways to prevent the panic, so she should get some help with that.

Littledidsheknow · 11/12/2018 10:44

She is getting help, Avrannakern Hmm

nomorearsingmermaids · 11/12/2018 10:49

People are always sneery about anxiety, it's something I've had to learn to live with. If you haven't been there it's impossible to understand. Here, in no particular order, is a list of things I have done to try to help my anxiety:

  1. Medication
  2. Therapy, including CBT, psychotherapy, counselling...with multiple different therapists at multiple different points
  3. Mindfulness
  4. Yoga and meditation
  5. Exercise

None of it has helped even slightly. My anxiety simply goes through peaks and troughs. Sometimes it's ok, sometimes it's horrific. I'm never free of it.

Do the snippy people think I enjoy living like this? I don't. I don't at all. But what do you want me to do?

Feefeetrixabelle · 11/12/2018 10:50

Managing anxiety doesn’t just happen overnight. Some of you may as well have just told her to ‘pull herself together’

OP your son is year 8 now and the definition of strangers and stranger danger evolves as they grow. Getting in the family car of someone they know to go to school is fine. It’s not a stranger danger situation. You’ve taught him so well. He’s risk assessed the situation. Waiting down a broken down bus next to a possibly busy road and be late for school. Or get in the car of the mother of a known person and get in the warm only slightly late for school. He made a good decision there.

AllTakenSoRubbishUsername · 11/12/2018 11:11

He'll be fine, he's with another mum who worries just as much as you do. Maybe you could get to know her a bit and share a bit of the driving for future purposes? Might make a new friend too Flowers

PermanentlyFrizzyHairBall · 11/12/2018 11:16

@Avrannakern

I agree with PP that your comments aren't very helpful. Anxiety, even with help and even medication is sometimes just chronic. It doesn't just go away because you "get help" and sometimes that "help" isn't even available.

steppemum · 11/12/2018 11:19

Please don't worry OP.

I have been the driving mum in this situation.
Train cancelled, all year 8 going out on field trip, so had to be at school on time. I whizzed back to the station, filled th ecar with year 8s, and took them to school (quite a long way)
I had never met any of the others before, but dd had, she goes on the train with them every day.
Each of them contacted their mum and said - yeah steppekid's mum is taking us, and that was it.
I would have been fine in reverse situation.

The key here (for you anxiety to help you remember)

  1. he is with the other child/children, not on his own in the car with a stranger
  2. he has told you who he is with and the adult driving knows that, so no-one is going to try anything when you know they have your kid!
  3. this is a parent of a child same age as yours, just as you worry about yoru son, so she worries about hers. She isn't a random person off the street.
Flowers
formerbabe · 11/12/2018 11:22

Can you imagine the aibu if the other mother hadn't given him a lift...

PermanentlyFrizzyHairBall · 11/12/2018 11:25

Can you imagine the aibu if the other mother hadn't given him a lift...

There wouldn't have been one. OP's DS was already waiting for the next bus and OP was fine with it. OP has already said she has anxiety, she has never implied the mother was wrong for giving her DS a lift it just made her anxious.

Becca19962014 · 11/12/2018 12:31

I sat through an appointment this morning with a "mental health professional" with my PTSD (which I've had for decades) severely triggered. I couldn't function and was told to literally stop letting my "little anxieties get out of control and try" and then told to get out and come back when Im willing to take responsibility and put in effort. It's taken everything mentally and physically out of me to go there. I'm going through a very tough time physically and mentally right now and they were utterly dismissive.

I've spent thousands of pounds on many types of therapy, counselling and medications for decades for this condition which is now becoming unbearable.

My point : the only person who knows what the OP is dealing with is them. The professional this morning refuses to accept my physical situation can impact on my mental health or the brreavements I've been through this year including suicide of someone very close to me. The fact is they do impact, and, can make things which seemingly are normal and minor to others (like the situation the op describes and the person I saw today) very difficult to deal with. And it doesn't help. Not at all.

Bekabeech · 11/12/2018 13:08

Becca - I'd suggest you request strongly seeing a psychiatrist with experience of PTSD. There are treatments which seem to work.
I'm sorry you have to fight so much and meet such idiots.

TheOrigFV45 · 11/12/2018 13:11

Becca Is this professional via the NHS? While MH professionals do and will encourage their client to take resonsibility and to make choices, it is absoutely not my experience that such a professional would say "stop letting your anxieties get in the way"

Becca19962014 · 11/12/2018 13:42

I've been told by this person it's not PTSD - its a diagnosis she disagrees with saying the diagnosis is always borderline personality disorder, even though I was diagnosed by a specialist with severe PTSD. Being borderline means I'm attention seeking liar and that's exactly how I'm referred to and treated. I no longer ask for help, except today, I won't again.

The person who has assaulted me (another patient), who I saw this morning in waiting room, is considered "actually ill" by this person and I'm expected to put up with his threats and following me as he's "really ill and can't help it" and some crap about if I didn't want to be abused I wouldn't be. That's when I started struggling Sad

I've no strength to try anything else. I simply don't. I'm dealing with an illness that can kill at any time (which she says I'm not allowed to have because, again, just borderline) and suicide of close friend which has devasted me over the last few weeks and no I can't go to cruse as they cannot cope with me being triggered.

I've done all the therapies, taking the meds which just worsened my physical health and been blamed for it all not working and not trying. So now I'm not bothering anymore. I've had enough. I try and try and then have to sit in stupid meetings hearing about how I don't try hard enough when I'm running on empty putting in all this effort just to get worse.

Becca19962014 · 11/12/2018 13:43

.. To be blamed for letting my little anxieties get out of control.

Becca19962014 · 11/12/2018 13:50

Sorry for slight derail OP.

My point is people can be going through really difficult things they need support for and if those things are ignored or dismissed it makes other things much harder to deal with.much harder.

And yes I've complained, that went in my notes and contributed to the diagnosis of being borderline because they said I complained when staff didn't turn up because of "abandonment" - that it had cost me £30 to get to see them and they couldn't be bothered to cancel apparently wasn't the point, or when they discharged me and didn't tell me, I found out at a&e when in a unrelated crisis which was then linked to discharge and again abandonment.

TheOrigFV45 · 11/12/2018 13:52

Becca do you have a supprtive GP?

Swipe left for the next trending thread