Hi everyone.
Please bear with me here – this is long! I really do not have anyone in real life that I can share with and I feel very alone and at breaking point. I need to share or I think I will explode. I walk around with a painful lump in my throat and close to tears a lot. Other times I just feel like screaming.
My 18 yr old daughter has had a really tough year since her birthday and our relationship suffered. She finished college last June and barely passed her course, which was a shock to us as she has always been quite academic with high grades. Her mental health plummeted and at times I felt like she was no longer the teen I knew. she has spent nearly all her time when at home in her room, in bed dozing. She was / is self harming and her eating disorder returned with a bang. She was impossible to get to do anything – helping out round the house, doing her laundry. She works part time in a club and her routine has been to stay in bed for 3 or 4 days a week – only getting up to get ready for work or going out. She has lied repeatedly, stolen from us and made some choices that I was so so worried about – going to strangers houses, staying out overnight with us never knowing where she was. She has refused to look at options – a course or full time work. She was meant to be going away to work this summer but has confessed she has not saved or applied for any jobs.
She has been so horrible to her wee sister who adores her – really mean and hurtful which has taken a toll on the younger one.
There is a 7 yr age gap between them.
My younger one has spent a tough year too – bullying at school after her bet friend moved to another country and her confidence is rock bottom with a lot of acting out behaviour and huge meltdowns and screaming matches. She has been really hard to handle and often explosive.
My partner was late diagnosed on the spectrum and is increasingly withdrawn and in foul moods. He says he is no longer masking and this is who he is. He doesnt see what needs to be done around the house. He is grand if I write him a very very detailed list so I have to absorb and mange that. Our relationship is not great and I find him so hard to speak to. On Friday I tried to tell him how much I am struggling and he was so dismissive. He is increasingly like this.
I was diagnosed with heart issues last year and told to reduce stress. That’s a laugh – when I have asked for more help – he withdraws even further and recently told me that he doesn’t really believe my diagnosis. This was exactly the same when I had PND after our eldest was born. I moved back home with my folks for 2 months as I was so ill and he was totally useless.
My work is tough but hugely important to me and I am passionate about it. I work for a very small charity, dealing with sexual exploitation. I have been there for 18 yrs and love so much of my work and have an excellent reputation. I work very long hours, upwards of 60 hrs a week as we are so under resourced and short staffed. My best friend was my colleague and she retired in May due to ill health with a recent bladder cancer diagnosis. She is terminally ill and now palliative care are involved. She is so ill and going downhill quickly. Her family have moved her to live with them which is 100s of miles away and she is often too poorly for phone and video calls. I miss her so much and finding it v hard to cope with the thought of losing her soon.
My board of directors have not recruited for her post and I have “acted” up to take on managing the organisation as well as continuing to deliver my own programme of work, manage all staff and oversee all work projects. It has been so tough and despite me saying it is too much, I have been left to handle it all. My team have been the priority – to give them stability but I feel like I have none.
They recently brought in a “change manager” to finalise our strategic plan and seek additional funding.
Last week I was copied into an email that she didn’t realise contained the whole email thread and I read the ways she is suggesting for the Board to get rid of me with ways to avoid paying me any redundancy. I am shocked. My work is considered in such high regard and I have never had any negative feedback internally or externally about it. In fact recently funders said how exemplary it is and I have been named personally in a national basis for my work on our specialist area.
I live in another country from my family. My mothers health is deteriorating and she is no longer able to travel to visit so I can only get to see them about 3 times a year due to cost. I speak with her briefly every day and love her so much and am struggling with the thought of losing her. My dad died in really horrible circumstances during covid, and I am still struggling with all that. I pursued complaints against the health trust after he died which were all upheld but I cant shake the feeling that he was failed, including by his family. I cry every day when I think of him.
I am close to my 2 siblings, but they rely on me for support. One of my brothers attempted suicide 2 years ago and his mental health is very poor. I worry so much about him. I have always been the sorter in the family and tbh whilst I love them, I never go to them with problems.
My 2 favourite aunts have dementia, and it is heartbreaking. One of them has lived with domestic abuse for decades and her husband no longer allows any of us to see or speak with her. I really battled for her last year dues to concerns around her welfare and safety to no avail. None of us now know how she is or what is happening. My other uncle relies on me heavily for emotional support as he is now caring for my aunt. He is struggling and I am trying to take on contacting services etc and sorting out her care package as it is too much for him but I am hundreds of miles way and its hard to do this, with my work commitments etc. He calls me about 3 times a week crying and I am growing to dread those calls.
It has all come to head last week. There was a big argument with my eldest last week with me saying that things had to change and I couldn’t watch her waste her life.
My eldest disclosed that her 33-year-old cousin (on her dads side) raped her last year. We hadn’t seen him for years as he moved away to uni but he came to her birthday party. The day after the party = he invited her out for a drink, took her to his hotel room and raped her. She showed me the messages he sent her afterwards and I am beyond disgusted with him. I am heartbroken for her and a lot of what has been going on for her makes sense. She is so fragile but I am incredibly proud of her for telling me.
Her dad is struggling with it. In terms of what happened to her but also that it is his beloved nephew who we baby sat for and had stay in our home a lot years ago. He has been offloading on our daughter as to how sad he is that his nephew has done this and that he struggles to understand how he could do this – especially the day after the party where the nephew was saying how much he always loved his uncle. Our daughter doesn’t need to be dealing with her dads sadness about his nephew and I am struggling to listen to him talk so much about how sad he is that the lovely wee boy he knew could do this. I have told him that he needs to find external support for his own feelings.
She doesn’t want to go to the police as she is so ashamed and I wont pressure her to do that. What happens next has to be her choice. She doesn’t want me to tell anyone. I cant tell my friends or family. I got her linked with our local rape crisis centre which has a project for younger women and I am finding her private counselling as the centre has a 4 month waiting list.
I was already exhausted and drained before her disclosure but I don’t feel like I can cope with all of this. I think one more small thing will push me over.
Thanks for listening – I just needed to get it all out of my head.