Just having the worst week of my life, will it ever end?

[MyStalingrad]

Hello,

This is just me screaming into the void because I'm having a really tough time and I'm honestly at breaking point.

My partner was away on a business trip from Monday until Thursday evening, so I've been solo-parenting our toddler, who is two months away from turning three.

On Monday afternoon our fridge and freezer died. I had to throw away everything that had defrosted (mush), plus a lot of the food from the fridge. Since then I've been improvising with a big plastic tub full of water and ice cubes that our lovely neighbours keep topping up for us. Another neighbour has a box of our fish fingers in their freezer.

Then I got some test results back from my GP. Thankfully all my samples were clear, and my bloods were fine apart from one Ovarian marker that's very slightly raised (36 when it should be under 35). I've got an ultrasound with the hospital's radiology department first thing tomorrow morning to check my ovaries and have a gynae scan. I'm trying to tell myself it'll all be fine, but I've also been getting stabbing pains on my right-hand side. Maybe it's ovulation pain. Maybe it's stress. Maybe it's something else. My brain is doing what brains do.

This is where shit gets shit.

Last night I was brushing my toddler's teeth when I spotted a little dark brown bug by the bathroom radiator, low down. Took a photo because I thought, "Surely not..." Checked it online after I'd put todfler to sleep.

Yep. Cockroach.

Grabbed it with a bit of tissue, chucked it out bathroom window.

My partner thinks it's probably just one that's wandered in because of the heat and that I'm overreacting. I wasn't willing to take the chance, so I've already paid for pest control to come on Monday.

Then today my stepdaughter came home from school, later when I got in from work she immediately asked if I could help with a bug in her bedroom. My heart absolutely sank. I grabbed the hoover, but the little bugger disappeared before I could catch it. At that point I was genuinely panicking, although I tried not to show it in front of her. She overheard me on the phone to her dad explaining that we might actually have a problem.

I keep.thinking, fucking why? I'm so house proud, the place is so clean. We have a cleaner who comes once a week. I do.in between cleans. My partner has a GP at me for being obsessive and wanting to live in an "Architectural Design" home. I do like things super clean and tidy.

I rang a South African friend, who basically said we should be trying to expedite the pest control process, get one in sooner. My partner still thinks I'm making too much of it.

Then came tonight.

When my partner finally got home from his trip, we went to a local pizza chain. It was fairly quiet because it's being Thursday and what with there a major tournament on.

Our toddler had actually been really well behaved all evening. He's just obsessed with steps and climbing on things, and I think he was tired, hot, excited to see his dad and happy to be with his big sister.

While his dad was paying the bill, he let go of my hand and ran across the restaurant. Before I could catch him, he went behind a woman sitting at another table and pinched her really hard with both hands.

She screamed.

I ran over immediately, apologised profusely and tried to get him to apologise too. Of course he wouldn't. He's not even three and thought the whole thing had become a game.

The lady was understandably upset and said, "That's not cool."

I apologised again and explained that he isn't even three years old. She wouldn't accept the apology and seemed disgusted that he couldn't be made to apologise himself.

I completely understand why she was upset. It probably hurt, especially because - fucking idiot that I am - his nails desperately needed cutting. I'm a day or two behind with them. I feel awful about that.

But I also found the whole interaction really triggering.

I'm the youngest of three, and my middle brother is autistic. Not just on the spectrum, properly autistic. Growing up, whenever he had a meltdown or behaved unexpectedly, I remember all the cold, judgemental stares from strangers. Tonight just took me straight back there.

Maybe that lady has her own trauma too. Maybe she's experienced domestic abuse or something similar so my toddler pinching her was horrendous for her I don't know. . Maybe we were both carrying things in that moment.

I cried all the way home.

My toddler got told off. His big sister was brilliant at explaining why what he'd done wasn't okay.

When we got home I brushed his teeth and immediately got the nail clippers out. I was so determined to sort it that I think I was probably too firm with him. Now I feel absolutely horrible. It feels like I hurt my little boy because I was reacting to a stranger's reaction.

Now I'm sitting here crying my eyes out, typing this, while also needing to set an alarm because I have to be at the hospital first thing tomorrow morning.

Please be kind. I'm really on the edge tonight.

@MyStalingrad hope today goes well for you op.
Our infestation of the week is ants, I've thrown away sugar, icing sugar and had to clean 3 cupboards out.
I also suspect we have carpenter ants in the bedroom.
Plus there are hornets flying in and out of the chimney pot.
It's a nightmare.

@MyStalingrad your priorities:

Your health - likely precautionary, good luck
The fridge - order something that can be delivered in 24 hours
Roaches - a good spray and monitor, if theu recur, Rentokil - nothing to do with hygiene. If it's any consolation, we once had a biscuot beetle infestation in DS's bedroom. Council people sprayed. Rubbish. Rentokil came and identified the issue, a papier mache shoe made at school - the flour in the paste was infected (Rentokil are always worth the extra)
The pincher - probably over excited. It made me laugh, he may be a devil with the ladies when he grows up if he's pinching bottoms aged three. She was an old bag.

If this is the worst week of your life, you need to reframe it that you’re pretty lucky. None of this things will matter in a year, most will have been forgotten and at worst they’ll be a funny story you tell. It’s a bit shit and overwhelming now but there’s no lasting damage.

(and don’t blame the woman for her actions, she is well within her rights to be furious at being pinched by a strangers child, but you need to shrug it off and move on after you’ve parented through the situation).

Sorry but that made me laugh out loud. If I had been the man, I would have been livid, though.

There are a couple of species of native cockroach that aren't infesting like German or Oriental cockroaches. One, the dusky cockroach, look very similar to the German species. They can wander indoors from the garden. You'd expect to find an infesting species in the kitchen or, possibly, the bathroom. Even if you do have an infestation it's not a judgement on your cleanliness. It's just bad luck.

The woman in the restaurant was being unfair to you. You might be right she was having a bad day too? It a credit to you to be able to find some empathy for you.

I hope everything goes well for you at your appointment.

Finally, don't you have lovely neighbours 😀

Sorry you’re going through this op. I have weeks where everything seems to turn to shit. Last week was a tough one. Ds2 caught a chest infection, 2 days later croup then a sickness bug. I had a painful uti and to top it off, my washing machine leaked and chest of drawers broke.

Good luck with the scans. Easier said than done but try not to worry. I’ve had raised ca125 markers on numerous occasions and it’s always been down to ovarian cysts. Some needed removing but the last resolved on its own.

As for the cockroaches, most likely they’ve came through the window. I clean daily but with this heat, the windows have been open and I’ve found many more bugs.

The pincher - probably over excited. It made me laugh, he may be a devil with the ladies when he grows up if he's pinching bottoms aged three. She was an old bag.

I think we could do without the jokes about sexual assault and ageism. He' s just a kid who was being silly- and she was understandably a bit shocked.
I remember pinching my cousin really hard when I was a child and getting told off for it. I was actually really happy to see him- just got a bit over-excited!

Sorry, what? The lady should have accepted the OP’s apology. No way. Her son behaved dreadfully.

I can help re the cockroaches. Where there’s one there’s usually more but, they are easy to get rid of. They come in if there’s any food on the floor. Even bagged up food. We got them when we had the dogs food in a bin on the floor. Get everything up in cupboards, clean the floors, put down traps from Amazon in dark corners - obviously where little one won’t get to them. They’ll be gone in a few days.

when I lived in a hot country the roached would fly when it got too hot. two flew into my apartment

Few years ago now - but the ban on having sprinkles on ice cream is for life

Oh you poor thing..
It's one thing after another and you haven't had time to deal with with one before the next one happens. Add to that heat stress and you have where you are now.

Take a step back, and breathe. No one has died. Your toddler mortification is over and will become a funny story in 10 years. The fridge is awful but you can get another one and until then what lovely neighbours you have!
The cockroaches.. well, not pleasant, but with tropical weather comes tropical problems. In hot countries cocroaches are endemic, and no one is apalled. It's not you and you can no more keep them out than flies. Get a can of insect spray for every room, also hot water kills them in seconds! I doubt you need pest control if you've seen 2. Get a fogger or 2 from amazon, set them off, and wait for the blessed relief of monday and cooler weather.

You sound really overwhelmed.

Parenting a toddler alone in the heat is pretty tough. And everyone has those kind of weeks when more and more things happen to stress you out. But that too, shall pass.

Suggest you have some time to yourself at the weekend. Maybe go for a nice swim and treat yourself to a nice lunch?

We had cockroaches when my eldest was a toddler. Turned out people had left food in the kitchen of the flat next door when they moved out. We didn’t call pest control (I was worried about chemicals with a crawling toddler). We simply filled in gaps in the kitchen with sealant to stop them coming in.

Good luck with your scan today.

Try to focus on the positives each morning. You have a partner. You have a child, who’s healthy. You have a home. You have food (well, once you’ve got a new fridge and restocked).

Youve answered your own question assuming you live in the uk and your not in a flat and you have clean neighbours its well known cockroaches get into your house via food delivery ie takeaway thats probably how one got in and now its breeding

Oh, I hope things get better for you soon. Re the cockroaches, have you bought any new or second hand appliances recently? This is the most common way they get from house to house. I had German ones recently that came from a brand new dishwasher. Apparently a badly fumigated load from overseas. Pest control worked immediately though.
Can you claim insurance on the food? On the bright side you sound like you have awesome neighbours.
Fingers crossed for the gp. Hate being a woman sometimes.

You've had a shit stressful week, you're allowed to have a cry and feel a bit down in the dumps! I don't know much about cockroaches but I'd be getting the pest control in as soon as is humanly possible! Obviously it's not great that your toddler hurt someone but you apologised profusely - that's all you can do! Toddlers are crazy little buggers and I think most of us have been embarrassed by our toddler at some point!

Now DH is home, can you get a bit of a break? Few hours to yourself? 💐

The dusky cockroach sounds very like our Gisbourne cockroach. They live in our gardens and come in during hot weather. They are looking for water and love coming up through our sinks. Apparently very good for the garden.

The pincher - probably over excited. It made me laugh, he may be a devil with the ladies when he grows up if he's pinching bottoms aged three. She was an old bag

What the fuck is this?

OP you sound right on the edge - its a heatwave, so everyone is feeling crappy.

The poor woman in the restaurant had every right to be pissed off - who wants to be shocked by being pinched hard?! - it was a normal reaction. It doesn't make you a bad mum though, it is just one of those moments that can happen with little kids occasionally. Speculating she might be a domestic abuse survivor is extreme!

Wanting a show home and calling pest control over one insect is extreme and aside from the freezer breaking in a heatwave (nightmare!), the rest doesn't sound unusual tbh. Maybe it is just the extreme heat doing a number on you (understandable), or perhaps you have anxiety.

I think being over firm with your son with the nails wasn't good as you did it to try to lower your own shame - shame there was no need for whatsoever, and it made you feel even worse. If you think this might be an ongoing anxiety issue for you, it wouldn't be a bad thing to think about look into ways of managing it with your gp?

But you sound like a lovely mum with a lovely boy. I think you are being way way too hard on yourself.

What a crappy week. I would feel like crying too if it’s any consolation.

My mum always used to say: for every three pieces of bad luck, some good luck comes along. It was such a nice philosophy because it meant when things went badly, she was actively expecting something good to come along.

Sometimes lots of bad things would happen in quick succession and she’d get genuinely narked that karma hadn’t come along with its good luck to soothe her sore feelings.

I hope the universe is ready to hand you something lovely.

Also don’t worry about your toddler. You’ll look back and the horror will fade. Everyone has stories like this. Mine was that my four year old was playing in a shallow sloping pool on holiday with her cousin - both could swim, and we were watching them from the poolside. Dads both started wading out to bring them back closer to us and were calling out to them to come back as they were going a bit deeper than they should. But some lady heard dads calling and decided the girls were in trouble (they weren’t) and she jumped into the pool fully clothed to “rescue” them and then yelled at us for leaving them to play unsupervised which we truly hadn’t (dad was right there in the pool!). It was totally mortifying.

I still shudder when I think about it, that poor lady dripping wet and screeching at us.

I think my dh had forgotten all about it next day!

While I appreciate everyone is trying to be kind and sympathetic by agreeing “what a shit week/day”, I think all it is doing is reinforcing a lack of perspective on normal life challenges. None of the things you mention, with perhaps the exception of the fridge, are worth major stress over. Toddler acting naughty - apologise and have a word with him. Cockroaches - agree with your husband you are over reacting. Get rid of the ones you see and monitor the situation. Fridge - it happens to all of us. Replace the fuse, see if that works. If not, get
on Amazon and order a new fridge for next day delivery. You need to learn how to put things in perspective and not let them overwhelm you. A major step is looking back on all this and understanding it’s normal life - there’s always something. Come to expect it and you’ll handle it much better next time it happens.

He's two for goodness sake. Of course the woman should have accepted the apology.

OK.

I don't think blaming the pinched lady with "PTSD/Trauma" is a healthy way for you to cope with the situation. She was entitled to be cross and rightly so. She was also correct to question why your son is incapable of saying the word 'sorry' at almost age 3. You need to have these discussions with him every day and encourage good manners and speech. My younger two have 10 months between them; when I did the school runs with them and their older sister, I would always talk about being kind, what words we can use, what coping mechanisms are healthy for us. It paid off in the long run. It's literally a few minutes out of your day.

The OCD: This is what's breaking you. However, this could also be Post Natal Depression (Yes even 3 years in). You deserve to be healthy and you need to get a grasp on the situation with some professional help. Make a referral with your GP and explain to them that you're spiralling. The things which have happened this week are normal life nuances and you have become overstimulated. Look on FB market or Gumtree for a temporary replacement if you are unable to afford a new one right now (Your partner should source one out! He's an adult and a part of this!)

Your partner needs to be more supportive and understand there might be something medical going on here. Sit down and talk to one another like adults.

His big sister sounds like a treasure! Don't be afraid to encourage her support.

Do call the GP before you spiral further. Show home personality isn't always healthy...especially to this degree when bugs make an appearance in summer.

Thanks everyone. Just about to go I to my appointment, they're running a little behind. But will update later.

I appreciate all your messages, some of them have been so kind and helpful....💐

The thought of this made me laugh so hard! Thank you for sharing, and I hope OP can see the funny side one day too!