please can someone help

[crazeekitty]

I'm so very depressed. I don't know how I'm going to face the day. I don't know how to pretend to enjoy dd's company for the day. I've already had to deal with behaviour and it's still dark outside, I've got a headache which is cracking my skull open, I wish someone would press rewind and go back to when there was no small person dependent on me. Every day is a chore. I'm crap at being a mother and don't enjoy it. I'm just no fun at all. I'm dreading our adoption order and celebration hearing because I don't have anything to celebrate. I just want to hide and hope that I wake up and none of this has happened. Someone suggested I should disrupt the placement because my depression will be unhealthy for my lo. But I've made a commitment to her... Surely it gets better?

Please please don't be harsh with me. It will finish me off and I'll crumble. Please has someone else been through this? I don't know how much longer I can take it. I'm so so lonely and sit in tears most evenings after she's gone to bed.

Dd is an older child and we are about 6 months into placement .. just her and me. Everything they told me to expect with an adopted child has been thrown at me (lying, control, tantrums, regression, smacking, criticising me, hating me, etc etc etc) but the funny thing is all the bloody useless social workers said that they never expected such challenging behaviour from her.

Please can someone tell me how I can start enjoy being a mum? Surely I shouldn't disrupt because of feeling like this? Surely it will go away? But what if it doesn't?
That poor little kid upstairs has been passed from pillar to post and she's ended up with a miserable mummy who can't even remember why she wanted to be a mummy.

I don't know what to do.

Really sorry to hear you are having such a tough time. I agree with all those above saying ask for support, it's so hard though to say to doctors/social workers that you aren't coping as we feel we have to be strong but unless they know how bad things are, they won't help.

My DS is younger so not as challenging behaviour-wise but I find that getting other people round is vital, not so much for 'me time' as I just use that to worry about being a crap mum, but more to provide entertainment and distraction for you both. Sometimes friends/family don't really know how to help so you might need to a bit more demanding - ask them to come round for an hour and spend time doing x activity with your daughter. I think one of the hard bits is that you never really get time to enjoy your child - when they are being lovely or calm or playing nicely we start thinking maybe we should put the washing on or sort something out. It's really important to take time just to sit back and enjoy them when they are being lovely (and stuff the chores) otherwise it just feels like a constant battle.

I was surprised how lonely I've been at times and I think it is hard going from a full social life to spending EVERY SINGLE NIGHT in on your own as a single adopter. People will say, have a night out, but it can be hard to get the energy up and we still have to deal with the morning which is worse after a late night. I now issue invitatons to my friends to come over and cook me dinner and watch me lying on the sofa. A surprising number have agreed.

Also, the cinema is your friend - 90 minutes of silent bonding and you can give your self a parenting gold star for organising a 'cultural activity' (even if it is Barbie the pearl princess)

Really hope you get some good support in place soon as it's only once you got proper support in place you'll be able to really look at the bigger issues about how you feel about your new life.

I now issue invitatons to my friends to come over and cook me dinner and watch me lying on the sofa. A surprising number have agreed.

^^
What a fantastic idea!

toffee please have some consideration for how I am feeling. I cannot and will not post details of why this is so hard but there are behaviours that even my social workers have been shocked by.

Being told this is normal when I am on the brink is about the most unhelpful thing anyone could say. I am quite aware how tough it is to be a parent, thank you. YOU are not aware how tough and outright exhausting what I am going through is because I cannot tell you on here.

To everyone else who has read between the lines I cannot thank you enough. I really don't want this to become a ranting slagging match like so many other threads on other boards do. I am desperate. Totally desperate. It's just a shame that the two negative comments I've had have clouded the others: all I can think about now is that this is normal and I'm weak and pathetic for not being able to deal with it.

I will sign out. Thank you all. I'll read again at some point when and if I feel tougher.

No-one is being negative. Toffee definitely isn't. She's saying that, with all the will, best luck and perfection in the world, parenthood is tough. What you're going through is clearly awful, but you mustn't feel less of a mother for feeling like that. Many others have too. She was, IMO, being supportive.

If OP didn't feel supported then Toffee wasn't being supportive.

Its like saying to a parent of a child with significant additional needs who has untreated depression "Oh yes I know just how you feel, its quite normal"

In fact saying "I love them more than anything" is spectacularly unhelpful because lets be honest - most of us didn't love our children in the early stages, in fact there's nothing quite so soul destroying as feeling totally nothing for a child everyone else thinks you are thrilled to have and in fact you have a horrible sinking feeling that you may have made the worst decision of your (and their) life. Sorry to articulate it out loud crazee because you probably don't want to say that out loud and it isn;t the odd day where you want to run away that's the problem! But that is quite normal and the best support and advice you will get is from those who adopted older children who understand the realities of your life at the moment and can provide you will some practical advice which might help.

Those of us who were bonded well before we had to deal with anything in the way of challenging behaviour were the lucky ones. Hats off to those who had the grit to get through more difficult behaviour before they came out the other side.

Don't feel despondant by those who think its just another day at the mill - they are trying to be empathetic, its just hard to empathise with a situation you have no experience of. In the same way I don't tell people with three children that I quite understand the difficulties because I don't really.

It happens a lot - just learn to smile and nod and pay attention to those who can tell you something that might actually have a significant impact on your life right now.

Go and have a cry and a hot bath if you can and ring your social worker first time you can Monday morning - and hang out at your Mum's a lot (it worked for me!)

It is very hard for non-adopters to understand, and yes all parenting is hard, but adoption is nothing like having a BC
For a start there is the pressure to prove to SW that you are coping
As far as the child goes there has already been significant development, it is like jumping in on a moving skipping rope!
Then there is often SN or attachment issues
It is very hard. My DD has very extreme behaviours. My BS has ASD so I was under no illusions how parenting be but I was not prepared for how extreme she would be

Well, only on MN can you try and say to someone that what they are feeling is normal and that lots of people feel it and you are criticised.

I can not help it, Kew, if the OP has taken what I posted the wrong way. I was trying to say that what she was feeling is what LOTS of mothers feel - birth and adoptive- and I hoped it helped her feel less alone.

I want to think a bit more about what I post here, so will be thinking awhile, but for now I just want to acknowledge that I struggled after having a birth child and after adopting, but there was one critical difference. And that is that after adoption you have a window of time in which to decide either that you can fake it till you make it,or that you have made a terrible mistake which for everybody's sake should be resolved as soon as possible.

Crazeekitty,you must be feeling really panicked, and that combined with depression is not the best state in which to be making major life decisions. Have you considered anti depressants? I have fpund them really useful, just for getting me calm and strong enough to be able to see what needs to be done.

So sorry you're feeling like this OP.

As others have said, it might be with booking an appointment with your GP as you maybe suffering from post adoption depression.

Could you halt the court order? We told our SW we didn't want to go ahead with ours just yet as we were still having wobbles around attachment etc. Doing this really took the pressure off me to 'love' this child.
You also sound like you need more support from behaviour able experts which is easier to get before the adoption order is granted.

Fake it till you make it was said in y head a lot! Still is tbh.

Again, thank you all. I am reading everything and coming up with a list of things that might help me

Toffee, now you've put it that way I can see what you were trying to say but I hit rock bottom today and have never felt so scared for my own health and wellbeing. From that place it is hard to accept it is normal because if that is what normality is going to be then there is only one answer open to me.

Thankfully now I have had a bit of breathing space and feel I can get.myself through until my doctor's appointment tomorrow and my counselling appointment later in the week.

I'm sorry not to reply to people individually. I can read one post or so at a time then have to digest it, then I panic, then I calm down.

Thank you everyone

Toffee I'm sorry if you have just repeated what others said to you when you were in the early stages of an adoption and you found it helpful. But the OP didn't find it helpful and if I'm honest I winced like mad when you talked about how much you love your children and they still drive you crazy. I think you must have forgotten the blind panic of dealing 24/7 with a child with problems who you don't love yet. Or perhaps you were lucky enough not to have been in that position and you bonded to your new child before you had to deal with relentless problems. I think personally think its one of the biggest issues with older child adoption, dealing with some significant issues in a child that isn't even close to feeling like your's yet.

Either way, insisting the OP ought to have found what you said reassuring, is a bit pointless and not at all helpful at this point.

Don't worry about replying to us each individually - this is a support board! More than most other spaces this is genuinely here for support not to massage our egos!

Kew I think Toffee said she hoped it might help, not ought. I think intentions were in the right place!

So pleased, OP, that you are seeing your doctor. I cannot imagine what you are going through and I only hope you get through it. As Kew says - so different and difficult adopting a child who isn't a baby/toddler - they come with proper memories, as well as other more challenging behaviour.

To be fair I did say in my first post that people were trying to be empathetic. I just remember how unhelpful I found it when everyone tells you how all children have the problems your child has, that its nothing out of the ordinary, just a phase etc when you just know it IS out of the ordinary but you don't have the confidence of an experienced parent to insist that and you feel a bit too battered to insist on anything anyway.

I get it Kewcumber. You didn't like what I posted. You don't need to go on.

OP - I hope you get all the support you need.

Please don't worry about replying individually just congratulate yourself on getting through another day. Treat yourself tonight, try and sleep. Break tomorrow into manageable chunks and mentally tick those chunks off as you get through them.
Take care

I agree that adopting is not 'normal motherhood'. I totally empathise with you as I am in a similar position to you.

I don't think people should tell you it will get better. It might not. I think to be able to look after your little girl you need to be well yourself and if you are not (depression ?) then you shouldn't do the formal bit yet. You desperately need support yourself and that should come first.

Sorry to say but in my case it all got a lot worse. It is unrealistic to tell op just do some baking, make a card, one day at a time etc. You need short-term intensive support and a long term plan, guided by the experts.

OP I have nothing to add the excellent advice from many other adopters. I just wanted to send my best wishes.

I agree you should call your SW re possible post adoption depression.

Please take care of yourself.

Crazeekitty I have not read al the comments as have a guest waiting for her lunch but I have read what you said and a few people's post and I must agree with all who say to speak to a sympathetic GP and get help for you. And to get help from social worker and counselling for Both of you and I must agree stronly with dear Kew, when she says

"If its possible I would delay finalising the adoption, not because I think you aren't doing a good job or because it won;t work in the end but because it should put the wind up your local authority to get some more help sorted out for you both."

You are doing your best and you need help and you need social services to know how hard it is. Bless you my dear, keep posting we are listening, as soon as I get this pesky lunch out of the way will be back to read more comments.

Re posters comments, take what feels right and resonates with your situation and ignore any of us who are not helpful, none of us know your full situation and none of us know how we would react in your situation.

I expect we all post things which are mistaken at times (I am sure I have done it a lot along the journey!) and I am not yet an adopter so I want to just echo all the wise words of the experienced adopters that you need help. You are dealing with a tough situation be nice to yourself as much as you can.

I agree that you should see your GP

And also that you should postpone going to court. Because it may well be that your daughter has more needs that was originally thought - she may need more support, therapy, respite etc. you are much MUCH more likely to get this as a foster carer than an adopter .

Once she is adopted you are in danger of getting bugger all, as SS can pretty much wash their hands of you. Of course they won't say that, they will say you are entitled to post adoption support. Which you are. Which is exactly what they want it to be eg a SW visiting you a few times a year to drink your coffee.

So it's in your DDS best interest, as well as your own, to postpone going to court until the extent of her needs can be fully determined .

I just wanted to add my support Crazee. I suffered with horrendous post adoption depression and compared to a lot of people had a relatively easy situation (DD 10 months, no significant issues, DH helping), so I take my hat off to you as a single adopter.

I should have asked for help but I didn't. I didn't know how to say I was struggling when I had been desperate for a child for years. I couldn't even express how dark I was feeling to my DH. I did fake it. But in all honesty I should have told the SW what was going on.

What I am trying to say is that you are not alone in feeling the way you do. My advice would be to I postpone the adoption order, take some pressure off and ask for support from your SW and GP. Good luck :)

Hi crazeekitty
thanks for being brave enough to post your thread. We have 3 permanently placed older children. Going through the process has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. I have lived with such a panicked, stressed feeling for a long time. Thanks to this thread I realise DH has been affected by this too. He has been very flat and down. From experience, the 6 months in is one of the hardest times. I am not going to tell you its going to be ok because I don't know you, I want it to be and I hope you get the help you need. I can only say the steps you are taking now are in the right direction. For me, one of the hardest things to manage was the realisation that knowing why your child behaved in a certain way or knowing why you felt the way you did, didn't help. All the sympathy and advice I got made me grit my teeth if I am honest. Not on here though, because everyone has been on their own emotional rollercoasters. There is excellent advice on here. Use what you can. The times I have sat in tears wondering what the hell I have done....... sheer bloody mindedness has kept me going.

crazeekitty have read all the comments and find I have nothing to add!

Except what I said before that you must get help, IMHO you should delay adoption until you are ready.

All you have described is not normal parenthood. I have a very demanding birth DD who I have felt exasperated with at times but it is not the same as parenting a new child at an older stage who is really challenging with their behaviour.

I really, really hope you get help.

If it possible to try and find one tiny bit each day together which you enjoy, but if you cannot then you can't. It sounds so very hard. Maybe once you get some more help you will find more brighter bits. Thinking of you.