School tomorrow... <weeps with joy and relief>

[misspollysdollyridesagain]

Anyone else nearly burnt out after this Easter break.....?? DD (14) (alongside our three other younger children) has made me sad, mad and a little bit bad these past couple of weeks, even though we have also had some nice times too. The 'roller coaster ride' doesn't come close really.

Anyone else...?? Come and talk to me...

Our school did the same Devora but have now changed it to half term. It was a bloody pain in the neck!

DS starts play therapy today.

I need play therapy.

DS2 went to school yesterday in last year's shoes because I couldn't find this year's shoes. We hadn't used them for a week as we had just been in the house and the garden and nobody had worn shoes for a whole week .

Ha! dd1 went to school in a dress for age 13 (she is 8 - and tall, but not that tall!) and knee high boots. Becsuse her crap mum had neglected to buy her school shoes or summer uniform. Thus exposing my firstborn to playground ridicule. She looks like shes wearing a nightie with wellies.

DS has hole in his shoes. Actually he is wearing holes held onto his feet but a bit of what used to be a shoe. Second pair this year

dd2's teacher summoned me in to show me the big hole in her shoes, looking VERY disapproving. I said merrily, "Well, that's what you get for buying cheap crap!" and her mouth pursed that little bit more.

Kew, how did you get play therapy? Via CAMHS or post adoption?

Neither - through school. His biggest problem at the moment is with school - seems not too bad outside it but absolutely on a knife edge in it - of course standard "punishment" is time out stuff so that just reinforces the problem. I just don't think he feels that school is a very "safe" place at the moment and so he's permanently on edge.

I have said this to school for a while but finally they have admitted there's a problem and vacancy at play therapy came up on short notice so I've grabbed it.

Oh bollocks. Get this... play therapy is cancelled because no-one appears to have spotted (despite it being written all over the referral form by me) that DS was adopted and teh therapists is not trained to work with adopted children.

How can they only realise this an hour before the session?

I despair.

Therapist has suggested contacting Post Adoption Support Agency so at least the school is going to try that now. Anyone know how slowly quickly they will respond and possibly assess him?

So after yesterday's dramas DS has come home from school talking to me relentlessly like I'm the child! Good lord it is driving me crazy! He clearly must be feeling anxious or something. Overly trying to control the situation but its driving me up the wall!

Oh God Kew, that's ridiculous, what a farce

How much does/did DS know about the whole thing?

He knows its due to start after Easter but thankfully not that it was due to start today - mostly because I didn;t know until 9am! Cancelled by 1pm - thats got to be some sort of record.

Have managed to have a full day to myself with necessary childcare and am now ready to join in (having started it off - sorry I ran away and hid/lurked....!!) - however it is late, so I'll bullet point it for now...

• firstly DD is 14. Full stop.
• secondly RAD hangs about in the background all.the.time.
• thirdly so does our own secondary trauma and burnout....but as long as life must just carry on there's not much we can do about that, is there...
• fourthly we had a French Exchange girl staying with us ALL HOLIDAY...! She was lovely. DD got mostly bored or tired of the whole arrangement part way through the fortnight and became increasingly vile. However, we gritted our teeth and smiled on through it for the sake of international relations.
• fifthly DD realised that French Exchange was going to be harder than she had realised when she begged us to let her do it and is now (she thinks) Quietly Freaking Out at the prospect of the return visit to France in the summer. I can see her actually-not-so-quietly-freaking-out and so find myself 'holding' that for her and trying to contain the freakiing out for her, while trying to also say the right things and keep her calm and upbeat about it.
• sixthly, as some of you may recall, last summer she went away with a group of people she knows well and had a kind of RAD re-trauma episode and near-breakdown. And that was with people she knows and trusts well. What the fuck is going to happen when she's in Bordeaux for two weeks, with nobody who knows her, not even her French teacher...?! (Now who's Quietly Freaking Out, eh?!)
• seventhly, as the fortnight drew to a close the 'poor me victim' part of her personality (Therapist suspects Dissociative Personality stuff going on - deep deep fucking joy :( ) came to the fore and - despite having had a fun-filled and enjoyable first ten days started whinging in about how it's not fair that everyone else's exchange partner was so much fun/more interesting/more friendly than hers. Sabotaging her own chance at enjoying the experience etc, not coping well with the impending ending/change etc, blah, blah same stuff, different day.... I know what's happening here, but actually, is it not the case that knowing RAD and seeing it happening may help you understand your child's behaviour but boy, oh boy is it a painful sight to behold or what.....??!

-eighthly, her jealous insecurity meant that by the end of the French exchange stay she was consumed by feelings or suspicions that we liked the French girl more than her.....and made herself deeply unpleasant (as they do) as a result - just to ensure that the 'self-fulfilling prophecy and sabotage thing' definitely happened good and proper...

• and ninthly, by the end, I probably (actually) DID like the French girl more than DD and would have gladly 'exchanged' them proper-like. Rah.
• tenthly, my other three (birth DCs) are 8, 6 and 2 and two weeks and a day is far too long for my sanity to have to cope with everyone needing a piece of me but never being satisfied....aaaaarrgh!

Right that's me. Bed now.

Gosh. Don't want to read and run, but really have no words. Your exhaustion oozes out of your writing, makes me tired just reading it. Will you be able to get some recovery time, now that school has started again? Please look after yourself. I know it sounds cheesy and wouldn't really help anyway, but I want to come over and give you a big hug.

sorry misspolly - I too am impressed that she's even considering an exchange visit.

I'm now thinking it was a stupid thing to do and that it may be an unprecedented disaster.......I will admit to being swayed by seeing it as being the prospect of 10 days of 'respite'. Now that just seems daft and selfish. It's not as if she hasn't been away before though - she has done various week-long camps since about the age of 8 or 9, but last summer had this RAD related breakdown of a sort and now I'm just very very anxious about the return trip to France. Though obviously I'm not showing her that I'm anxious - that would be a disaster. I'm just worrying about all night. It's easier

I should also add - before anyone has a go - that this exchange adventure was very definitely driven by DD - she really wanted (and still wants) to take part. We said all along that we were not sure and the only good thing to come out of last summer's episode is that it's now in the open and in all of our conscious thinking. Because of what happened, I could explicitly say to her 'I do not think it a good idea because I don't really want a repeat of last summer' and she could (and did ) come back to me with a counter-case for being allowed to take part. However, I think this past week has been a significant reality check for her (I was already there when she first started saying she wanted to go) so now we have two and a bit months to seriously put some strategies in place for how she can cope while she is away. This latest school holiday was just as much of a challenge as life always is, but with some 'interesting' added extras..... And yes, tiredness and exhaustion are a constant feature at this point in time - on a physical and (more specifically) an emotional level, but acknowledging that within ourselves and actually being able to do much practically to address it is quite another. We have a brilliant therapist - an attachment disorder specialist and are about to start seeing her regularly again after a bit of a break. She will hopefully help us all prepare the the return trip to France too. Thanks all for the replies/support and hugs. Much appreciated. MPD