I hope I don't get a trigger warning for this as I have for previous threads. The theme of 'personal care' for people with special needs is a little too much for at least a few people, some of whom have complained previously about what I post resulting in unsolicited trigger warnings being placed on my posts.
Anyway here goes - I have no wish to upset anyone but this is the reality of what we deal with so I beg you to understand:
My adult DS has severe physical and learning difficulties. He came home today from his weekday adult care (DH & I both work full time during the week so had finished work today - were tired to start with). I bought him a new outfit and we arranged a takeaway meal for him. Last weekend we gave him a lavish meal out. So, we go out of our way to please and centre him.
DS felt hard done by because we were having a takeaway rather than taking him out for the evening which he prefers. He did a poo and we had to change him (he wears incontinence pads). DS got angry because we weren't going out and decided to protest. He lost it - started grabbing his bottom with his hand, swallowing his poo and smearing it on the wall. It is hard to stop an adult from doing this but we restrained him as much as we could. Cue massive job cleaning him up, cleaning & disinfecting the wall with him fighting us the whole time.
We sent him to bed and he fell asleep, then salvaged what was left of the evening. I followed up on a few pressing issues at work (believe it or not) now I am sitting here with a glass of wine having had a cup of tea. As in G&T.
My question is: why do you think I should keep going? There is nothing that can make one feel as drained and worthless as, of an evening, having dealt with a considerably stressful job, both cleaning up someone's shit and absorbing their anger - and it is not his fault so I can't respond. So yes I feel worthless.