I’m an unfit mother (long one sorry)

[Bigteapot]

First of all I’m well aware I’m the problem, I’m well aware we need immediate intervention, I’m also well aware of how it’s shocking that I’m acting the way i am, I know all this and it literally feeds into my low mental health.

(Backstory)
My mental health is very quickly hitting rock bottom, I’m so ashamed of the way I act sometimes. The doctor has me on antidepressants, I’m waiting to hear back if I’m mentally ill enough to be put on the waiting list for psychology assessment/treatments from the nhs (the doctor doesn’t think I am, however I think I may have borderline personality disorder), I’m constantly overwhelmed at everything I need to fix in my life, I also have a support worker because I’m currently in a safe place away from my abusive ex, the kidashave their own support worker.

We broke up 4 years ago, he hasn’t seen the kids in a year (he was charged with neglect last year and is addicted to heroine) but I’ve still dealt with him and his family basically tell me that I’m lying and there’s no reason why he can’t see his kids etc. So I moved into a safe house because I needed away from them and his track record meant I couldn’t stop phone calls without being somewhere safe.

(The now situation)
im struggling massively with my children, it’s literally going to end up with me having them taken away from me. They are 7 and 8. I’m aware of the normal behaviour of those ages and siblings and have recently finished a parenting class. I’m still in dire straights. I have to watch them like a hawk 24/7 if my attention goes elsewhere (even in the same room) they argue, and scream at each other which means I can’t interact with adults at all because I’m interrupted literally every 2 seconds with arguing, they’re defiant, rude, ungrateful the list goes on. Any negative behaviour/trait you think a child could have, at least one of them has got it!

and I know it all starts with the parent and all that and I’m really trying but this past week has been a disaster. My mental health and triggers don’t allow me to deal with the behaviour appropriately, and believe me I try my hardest to stay calm but something just clicks and I get so angry and I act like a child myself. I don’t understand why I’m like that and I’m scared. I don’t want to lose them.

today my daughter gaslit me for the first time, or first time I’ve been able to recognises it’s gaslighting. I tried to brush the back of her hair, she told me it wasn’t even knotted and she had already brushed it (cool whatever you say) she kept moving her head about and pulling faces at me in the mirror which she completely denies. We ended up screaming at each other. I walked out the room to go chill out, she starts swearing under her breath in the bathroom but I heard her so I’ve went back through asked why she was swearing, she told me she didn’t and how I’ve literally just imagined everything from when i started brushing her hair. It instantly triggered me and I’ve went into fight or flight panic mode. Which resulted in the kids being scared, me having a panic attack and then telling her she was like her dad.

I came back down as quickly as I went up, i then explained what the behaviour is that she had just done, that it can actually cause people to become very ill if they are exposed to it and I also tried my best (without slating her dad) that he used to do that and that’s why I said what I said.

I need help urgently but I know that if I seek it then I might have my kids taken away. I don’t trust support workers and professionals/ social work because I’ve never had a positive interaction and when I was with my ex the social work told me that the only reason my children were safe was because he was there to supervise, so I was unable to tell them I was being abused, I was made to feel like I was the problem and confirmed that I was in fact as my ex said crazy/evil/insane.

I don’t know where to turn, I’m scared of my reactions, I’m scared incase I hurt them physically one day. I know it’s not their fault at all and they are just kids. I can’t do it anymore I need help but don’t know where to go without someone putting me down more or taking them away.

I don’t want to be like this and hate myself every day for being like this

I’m sorry you’re having such a terrible time but a 7/8 did not gaslight you. To gaslight someone you need a level of intension and manipulation that young children do not have. She was misbehaving and pushing boundaries. Instead of ignoring it (why does it matter if she’s making faces in the mirror?) you massively blew up and made the situation scary for everyone. I can only advise you push for further mental health support as you seem to be reading Normal kid behaviour as a personal attack.

@Regularsizedrudy that’s the thing I’m aware that most the things they are doing is normal for children but it just feels constant and every little thing triggers me.

ive been doing a lot of self analysing recently and it’s not just with the kids, my every day relationships with friends/family is similar. Everything is triggering and I always feel like they’re all trying to personally attack me, I’m aware of these things but I can’t seem to stop feeling the same way every time 😔

ive referred myself for counselling from a charity but heard nothing, Unfortunately unless I become a danger to myself or other people then no one is willing to intervene quickly. I’m trying to fight for help but no one seems to listen or even be remotely concerned

I honestly don’t know what to say OP but I think your honesty and self reflection is remarkable. I completely understand you do not want to lose your children but please think about their best interests in this. Even if they went to live elsewhere, you wouldn’t lose them forever. Parents have rights and a lot of them. Maybe on a day to day basis you cannot cope, and well done for admitting as much. Do you have family at all where they could go? A close friend? I think as heartbreaking as it is you want to do right by them and sometimes that is to let them go. Like I said, it doesn’t mean no contact. It means them being safe and you choosing how and when to see each other in a safe environment.
I am saying the above with the gentlest voice you can imagine. I admire your honesty and I hope you find them a good home if that’s what is necessary. Keep reminding yourself it’s not the end, it’s the beginning of hopefully a better relationship with them.

You need to learn how to regulate yourself and for you and dc to attune to each other.

Try putting a feelings tree up on a wall. 3x a day, morning, after school and night you all write what emotions you feel and why. Do it for 2 weeks mon to fri.

Start naming your emotions - I feel cross because I feel fustrated that the cat woke me up and now I'm stressed because of waking up late. I am stressed because I'm scared about being late to get to school/work and think people will look down on me. I think people will look down on me because - and it will be a core belief. Get out your feelings and look to why you think like that. You can do this with the dc but don't go into your core beliefs.

If you think you have BPD get a DB workbook. It will be about regulating emotions and managing them.

With the dc, I know it's hard but don't put your shit on them. They are misbehaving probably due to their own trauma. Get some boundaries in (they make dc feel safe) and when they push against those boundaries name the feelings you are feeling.

Meditation and yoga will help you train your brain to be present and let go of fear.

I'm impressed by your self awareness and pleased you've reached out for support, that's half of the battle. I think you need to look into what is causing your behaviours before trying to fix them. I found alot of my anger triggers and freezing up/lashing out when having to deal with difficult situations was due to past trauma. When I read and explored more my behaviour gradually altered, I became more patient, more understanding and better able to handle difficult situations with my children, my siblings etc. Wishing you all the best OP.

It sounds like you have all been through an awful lot, especially your children, who have no control over the situations they are in and it is hardly surprising they are acting out now, although the incident with your daughter today sounds more like cheeky 8 year old than anything else. Making comparisons to your daughter of her behaviour and that of her abusive father is not OK and will not help your situation.

I agree with @Regularsizedrudy that you need to really push for mental health support and if it means telling the GP and social worker/support worker things that you would rather not, it is still better than this escalating further. You do have insight that all this is not alright, which is a good start and I really hope you can access something which helps.

The situation sounds saveable to me.

The hair-brushing incident this morning sounds fairly typical and parents do sometimes get to the end of their tether and shout at their DC. Your reaction sounds as though it might have been more dramatic than that and yes, repeated losing your temper would affect your DC over time but the fact that you sat down with them afterwards and talked things through calmly makes me think you have a lot about you that suggests a good parent.

If you can possibly afford it, find the money to refer yourself privately for a course of therapy, maybe specifically CBT. You need to learn how to re-draw your thinking patterns when a your DC do/say something that's a trigger for you. Don't wait months for an NHS referral as your day-to-day life will improve so much if you can get practical help with your trigger issues.

You are traumatised, so are your children. It doesn't mean you have a personality disorder, or that they are naughty/terrible kids. All of this is fixable but it won't happen overnight. Your children have had a lot of changes to deal with and so are pushing the boundaries, that's normal. But you've also been through one hell of a time and it's understandable that everything makes you feel under attack and you feel like you don't have anyone to turn to for help or support. Traumatised people don't react to the world in the same way as people who haven't been through that level of trauma. It's going to take time to heal from that.

People who have not experienced domestic violence live with the assumption that they will not be hurt by people who say they love them. When that trust is gone it can make us question ourselves to. If we don't trust our children's dad not to hurt them are we sure we can trust ourselves? It's hard for the rules of behaviour to be breached like that, it threatens our sense of safety and often even our sense of how self we are (especially when social services make us feel like we are as guilty as they are with the way they victim blame mothers).

It takes a long time but you can heal from this. It sounds like you need some help with your trauma and around your families issues. You could do the freedom program, and access other domestic violence services or find support groups (formal, informal, online or in person lots of options). Educating yourself is so important, as much as reading books and doing therapy and groups has helped me, so has coming on mumsnet and TikTok as well. So many people talking about this stuff in a way that is more accessible than a long book.

Parenting through trauma is no picnic. Your healing your broken self and got two broken children to try and put back together, and none of you are islands ether so your working on being the glue that holds your family together as well. It's

Sounds like you need trauma therapy, Op. Speak to your GP about it. Instead of the usual six weeks' counseling, they offer at least 20 weeks for that and it is specialised.
Good luck. It's very hard being triggered by kids behaviour. So much suffering for you and them.

I'm sorry this is happening to you. You need to push for urgent help- a 7/8 year old is not trying to gaslight you. Your mental health could be causing their bad behaviour.

Sorry I pressed send too soon.

I wanted to say that's it's a sign your a good mum that your trying to do your best for your children, that your terrified of harming them, that even now whilst your struggling yourself your thoughts are on understanding what is going wrong in your interactions with them, and you are showing a level of critical self awareness that will enable you to prioritise them and make any relevant changes.

But self Awareness can be cutting, as helpful as it is to recovering from trauma so is self care and compassion for yourself and your kids. It isn't your job to fix yourself and your situation and your kids behaviour, it's your job to love yourself and manage your situation and help your kids to heal from all they've been through. You are capable of so much more than you know, from someone who has been there let me reassure you that you can heal, that things do get better, that your kids will calm down and you will have a lovely life together so long as you keep them away from the abuser and continue trying to grow and heal together.

It sounds like you have so much love for them, it might be scary to ask for help so find a way to do it on your terms (posting on here is a brilliant start). Starting to feel like you have a say over your own life is so important.

Somebody advised me to find one thing I could do to connect with my kids each day on their terms (like playing with them and letting them take the lead, or watching a movie of their choice) and something to look after me (even if it's something really small like buying some nice bath bubbles or chocolate, or listening to some music or going for a sit down outside for 5minutes with a coffee. When I remember to do this it really is transformative in that I feel like I matter and so do my kids. It's helped us build our bond and now when they are at school I will be planning little things we can do together, and I will also find opportunities for self care whenever I can. It's the little things that can make a big difference.

There's also been many days when I cried, shouted, got all kinds of triggered for no reason, threatened to throw the towel in, even Called social services on myself and told them I hated my horrible children and to come and pick them up (they didn't!). It's not easy but now I feel like my family are like kintsugi, once we were broken but now we are joined back stronger and now the bonds are made of gold.

You have loads of good advice on here op.

Mumsnet often recommends how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk by Adele Faber. It's very good at the mechanics of how to name feelings. It's also cheap second hand online. Might be worth it as has good tips for talking so conversations don't get to the angry stage which would help a little.

Hugs. Hope you come out the other side ok.

OP, you can address the gas lighting type behavior (or more child appropriately - denial of obvious truths when asked) more easily in the situations that have ongoing physical evidence. So your DD says she’s brushed her hair and it’s clearly still full of knots. You can say ´Your hair is still really knotty. It doesn’t look or feel like it’s been brushed. If you did brush it, you haven’t brushed it enough. Do you want me to help you get these knots out?’
Don’t get drawn into screaming matches about gaslighting/denial that doesn’t have ongoing physical evidence. So you daughter says ´You didn’t say I had to clear the table’ You say ´I remember saying it’. She says ´You remember wrong’ You say ´One of us must be remembering wrong, yes. Now please clear the table.’
Don’t concede that your DD must be correct but don’t force her to admit she’s got it wrong or she’s lying. Just tell her you see things differently and restate whatever needs to happen next without punishment or blame. Hopefully she’ll stop denying things when it doesn’t get her what she wants.

Some practical advice: Divide & Conquer

As much as possible, have siblings in different rooms. Double all your tech to allow this - two tablets for example. If you only have two bedrooms, let one have use of your room after school and evenings.

Separating them and providing tech will give you a calmer home, to better allow you to consider long term improvements

Thank you so much for all your kind comments and advice. I wasn’t completely sure what kind of responses I was going to get here but I’m really grateful that you have all been as nice as possible.
Its nice to hear that I’m not a bad mum because it seems to be something I beat myself up for.

I have spoken to my support worker and she has asked the charities psychologist for help so we’ll hopefully hear back from her next week, my step dad is taking the kids for the weekend.

hopefully things will get better soon,
I wish I could reply to you all. I’ll look at some things that everyone’s suggested and try and find something that works.

thank you all so much ❤️❤️❤️

@Bigteapot very best of luck, you had the guts to get yourself and your children out and you'll get through this too. I'm really glad you've spoken to your support worker and hope that you get a break this weekend.

Gosh it sounds like you have taken on a lot of blame. I think you sound like a wonderfully caring parent - you are worried about your behaviour, not many parents would take that ownership. Kudos to you.
Have you heard about cold shower therapy? The cold causes the fight/flight response, and you kinda train yourself to bring your adrenaline down. The more you practise the easier it gets (when ur out of the shower and triggered the automatic calming kicks in). Research indicates that in as little as 6 showers (6 consecutive days) massive improvements in emotional regulation. Such a simple and easy thing to try!

OP there is a lot of free, remote counseling available online as a result of the pandemic, while you are waiting other intervention I would try to reach out for that. I am so sorry for what you have been through, I can't imagine how hard that is. I don't have the same experience but I am really mindful that I don't want to be a punitive parent that reacts strongly to minor slights because my dad was that way. When I was a nanny, and now that I have my own child, I try to just wait to respond when something happens that irritates me, while I have that second to pause I ask myself "is this something I should get upset over?" If no, no need to respond further, just move on, if yes, what is a practical, reasonable response to the irritation?

That probably sounds really trite when you're in the thick of it and doing everything on your own, no one has that kind of patience all the time! But I feel like giving yourself a break where you don't HAVE to respond instantly and just taking that quiet internal moment is kind of a gift you can give yourself to bring your stress down. Instead of saying "I must react the right way" reframe it as "I'm going to wait to react for a moment"

Maybe at the dinner table you could also start talking as a family about what it means to be a team and how you all have to work together and ask the kids for ways to work together. Then when they are acting up you could ask them how can work together to make this moment better? To kind of give them a moment for self-reflection too. They're still going to be little shits sometimes but maybe you can bring down the number of incidents both on your side and theirs.

You're all traumatised and very reactive right now.

This means everything feels like a personal attack, for all of you.

You all need to work on trust. You need to take the lead here. I agree with the suggestion that you can all spend time together relaxing. This will help you and the children to come together under your lead and co-operate together to make some enjoyable family time.

Find something simple you can all do together - for instance, making a complicated jigsaw puzzle with music everyone likes in the background, or sitting and listening together to Harry Potter books on tape. Making eye contact and staying mentally connected to each other is important and this is easier when there's no visual distraction like a tv. Try to avoid watching screens together until after you have all reconnected with each other for a few months. After a few weeks you could introduce some new activity like yoga or pilates or a dance on youtube which you could all try together. Sometimes when you all learn try to learn something new and fail it can give a chance to laugh together and help each other out.

If you have access to cooking facilities/equipment for baking, try getting them together to help make something simple which you can then eat together. It could be as simple as American style pancakes with honey to dip them into, or a fruit salad. Each DC should take a turn stirring or flipping or peeling or cutting. When you're all sitting together, you can talk to them about how much you love their company and cherish the time you spend together.

If you have access to paper, pencils, markers, coloured pencils, encourage the children to spend time drawing, and stick their artwork on the walls. This is a quiet activity, also one where they can make a visual representation of themes that are bothering them, or wishful pictures showing scenes of peace, harmony, etc. You can talk to them about their pictures, ask what they've drawn, ask about the feeling behind the pictures, colours, scenes.

If you can afford it, could you try one of those team/ bonding outdoor facilities where they offer ropes courses you cold do together?

Keep on trying to engage the DCs. Don't be discouraged if they are not co-operative. It's going to take persistence until they trust that they are not alone in the world and having to fight their own corner all the time. The more peaceful interactions and calmness you can shoehorn into your days, the better. They will eventually build up a store of positive experiences which will give them hope that more good family times will happen.

If the children are at each other's throats, don't rush in yelling "Stop it/shutup/what the F* are you doing!" Try to be calm. Remind yourself they're feeling upset and angry about a lot of other stuff, not whatever specific thing they are fighting about, and part of their problem is that life is unpredictable and they are powerless. Acknowledge that they're both feeling angry or upset, and invite them to come and talk to you when they have big feelings. Encourage them to find a way to resolve arguments in a way that is fair. Help them to visualise emotions as different zones they enter and leave. Anger is a red zone. Peacefulness and quiet focus on some activity is a blue zone, bouncing off the walls energy is a green zone, sadness is purple, hopelessness is grey, loneliness/missing people or things is orange, etc. You can discuss these zones at a time when they're quiet and receptive and introduce the concept of moving out of one zone and into the other instead of telling them to control themselves, stop fighting, etc - eg. from red to grey to orange to blue.

Try really hard when you find yourself stressed and at the point of losing it to remind yourself "This Too Shall Pass". You can count backwards from 20 or switch on the song "Let it be" in your head. Calm is contagious. Keep your voice steady and low, try not to shout.

Watch your body language, monitor your thoughts, identify if you tend to catastrophise or let your responses be guided by fear, and take control if you do. Try to get in a period of deep breathing for yourself every day, maybe a few times a day for a while. Sit, maybe light a candle, maybe sit near a plant or favourite picture, close your eyes, relax your body, and do some conscious breathing. Put your hand on your heart, feel it beating.

And also:

Keep a diary of your own feelings, your own responses to everyday stress, and also little things that bring joy into your life, including funny or kind things your children say or do. This really helps you to reflect and learn, and to see the balance between the positive and negative in your life.

It doesn't need to be long, wordy entries. Bullets are fine. You can write little notes of encouragement to yourself in your journal too.

from a practical point of view are you eligible for free or heavily subsidised holiday clubs so there is some structure to the school holidays and you get a bit of a break. The council will have details.