SDTG - it just so of all spilled out somehow. It's nearly split dh and I up - and that's after nearly 38 years together. Also, he's just hit the age when his df, gp and an uncle died, which doesn't help his blood pressure. We just feel that, sooner or later, the strain of it all is going to kill us both.
So, what my 'd'm didn't manage, dd'll finish.
If I sit opposite dh at the table, I'm in 'her' place and apparently 'I know she always sits there', so I do in the week when she's at school (weekly boarder) but can't at weekends. She refuses to eat with us, but suddenly decides to come into the kitchen and shoves me into the table to get to the fridge.
It's highly likely that she's got pda - pathological demand avoidance. We've just had her school report - 'catastrophic' was the word. She's below average in every subject, sits at the back laughing and joking with her friends - that's the reason she goes to school - to be with her friends. She's gone on and on about being at 'the best art school' in France, but doesn't seem to want to stay as she hasn't worked enough. To be fair, she's been worried about failing since the Proviseur mentioned that not all in her year could pass into the next year.
Otoh, she just doesn't seem to care - she knows that if she repeats the year we won't get grants - this year they came to nearly ?500 - her books cost ?220 and her art materials were another ?300. Add to which, every time she misses the train it's a 150-mile trip - thankfully there aren't any tolls on the motorway. Tuesday, she has to be at school at 8.20am for her first lesson, and I'd bet money on her missing the train, possibly on purpose. Either that, or being so stressed she'll refuse to go unless she's taken.
That's how she ended being admitted to hospital in 2009.
If I tell her off for rudeness in front of her friends, she'll tell me I'm being a complete bitch, but she always acts up when they are there. We get shut out of the kitchen while she lets her friends ruin professional-quality pans that we can't afford to replace. Last time she sneered at me 'isn't it time to take one of your tablets mother dear?'. One of the local gendarmes - angrily hopping from one foot to another on the landing while she delayed dressing as she didn't want to go to hospital - told me that if she were his, he'd give her a 'claque'. I've almost tried once or twice - but I get hit twice as hard - at least. I'd like to see him or any of his colleagues try - she'd put them in hospital.
Imagine a foul-mouthed, 5'7" 3-year old on steroids, that weighs about 16stone, and who feels absolutely no remorse, with no brakes and you get the picture.
I'm knackered - I need to do some practice for a lesson on Weds, but am too frightened to use the piano at weekends because of the verbal/physical violence that can result. At this rate, I'm going to get kicked out of the music school I'm at - it was a favour to take me on as a pupil, at all.
One of her favourite phrases when she was 3 was "the deal is", and we knew we were going to get screwed. Stupidly, we laughed - that stopped a long time ago. With her having cousins in their 40s, and no family support, and being our first, we didn't realise she was so out of line with 'ordinary' 3 year olds. She behaves as if she is the adult in charge, and we are her children with no entitlement to anything. It's the manipulation that gets me - especially when she gives us 'dutiful daughter' kisses in front of her French friends' parents. Grrrr.
Must go to bed - I've got the joy of taking her to church tomorrow - it's a 2-hour drive. When I said that what I'd have like to do on Mothering Sunday was to go to church, she told me I was a fucking bitch, and stormed off, so I didn't get to go. This is apparently her way of saying sorry for that - or keeping the light she got in her bedroom, but will be on pins in case she does something deliberate to show me up as she knows it's important - like texting all through the service - not getting ready so that I get there late. [wrenches out what's left of increasingly-white hair in anticipation]
In hospital, she wrote the ladies who brought her lunch loving notes, while screaming at me to "va te faire enculer" - sort of means go and get fucked - but up the arse. She was just 12 then, and has become quite a lot nastier.