Thanks for replying OP.
Yes I understand that your ex has behaved in a hideous way and it’s so awful having someone who can really destroy us from the inside-out because they are inside our lives and homes and families. Horrendous.
What I meant by home was the home that you have now with your children, not the old place before the split. I’m sorry that it’s been hard to move on from that, it’s shit, it really is, but for children, what their home is, is where their mum is, and their bedrooms are, isn’t it?
And yes, I’d hope it’s where their other parent is, but sadly that doesn’t always happen and it doesn’t seem to have happened in your case (or mine for that matter!), so really, all they have is you.
So, home is very much where the heart is isn’t it? Where the love and security is? Where they belong, where your family is, and where their family is.
I get that you’re mourning the life and the house your husband ripped apart a few years ago. I get that you cannot rebuilt in the way you want, and I get it bloody hurts! I get that, because, like quite a few on mumsnet, it’s happened to us.
It’s smashed dreams and lost futures. Add in ill health and it’s a living nightmare. I get it. Really, really, I do.
If it wasn’t for DS, I’d have killed myself a few years ago. The pain, my physical deterioration which ripped away my independence and ability to pick myself up from the hole my abusive exhusband left me in, and the grieving for the close family that died of what I eventually will... well, I think, without wanting to do the ‘my life’s shit too dance’ (!), I can to a certain extent, I think , I can feel your pain.
But I had to carry on as DS needed one parent to give him the love and care he deserved. And that was me. Whether I liked it or not.
Even if it was the hardest thing and I don’t get it right all the time. And I often feel terrible for not being able to give him the life I thought I would, or be the mother I hoped I would be... but, it’s not his fault so you just have to carry on and be as good as you can be.
And yes I needed psychological help too, and still do actually, as I’m just about to start a next round of therapy focusing on some really tough stuff I’ve not been ready to get to before now.
It all takes time.
But you do need your hook to keep you trying to get better. To keep you hoping that maybe thing can get a tiny bit better. That you deserve to live in a happier, kinder way?
I’m worried that that your little bit of will to change, to hope, to struggle and not accept that this is it... well, I’m wondering where it is?
For me, it’s DS, I cannot let this be it for his sake.
I’m a bit worried that you can’t seem to feel linked to your children...
What I’m worried about with your posts is that it kind of feels like you can’t focus on your children’s pain and feel it beyond and separately than your own.
I asked you how your boy felt, thinking he might be bipolar is such a big scary thing for him to be thinking. But it’s like you can’t feel his pain. And that’s very very sad. For you, and for him.
Out of everything you’ve written about on here, I’d say that’s one of the sadness and most broken things. And I wonder if you can see it?
Will you get angry at me for saying this? Will you search my history to hit back? Because that feels like something someone very defensive would have to do, to protect themselves. Or to show anger to divert from anything else. Hiding in anger seems to work well as a defensive mechanism. And as a way of staying still at the moment maybe as well?
Sooo... this is me hoping you can still read on through the need to protect yourself, maybe you can hear me still cos I’m really not being mean, promise!
It feels like you’re a jar so brim full of hurt and pain and rage and disbelief, that you can’t see or feel or hear anything beyond your borders.
Like, you’re stuck in this glass jar which is all covered with horrible awful stuff that is just too unspeakably dreadful for you to deal with (like... blood and gore and electric snakes whipping through quick sand and mud). How can you ever get past that to interact with anything on the other side? How could anyone?
But your babies are out there calling you (even if they look like hulking great teens now, they are still your babies)... and nice things are out here, like cotton sheets and tea pots and sunrises and green mowed grass. But you can’t get to any of this.
It feels to me like you are trapped in a hellish type of world and I’m not hating you for it. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to have to live in there...
Or... I’m tired and have a waaaay too over active imagination and you’re fine! :)