TW Yes I need to talk veyr badly..
.....I get quite a lot of, ''I am alone and lonely and will be for the rest of my life, because you are an extraordinary woman and I want you back, and will never love anybody else,'' and it is very easy to make me feel bad about myself. Because I have my own problems.
And the truth is, however badly H has handled things, DS is a monumentally difficult child to be around and I have struggled with him from a young age. He was born disattisfied. If you buy him something, it is the wrong colour, if you give him pocket money, he wants more. He seems to thrive on conflict and chaos and this was the case long before the problems with H and I arose. I the end, it became one of the major splits betwen us.
I have had DS seen by numerous people, who say he might be on the very lower end of the spectrum for ADHD and/or aspergers syndrome. The specialists observe him and say with a wry smile that we do seem to have a challenge on our hands.
His mentor spent little time with him, was taken in by DS's charming exterior, as were camhs and recommended parenting skills and 'breathing' with him. Without judging him, H simply can not manage him and in all honesty a lot of the time I struggle. He is a social hypochondriac and for 3 yrs (before the rift with H and I) we have had him analyse the way everyone looks at him, treats him, talks to him, what is fair or unfair, he appears to thrive on conflict and absorbs energy. If we are in a family group, he often wants to be the centre of everybodies attention and disrupts things to get it.
He has many many fine qualities but is very complex. And I recognise that he is just a child. He is coming home for lunches at the moment and I greet him with a smile and we laugh and hug, but to be honest, it is hard work and he is obsessed with having issues.
We have nearly resolved his bullying problems, and someone happened to mention 'peer pressure', so now I get
'you don't understand mum, I am under a lot of peer presssure.'
He takes my breathe away, but sometimes you just need to breathe normally.
So I empathise with H. Even DS's older brother who thinks the world of him has talked of how difficult DS is to manage, and he comes from a large family with lots of children, His mum works with children with special needs, and provides short term foster care. My mum and dad think he is great, but wouldn't offer to have him for the day.
And yes, he feels the rejection, knows he is hard work, but the bloody specialists all miss the point because time after time, they see him at his best because he is getting the attention he craves. And no-one will spend enough time with him to get his trust to find out what is making him tick a little out of synch. His mentor spent more time with me to the point that I now have concerns about his professionalism. And I thought I was doing the right thing for my son. But he pays me compliments and took DS out no more than 2 or 3 times.
There is a history of pschizophenia in H's family and I feel sick at the thought that we are completely missing the point, because I think as a mother, you just know when there is something not quite right in your childs world.
How the fuck am I supposed to handle all of this? I don't need to be making a complaint against a social worker FFS.
So I don't answer the phone until I am sure who it is, Get 2 children to 2 different schools, try to keep my business going, do all the housework (H and I were very balanced about that), Ds will have his rages for some time, DD is very very good but I have to make sure she comes out of this balanced. Fit in a busy term of school activities, keep fending off the 'nosy' questions from people who I know do not have my best interests at heart. And anything else that life throws at me randomly.
I am not feeling sorry for myself, I keep trying to take it in my stride, but when does it stop? When do I stop coping, and start just living? I don't even want much for myself,
And guilt because somewhere down the line of all the shit that was going on, I connected with someone that under different circumstance I would very much liked to have got to know. And even though I know it isn't true, it feels like this is all my fault because of that fact.
I have some fabulous friends and MN is ace but I don't feel like I have much left to keep giving, but life won't stop just because I have reached that point.
But I get up, look at the day, and just keep hoping that somewhere down the line, I can look back and shudder at the memory and get on with life. A quiet, non complicated, non confrontational life where I can be who I want, if I can remember who that is by the end of all this.
But Ds has had a bad day at school so I need to brace myself for the full force of his unhappiness.