Help me, please!

[Stepmumma1]

Hi,

I'm not sure where else to turn.

This isn't a problem, I just don't know what's going on in my head and body right now and I'm kinda scared because I don't understand and I can't make sense of it.

I've been blending for 3.5 years, with DH for 4 years and married for 18 months. He is wonderful, SS15 is wonderful. I have bipolar and they support me and love me and help me when I have my moods one way or the other. SS15 has lived with us about 5-6 months full time after being parentified at the other home, he came to us depressed, overwhelmed and hating life especially BM. We worked with him to help him and now he has his depression under control, normal overwhelmed for a teenager trying to make sense of life and doesn't hate life, he looks forward to one day getting a girlfriend and married and having kids of his own.

We are extraordinarily close. I've slowly been developing a stepparent love for him, wanting him to grow up independent and loved, wanting to help etc.

I had a chat with him when he first arrived about what kind of relationship he wanted with me and what he wanted our relationship to look like, parent, friend, mentor, fun aunt etc. He surprised me by saying he wanted me to parent/be a mum. It wasn't always easy as I'm sure parents can attest and sometimes I looked forward to his weekend at his mothers so I had some space but generally I loved having him around.

So that's the back story.

Now to what happening now, we were in the car with DH and I made a slip up, Freudian slip, and said to DH "our son" I apologized and corrected myself but SS15 surprised me and basically said that I'd parented him enough now to call him my son.

this was last night and I'm still in shock, what not helping is for about a week and a half I've been having these really strong, like scary strong feelings....I don't even know how to describe it, but I'll try. I want to protect SS15 and love him fiercely, I want to see him grow up into an amazing man and I see him as just incredible. It's like my heart wants out of my chest and I don't know how to process all this emotions, I can't even describe all these emotions. I don't know, I feel like something is wrong but I don't want to be without him as my son/stepson....I don't know

I've had fantasies about call him son and him calling me mum but now i've been allowed to call him son everything just seems so real and these extra emotions which I can't even describe they are so strong.

I'm also worried about BM kicking off and that it's unfair on her. SS15 has always maintained she did nothing for him but bring him pain and she's called him a disappointment which breaks my heart because he is amazing.

I'm confused, am I going mad? or what is going on?

Help me.

Its love :) i think with bipolar (not 100% sure as dealt with different mental health) but can feelings be intensified and experienced stronger then average?

You cant stop what your experience of emotions are, but you can control what you do and how you react with it.

So enjoy the acceptance and love him. But just ensure you dont cross boundaries and maintain respect for his mother and others.

Yeah, I figured that one. It's the sheer intensity that caught me off guard....I can't do these feeling justice by describing them.

I do have a tendency to feel more with bipolar, but I did think that was mostly negative stuff like depression and rage.

Yes all emotions will be intensified..its just sods law the negative emotions are more prevelant 😂 it can trigger mania though,like bad events can trigger episodes, so can good ones, so hopefully your meds atm are full proof.

Most, if not all parents say that after their child is born they have overwhelming amounts of love for their child.

You are doing the same, just you didn't meet him at birth, well done on being a great mum.

Nope, what you have there is an amazing bond with a child who has wanted that bond too. Completely normal.
I've been with my OH 13 years and he has a son with ex who is 14. We have two kids ourselves. His son doesn't have the best relationship with his own mother, and regularly rocks up here after school to chill (he texts her to let her know). We have great chats, he'll text me if he needs someone to talk to and doesn't feel like texting either his mum or dad (I'll tell his dad he's spoken to me in confidence and he'll honour it but I need to keep him in the loop obviously).
He occasionally slips up and calls me mum, but soon corrects himself. I treat him no differently to my own children, and they don't refer to him as anything other than a brother because that's what he is. No half brother, just brother.
You know how good the bond is within your family unit; don't question it. It's an amazing thing to have such a beautifully blended family 😊

Could it also be the intensity of the responsibility? His own mum seems to have let him down emotionally and even before this statement apparently you've been (unwittingly, just by showing love and pride in him) treating this emotional wound. It can hit you a bit when you realise how important you are to them.

I just wonder if that's part of it. When my now teenage stepdaughter wasmuch younger and asked if she could call me 'Stepdad' (we hadn't pushed it at all to let her take it at her pace), the depth of her delight at being told "of course" hit me pretty hard (in a positive way of course.) For the next few nights I had constant nightmares that I was supposed to be caring for her and failed. Really dramatic stuff like not being able to hold onto her during a tsunami and her being swept away.😳

Their own dad isn't absent, he has them every other weekend, but by his own addmitance since he withdrew completely before the split - basically sat in his shed and drank until the kids were in bed. And then was mainly absent for a year or so afterwards. I went into the relationship expecting to just kinda be a stable figure, as time went on I was clearly filling in for something important and like you, I found the emotions very hard to... I don't know, file properly in my head? Even though they were happy ones.

Sorry if I rambled a bit.