Crepes of Froth

[MaybeBentley]

Bum! Just join a thread and lock it down! So I'll start the next one.

Herbs I also have that on inner thigh.i have put a cardigan on today because of upper arm malaise.(even though it is already 26degrees
Have started kneading pizza dough and am boiled already.

Addle, ha, call that self-indulgent? Nooo. Upper arms? Don't talk to me about them. I have just spent 18 months learning the hard way that no amount of press-ups will fix mine. Which is dispiriting. I can't do HRT as synthetic hormones send me even madder than I am anyway. I'm 48 and a half but look 92. Especially after a night of no sleep worrying about my utter inability to fix my dd/ understand what the school expect me to do when she refuses point-blank to cooperate.

It's sort of good to know that some of you have been through similar phases with your (now older) teens. I have also noted that there is a definite "fashion" for self-harming amongst teens these days, which is very depressing. It's very difficult to get any tougher with dd than we already are, as she doesn't have a social life (doesn't go out, doesn't invite people round, won't celebrate her b-day) and appears to be more of a lurker online that anything else. Punishment appears to feed her masochistic tendency for self-sabotage rather than achieve much else.

She has gone to school today having refused to do any preparation At All for her delayed French oral exam and is saying that she won't turn up to it and if she does turn up, she won't say anything. This is part of her actual GCSE. She has the German one next week and a battery of other tests that she is equally refusing point blank to do anything about.

You do NOT look 92, Stropps! But I know what you mean about feeling it.
I wish we could just move away to some remote island in the middle of nowhere (with no internet connection!)and keep our teens safe till the awfulness is over.

Maybe we should join Maryz's troubled teens thread.

Cremo, I may PM you later!

Please do

Just skimmed through the thread having missed a few days.

CV - sounds absolutely awful. Isn't there some procedure that can stop the bleeding D&C or something like that. You must be exhausted.

All those with body image problems - it's the sunny weather and having to get out bits that we normally don't show. I hate myself! My despair is just added to by the DD's who just fling on anything and look gorgeous. It sort of ousts any délusions that I'm not middle aged. I can't even find nice linen trousers as no hips only mummy tummy and wide shoulders so I look like a top heavy bloke.

As a post-script to my woe, woe and thrice woe posts, I should probably add that dd's isshoos are generally well-camouflaged when out of the home and any hoo-hah is reserved for the home arena and specifically directed at me. The family who took her camping in France last summer say she is lovely and wonderful with their 4 small children and she gets on perfectly with their teenage dd. They want to take her again for 3 weeks this summer.

Sorry, it's all me-me-me today. I am knackered and listless. And I have a bunch of roofers doing expensive things to the chimney about 8 foot above my head.

Still, the chickens appear to be happy in their new home. (Someone pls reassure me chickens do not suffer from adolescence)

I am feeling a little brighter today, still a bit snotty with cold, and in and out of the loo, but the GP appointment is in sight..... He's a popular chap, and off soon on a 6 week sabbatical, so I only managed to get an appointment tomorrow by nicking one DH had made (his dodgy knee will have to wait).

It has been therapeutic downloading my woes to you lovely lot; DH is mildly sympathetic, but to be honest is blissfully ignorant of the whole "period" thing. Like most men....

This "fashion for self-harming" thing is very interesting. It's true to say that I had never even heard of it until I was well past my teens, and certainly didn't encounter it at boarding school (anorexia was the mental illness du choix, if anything). Have any of you been watching that series about teens and mental illness?

Terrible-teens-wise, our biggest challenge in the coming months will be getting DS back on track for Y9. He had the most appalling school report, dreadful attainment, minimal effort....so we are setting up a meeting with his HoY to agree "strategies". Y8 was an experiment in letting him manage his own time at home, organising his own homework etc. and it has not been a success, so the XBox will be weekends only from September, and DH's "stick" approach will be replacing my unsuccessful "carrot".

CV, I have yet to hear a good story about a boy at secondary school (apart from a friend whose son is very keen) - they all seem to be a disaster AFAICS!

I am getting dp to install software on ds's pc to limit time spent on it. He can 'earn' extra by doing jobs around the house etc.

BTM - thanks for that - mucho comfort as I have all that to come!!

BTM - mine's starting secondary school in September - I'm already worried! His end of year teacher said "he's very lazy". Direct translation from French - they don't mince their words.

I'm going to confiscate the computer and DH has discovered a thing where we can switch on and off internet in different rooms so we don't have to suffer when we ut him off.

I threatened to throw out the telly on Sunday. Admittedly this was because I couldn't reach the books DP had carefully and alphabetically stacked behind it, but my children's ability to veg in front of it is driving me demented. It is their default - turn the telly on and veg. Their father appears to find nothing wrong with this . They slump, blanket-wrapped even in this heat, sunken-eyed in front of it and appear outraged if I object to the fact I'm cooking their supper while they are in front of the Big Bang Theory.

Watching crappy TV seems infinately less problematic than social media.

CV - a friend in the States has endometrial ablation and said it changed her life during menopause. She was knackered and anaemic after a number of episodes like yours. Hope you get somewhere with dr tomorrow.

Stropps - I think it's v good news that dd is nice to other people and well-adjusted around little kids and teenage ones. I realise it's shit for you that all her angst is home-focused, but better that way than her not being able to manage outside the house at all. Interesting about the self-harm thing being a fashion, I can see how that could easily come about, but I also think that anxiety and challenging behaviour has always been huge for teens, it just that we are so much more aware and ready to talk about it now. That may have knock on effect of stirring ideas up in some teens, but on the whole I think it is a good thing. I wish someone had asked me how I was feeling when I started stealing things and pulling out my eyelashes (among other things ) but I was just punished. Years later when I found out that other people did Bad Things too I was (a) very relieved and (b) furious that no one noticed I was in pain. Crem's boundaries sound good - being there for her but not so she can have it all her way. Could she be persuaded to get a summer job, or do some volunteering? Some kind of organised joining in thing? My own teen years were turned around by a church youth group - welcoming, non-judging, but with, obviously, high behaviour standards. I'm not suggesting religion is the answer, btw, it was just a space that wasn't school or home and had kind people there who understood that few members would carry on being churchgoers but tried to help them anyway.

Herbs - sorry dp being critical. I am lucky in that dh rarely does this (and when he does I fall apart and/or get shoutily defensive, neither of which is very grown up) but he does do the manly sulking thing which makes me feel equally terrible. We need to communicate better - I envy some American couples I know who go for a relationship MOT and counselling - not becasue they want to split up, but because they want to improve what they have. Of course this would involve me having to admit that not everything I do is completely perfect.....

Any MI - have only just managed to look at the photo you posted. It is truly, truly fabulous.

God yes, I do take your point. It was my personal derangement of Sunday

Hatty, I look at DD1's reflection beside me in the mirror and feel quite suicidal. I look like Frankenstein's monster (my hair is doing weird things) while she looks...fabulous.

thank you everyone for sympathies - was so embarrassed at self, had to leave the house for several hours

herbs and crem - spot on re arm/thigh - i wore a jacket all day sunday for that v reason, stoutly refusing to remove it as I slowly melted

although i agree that social media is much, much more worrying, my dd's ability to lie on the sofa and watch TOWIE/M.inC. for hours on end drives me DEMENTED (small house, you can't get away from it) and she then points out that I am clearly angry because I am old and unsuccessful and should not offload my angst on her. some truth in that but still not fun or fair. she also looks fabulous in everything but I quite like that when I'm not looking in the mirror

and i do think daughters often seem to need to struggle really hard against their mothers for a while

God Addle - children can be so cruel sometimes - don't take it to heart - sometimes they really know how to push the buttons. I usually finish by telling mine that I hope their children give them as much stick. You're probably right about daughters and struggles though.

Mine dont watch too much TV - computer is a big problem. Esp with DS.

MI - the mirror thing pretty much sums it up - especially when DD1 is trying on something of mine - just to show how much better it can actually look

Oh Addle how do they learn how to be so cruel.

My mother used to get on my case relentlessly about me carrying cups of coffee upstairs and it splashing all over the walls. Did I care. Did I fuck
It's come back to haunt me as dd now DOES THE SAME THING and it sends me over the edge. Ha serves me right.

Evening All,
Sorry to read everyone's woes and tribulations. Perhaps a mass angsting will be therapeutic / cathartic...

50 and thereabouts is not, I repeat NOT, ancient.
It is only right and proper that our teenagers are gorgeous visions of youthful beauty besides us even if it is painful and very provoking that their loveliness is totally wasted on them... we are their betters in experience and wisdom (I hope).

I do think teenage boys and their mothers seem to generally have less agonising relationships than girls and theirs, well judging by my own experience and that of my friends. It's not plain sailing by any means but somehow more straightforward. I wonder whether girls and their mothers have to go through this in order to properly separate and allow girls to grow up and become independent... boys just replace their mother's central importance with girlfriends (not all of them of course...).

Don't underestimate the value of how much you all care about doing your best. The very fact we are struggling but able to think and talk about it counts for a lot IMO.

Hang on in there....

Addle, there is NOTHING wrong with your arms. They are perfectly slim and normal (unlike mine which are a peculiar combination of toned on top and massively bingo-winged under - DS used to love wobbling them!) Just wear what you want - no-one else will be judging you

Luckily DD has not yet made rude comments about the way I look. She is petite with a lovely curvy figure and really pretty and I feel really proud of her (is that shallow?) And she is way too small for my clothes!

And I actually got quite into TOWIE when DD was watching it

Wilbur, poor you. But you came through it - that should give us all hope. And the rest of us with less than perfect childhoods. Actually, did any of us have a perfect childhood?

Ruby, your birthday sounds lovely. And a house full of flowers - perfect

Talking of flowers, DP bought me a lovely lot as a peace offering. I shall not be bought off, however, and will start the fight back at each barbed criticism, sulk or tut.

I should have seen it coming. In the early days of our relationship I asked if he could put the sharp knives into the dishwasher cutlery basket point down, rather than up, as it made me fear for my wrists. He went off on a self-pity whinge, saying wasn't he a good boyfriend in other ways, did he beat me up, etc. I stood there open-mouthed. Whenever he's being a dick I remind him of dishwasher-gate.

Lol herbs. I have had a similar conversation about dh's grass cutting recently as he never does the edges.no , just the middle. Woe betide anyone who criticises his macho- grass cutting esprit.now I have to get down on hands and knees and pull the grass fringe out by hand( in major rage and sullen huff obv.)
No humour here . Oh no.

I specialise in passive-aggressive hoovering of the edges of the carpet, and grooves between stairs, for the very same reason!

Chums seem to be upping their game a bit - this looks almost wearable, although it is made of polyester. I wonder who buys their shoes though? And the rest of their clothes My mother is 80 and wouldn't be seen dead in any of them.

Herbs at dishwasher-gate!

As our garden is waiting, desperately, for a make-over, trimming round the edges isn't currently a priority, but I have the same problem. Luckily the cleaner does all the hoovering!

MrsS, what ARE you doing looking at the Chums catalogue? Sadly my DM has been wearing Chums-stylie shoes all her adult life. She is now 82 so they are age-appropriate now!