Crepeys on the Verge of an Examination Meltdown

[whattodoforthebest2]

Not sure if I should be starting the new thread as I'm the last poster on the old one - is this how it works?

Monty, my own dear DD2 is in a right state this morning. She gets into these utter tizzes. She and her sister have rotten colds, and seem to have worked their way through ALL the mini-packs of tissues. I tried being sympathetic and then said firmly to pick some up in a shop on the way to school (she is a perfectly competent nearly 12 year old). She wept some more.

I don't quite know what to do about her anxiety - I've posted about this before: it's kind of borderline in terms of serious concern, I think, certainly not at a CAMHS level but I must talk to school again about the counselling service there (where of course she presents as lovely calm competent child). She's always been someone quite easily overwhelmed by life. And I worry more because I don't want her to go down the road of my lovely sister, who has been quite incapacitated by mental health issues at times (I love my sister dearly and most of the time she is fab, btw).

A show choir! whats go for it, you won't be the only one a little bit embarrassed to start with, I would definitely give that a go!!

Talking of weight loss - I need to loose half a stone by yesterday. My stomach has just got worse over the last few years anyone else notice a massive shift in body shape between the ages of 40-50? Hands up if you're 50 plus and still wear a bikini...

I would quite fancy a show or pop choir if, as Rose says, anyone can learn to sing!

My belly is growing by the day I wore a bikini last year aged 49, doubt I'll need one this year in NZ!

Where I haven't worn a bikini since I had my first child, 27 years ago, other than a brief madness episode when I did the Southern Med thing about 5 years ago …thinking I'd look out of place in a one piece... yada yada yada. When I saw the photos after, this made sure I wouldn't wear one for another 27 years… It wasn't anything to do with my age at the time, though (49), it was to do with the fact I, personally, looked revolting…and yes, the (pre) menopausal body seems to have a shift in body fat. Well that's my experience any way. My problem is that I can't find any bits of me that I don't want to cover up these days…but I'm so not ready for these swim dresses that seem to be around. Even at my age!

Oh Monty I've been there with DD when she was younger and it was with a lovely trusted babysitter…not a teen, a mature lady. I was so embarrassed but DD phoned her to apologise (DD spat at her…bet that makes you feel better…. Doubt your DD did anything quite so heinous...) and it was ok after. Hopefully your childminder will see it in the round…all part of looking after kids… they do mad stuff sometimes. and more

CV I used Next for the boys' suits when they were teens…

MI school counselling services seem to be very good and certainly at my DC schools seem to be accessed by lots of the students at one time or another. It isn't necessarily the writing on the wall for MH problems…life is anxiety provoking for pre teens and teens nowadays…always was probably, but my generation bottled it all up, somehow.

I am going to have gel nails and a pedi to cheer me up. Last teaching gig tonight until I don't know when One good thing has happened, though. The theatre have just offered me a very acceptable hourly rate for teaching there from the Autumn Term. It has only taken nearly 12 years of voluntary work to achieve this….

MI, dd1 suffereed from horrendous anxiety from that age all the way through secondary, mainly related to transport, travelling etc. She still gets very tired travelling and gets quite overwrought. She relied on Bachs Rescue Remedy quite a lot. She was so keen to overcome it, she really fought it and won. We didn't go for outside help but the school was small and aware. We were also quite open to chatting about it and very mindful when going on holiday (the whole parking, then getting on and off an airport parking bus was excruciating). Ds is much more bottled up, but you can see when the stress is coming in his face.

We had an evening in A&E again last night. DH went to collect ds off his bus and they both came back covered in blood. A car had swerved onto their side of the road, smashed the wing mirror which had come in through dh's open window, smashed into him and ds. The car drove off.....but a very nice man came back to find them and offered to act as witness, which is great. DH is now glued up, but the cuts were frighteningly close to his eye.

Revision is very slow here - only two exams to do, but they are looming up very quickly. The problem with Foundation is that the incentive to achieve fab results for an application that will take place next year is very low....

beachy

Beachy -that must have been an awful shock for you, seeing them arrive like that.

MI - I think teen girls do have such a difficult time these days, perhaps more so than boys, who can often shrug off their worries (or perhaps that's just how mine were). The pressures on girls to look good, dress a certain way and be popular is so difficult - DD had a very bad time at 13/14, despite having lots of things going on outside school, which gave her confidence in many situations. She told me once that, having decided she didn't give a damn about being popular any more and wasn't going to try to ingratiate herself with certain people, things got a lot easier and suddenly the friendships formed more readily.

It's very worrying trying to work out how to handle it and it's such an important, formative time for them generally.

And who said BIKINI - fgs, behave yourself .

It takes a lot of bravery to wear one in your 50's. A friend wore a bikini top at a festival with me last Summer . I wouldn't have but all credit to her. It is different when you're abroad though - on a beach in Greece it looks strange wearing a one-piece (although far more elegant and easier to carry off), so I'll take one when I go in case I'm feeling reckless!

(Someone hand me a grip, will you? Or a mirror.)

Beachy - how awful!

DD2's always been like this, since a toddler: I've started to wonder sometimes and guiltily if I should have worked less (although they had a most fabulous childminder and a lovely life with a community of little friends). She's tiny - really little, could pass easily for 10 or even nine - and I think being so small and having an older sister who is able to negotiate school and friendships and out-of-school stuff makes it a bit worse. (DD1 isn't one of the Popular Crowd but gets on well with them, and has her own circle of slight oddballs who're all into performance stuff).

I am going to wear a bikini on holiday this year but I do notice the thickening middle. Even though my weight is the same and my stomach and thighs are subdued by vigorous Ladyjogging.

And though DD2 is (IMO) very pretty she doesn't strike people, I think, the same way as her sister (who is all wild curls and slim gorgeousness) does. Yet.

Goodness, Beachy, how horrible for your dh and ds. They must have been left very shocked, as well as suffering from the physical effects. How dreadful that the car didn't stop.

MI, I'm sorry to hear about your dd2's troubles with anxiety. And I can completely relate to your worries. I was going to comment extensively and then realised that I don't really have anything very helpful to say except that dd has (as you know) had some fairly tough times caused by anxiety and depression and she has always shied away from counselling. She has learnt some strategies for coping and she is much, much better than she was a couple of years ago. But still has a long way to go before she gets it under control. However, in all honesty, given that her dad was nuts and I have a 37-year history of MH probs, she's not doing too badly, frankly.

Oh Beachy, how scary. Glad it wasn't more serious.

MI, I agree with Rose - DD has had fabulous support from her school. The Mentors (as well as some senior staff) have been brilliant. Could you speak to the Form Tutor/HoY/Head of Lower School? I bet they have Mentors too.

Rose well done on the theatre teaching gig.

Oh yes, Rose, well done!

You're right; I have raised it with school counselling services before and I will do again.

MI, I don't think you can really pin it on anything. Dd1 was massively premature and there are quite a few studies that link prematurity to anxiety and depression. Hardly surprising when you get removed forcibly from your mother, put in a brightly lit place and have tubes and needles stabbed into you..... The transport fixation came about because she got stuck on a bus in Lewisham (I got off, she didn't ) and the noise, shouting and door banging of the other passengers.

Beachy hope they are both okay this morning!

ds can be stressy on occasions and definitely has lack of confidence (like me) - this is something I keep working on as I know it hampered me immensely and I don't want him to suffer the way I have.

Beachy - how horrible. Hope they are both OK this morning.

MI - DD1 gets into complete tizzes about the most minor of things. She is getting a bit better now. It is very odd, minor things trigger her madly, whereas quite major stuff, which you would expect to send her into meltdown, don't faze her at all. She had a yelling fit at me a few months back, because her train back to school was cancelled. She was under no time pressure, and there was another one in 20 minutes, but it was the absolute end of the world according to her. Yet she has been perfectly capable of negotiating the PITA journey when they have engineering work, of going to Clapham Junction, changing to the rail replacement bus there, and then back onto the train, at an unfamiliar station.

Bikini, ha. I haven't worn a bikini since I was 19, and my mother told me I was too fat for one then. Looking back at the photos, she was quite wrong, but my stomach should definitely not be bared these days. When do stretchmarks turn into "silvery, barely visible lines"? Because 14+ years on, I still look as if I have been savaged by a tiger with very large claws, and they're as red as they were 14 years ago. I showed them to a childless friend when I was drunk, and she swore then and there that she was never having children.

Hmm, I noticed today that the dog bite scar on my shin is nearly invisible now. So that's only, what 34 years. (GOD I AM OLD. I turn fifty TWO tomorrow.)

Crepeys, new and old, please cross everything, clutch everything, pray, light candles, send vibes, anything, for lovely friend who is having embryo transfer in the next few days.

In other news, the neighbour who often wanders naked into his garden is now having a fag in his pants. I feel like Alfred Hitchcock, peering from my window.

Beachy - that's awful - I do wish Karma would get the bastards who do this sort of this thing. Your DH must be very shaken up.

MI - DD2 was bitten by a dog on the shin last week. I suspect she will have a scar.

I haven't worn a bikini since children either but notice in the south of Spain they just don't care!

I'm off for a uni meeting with DD2's teachers now - I suspect they've got me down as a pushy parent. DD2 will be there as well - I hope they're not observing our dynamics.

Thanks for all your good wishes...ds is quite proud of his glass splattered scratches on his face. Coupled with the broken finger through sparring a couple of weeks ago, it's enough to trick the girls at school he's some scarred, super action hero .....

And dh has found the garage who is going to fix the car and he is most impressed. So all is good.

I definitely won't be wearing a bikini. My middle aged spread has been rampant in the last 6-9 months. I'm up for the burka thingy....

My middle is the only decent thing about me. No stretch marks, and still about 10 inches smaller than my tits and arse.

However, my legs are like too string bags filled with cold porridge, and always have been, so any kind of swimming costume, that doesn't involve trousers, is a nightmare.

Just done some GCSE invigilating. On the plus side, I noticed that the head invigilator had put the wrong finishing time on the wall. On the minus, I didn't notice that one student was writing with blue pen, which is Verboten. And blimey - some 16-year-old boys are gigantic. With full beards.

Since I have had to stop virtually all exercise except for dog-walking, I now look like Barbapapa from the neck down. Unfortunately, from the neck up, I am just a wizened, greying crone. This morning I had a physio appmt to discuss my back and I have been told I can't even do yoga for the moment. And in a couple of weeks, I have an appointment at the eye clinic to discuss the fact that my crepey eyelids are affecting my peripheral vision (the optician referred me after this year's annual sight test ). I'm going to get dh to build me a Victorian-style bathing machine, with a nice ramp so that the dcs can wheel me into the sea at Weymouth.

Trying frantically to catch up Crepesters...
Like the shiny (not so new) thread.
A big Hello to the newbies - I have questions... are you very crepey? Are you in the midle of exam hell too? How many offspring and what sort? Any pets (especially interested in any badly behaved dogs)? Specialist subjects? Can you tell I used to x examine people for a living?
Beachy - bloody hell, what a shock. Glad they're just a bit damaged.
Bikinis?? You're having a laugh. People would run screaming from east anglian beaches if i appeared in one, a bit like that famous scene in Jaws...

Pushing 60, quite large & wear a bikini when I want to. Don't care one bit anymore.

It's lovely.

Yes, I am probably the crepiest of all the crepes.

I am loving the light hearted approach to beachwear and that we all respect our differences. A bathing machine Stropps!!! What a bloody brilliant idea! Why on earth didn't I think of that? I wonder if we could customise a beach hut….
I'm weird but age, crepeyness, cellulite and scars really don't worry me. I am self conscious of my veins (3 lots of surgery but still got black smudges) and quite pure and simply I don't feel safe in a bikini owing to being unable to fit a quart into a pint pot..in my case.