The Waiting Game

I wonder if I will wait for the rest of  my life for some of the feelings, and apprehensions, that I have about The Boy to go away.  I know it is not going to happen today or tomorrow but I am not actively waiting.

It does not stop me being with him, interacting with him, parenting him.  It just like a bad taste in my mouth.  “Bad” is not even a great word for it, more like that taste that happens when you ate a few hours ago, food got caught between your teeth and didn’t floss afterwards.  A quick floss, a drink of water, or brushing your teeth gets rid of it and you quickly forget that it happened in the first place.  That is probably closer to the way I feel about him at times.

Much of our poor interaction now arises out of those moments of apprehension, out of those feelings I have that reference to The Time That Went Before.

Maybe some day they will go away, maybe they won’t, but it is my job to make sure that they don’t derail us or the progress we have made or prevent us from making more progress.

The Boy Has An Infection

And he won’t let me treat it.  Treating it requires holding part of him still and cleaning the wound.  And he won’t let me.

I have to admit I am all fired up on the inside.

How dare he?
I am his mother!

We are going to the GP to have it seen to medically.

How dare he?
I now have to shell out at least €50 to have something done that I could do myself.

Why can’t he see my logic?  Why won’t he let me treat it?

Because he doesn’t trust me… and he has every right not to.

I am still all fired up inside but there is a little voice coming from the corner of my brain, just behind my right ear, saying:

If someone had manhandled me, the way I have manhandled The Boy in the past, I would not let them near me with a 10 foot barge pole.

Of course it is right.  And of course I must listen to it.  Not just listen to it, but respect it.

I have two choices.  I can force him to do the thing I want to do, or I can admit that I am responsible for the lack of trust and work to help him rebuild his trust in me.

I am going with the latter.  It is hard work, because it is the unfamiliar path, but it is the right path.

So we are going to the GP and he is not getting a lecture about wasting money.

I will consider the €50 another payment in the hire purchase agreement The Boy and I have for safe touching.

Does The Caterpillar Die?

I read all the time.  I read to calm myself down.  I read to explore.  I read to learn.  I read to grow.

As a result of reading so much I often can’t remember where I read things which means often I know what I read, but I can’t reference who wrote it. This makes quoting things awkward.

My current awkward quote has been #1 on the list for quite a while, as it gets referenced regularly.

The concept is that “change is akin to suicide”.  Bear with me on this one.

The self that I identify as, is a product of my beliefs, actions, intentions, expectations, goals, desires, etc.  They are all mine… regardless of their origin they are how I now identify.  They give rise to the standards that I set for ourselves, and often the ones I set for others.

In order to change, I must let go of something I used to believe to be true, valid and beneficial to me.  I have to stop being/believing that thing, in order to make change.  I have to stop being the self I used to be, in order to become the new self, in order to continue to grow and evolve.

What about the old self?  It was valid at the time.  It was constructed out of what I knew, with the best of intentions.  It was me.  I was it.  I am not that me any more though.  That does not make the old me wrong, it just didn’t have the latest software update, didn’t have all of the skills, information, knowledge and experience I have now.

I must let the old self die.  How do I peacefully let go of the old self, the old way of thinking?  How do I mourn for the familiarity of the old self?  How do I offer kindness and compassion to the old self, for the old self did the best it could with the information it had at the time?

After change, I am not what I used to be.  As long as I hold onto that old self I will never fully be the new me, as the old me is always there as an option, a fall back position.

How do I let the old self die?  I will be honest, I don’t know.  Have I mourned my own old self? Not as much as I should.  Do I at least know that I am not my old self any more?  That one I can give an emphatic yes.

Is my new self closer to the way I would like to live my life?  Yes, but I am aware that in time I will kill this self too as I continue to change and evolve.

So, am I a caterpillar who has become something new, something completely unrecognisable? Or am I a snake that has shed it’s skin in order to be a slightly different but largely similar being?

Does it matter?  Sometimes I think I am a snake.  Small changes, still me.  Sometimes I think I am the caterpillar.  Big changes, no longer recognisable.

Then I look back and see that all those small & big changes add up to a me that outwardly looks exactly the same, but inside is completely different.  I still have the same body, but my identity has metamorphosed more times than I care to think about.

All of those identities were valid at the time they existed.  Letting go of them is necessary for growth.  It is not a bad thing, but it is not an easy thing either.

To Forgive, Divine

Time has passed. Not as much time as went before but it has passed. Healing is slow. All the physical wounds are long healed. The emotional wounds take longer.

I see a photo of myself wearing glasses that longer exist and my breath catches. Just for a moment I’m back in the night that they stopped existing. They are one small example of the loss, the things that are not how they were.

Don’t take me up the wrong way, there are many things from the time that went before that I don’t miss. Sadly, there are many things I now know, or remember that I can never unknow.

Now I’m learning how to live with the things I cannot unknow. Learning how to be around The Boy without automatically remembering everything, without having hurt feelings for all of those things.

We have started talking about how having a brother who struggles with life has impacted The Brother and how it continues to.

Someday we will talk about how our history impacted on me.

Someday.

1:4:12:52:365:8760

1 year

4 seasons

12 months

52 weeks

365 days

8760 hours

That is how long has passed since I read a hastily written statement that I was sure wouldn’t work, as a last ditch attempt to end the omnishambles that was my parenting experience.

Much to my continued surprise, it worked.

It worked without a huge support team, with a support team that was 3/5 smaller than I expected it to be.

It worked.

Not The Best, Not The Worst Either

We didn’t find a solution to the problem. We didn’t suck it up, or blow up. We just gave up.

Not one for the win column but definitely not in the loss column. I think I need a new column 😃

We did as well as we could and we didn’t do as badly as we could have.

Learning To Suck It Up!

Many people have been referenced as saying that nugget of life wisdom.  Albert Einstein, Tony Robbins and Henry Ford to name a few.  I don’t much care to be honest, it is there to start a theory, not prove one so I don’t need all my citations in order.

For more than a year The Boy did what he had been doing. To the untrained eye it looked like he…

• Didn’t leave the house if he didn’t want to.
• Didn’t do household chores if he didn’t want to.
• Didn’t go to school if he didn’t want to.

Of course now I see…

• Didn’t leave the house because the stressor stopping him was not solved, or felt too huge to overrcome.
• Didn’t do household chores because he didn’t feel enough connection to the family unit to contribute on a practical level.
• Didn’t go to school because  the stressor stopping him was not solved, or felt too huge to overrcome.

What changed for me was seeing that he was having a hard time, not giving me a hard time.  That he didn’t want to feel bad.  Let’s be honest here, who would choose to feel bad ALL DAY EVERY DAY?  Who would choose headaches?  Or the resultant pain in your own body after you have made contact with another solid object?  Why would you choose that?

Consider the idea that it was simply a case of he had no idea what the alternative was and no one had come up with something that made sense for him.  Bribery works, but only if he is interested in the topic, because bribery really only takes you over the last few strides of the race.  It enables you to tip yourself from “almost there” to “there”, but you have to be almost there and that takes some work.  Screaming and shouting doesn’t work, other than to hurt your throat, raise your blood pressure, upset you and your child and break down trust that you have established with your child.

We are very fortunate that we have reached a position in our relationship where The Boy is open to ideas.  The screaming and shouting is not happening, on either side.  The name calling is not happening, on either side.  We are both safe in our home.

But what about that final hurdle.  What about the dentist?  He can see the logic of going but just can’t make the transition to attending an appointment.  What about the fact that his school jumper is too small?  He mentioned it to me once, I did a “we must do something about that” and then it didn’t present again until just before school and seemed out of the blue.  What about all of the things that I know he will benefit from the excursion but he can’t see past the threshold and really can’t make the leap from safe to unknown so he opts for safe.

I started telling them about my own experiences.  I often do things that wouldn’t be my first preference but I do them because they have to be done.  The space between not wanting to, and doing, is filled with a plate of “Sucking It Up”.  It is not a long term solution.  It is 2oz of imaginary/borrowed brave that can take you from sitting at home watching a video on YouTube to a pleasant outing with your mother.

Often the event is the long term solution.  Seeing what is actually on the other side of “Sucking It Up” allows you to better decide that SIU is worth it, which of course makes it easier to do the next time.

Sometimes SIU is something physical.  We wearing a non school uniform sweatshirt is better than not going to school.  Agreeing a (subject to change) timetable for an outing is better than having no idea how long the event will take.  Discussing what he is consenting to before the outing, but also discussing that things may come up in the moment and that one of the option for them will be SIU with future long term planning.

So this week he has been mixing it up.  He went to school in a non uniform sweatshirt.  He went to the dentist.  He went into the grocery store with me.  He visited relatives.

The events themselves proved to be worth the leap of faith he made, and were the long term solutions in and of themselves.  I know this won’t always be the case but for now we are working on sucking up the small things and making small changes in the process.

January is finally over

January has kicked my butt.  Christmas is over.  There is no doing to do other than wait for Spring to come.  The days are short, the nights are cold and the storms are frequent.

January has not been kind to my mental health.

I spend long periods of time alone with my thoughts.  Alone in the memories of the time that went before.  I know the past does not define me, and I can construct any future I want but when the past is firmly positioned in my memory, willing to pop up and remind me of all my wrong doings, I am at it’s mercy.

That my son is in the process of forgiving me for my horrible parenting is great for him, but does absolutely nothing for the relationship I have with the past, and sadly how it colours my present.

I read about moving on from guilt, and step two is typically “Forgive yourself” (after the “identify what you are guilty of” step one).  That is where I stop reading.  A lot like “stop taking it personally” I cannot move past “Forgive yourself” because I don’t, nor do I think I should.

January is finally over, but that does not mean that Winter is over, nor does tomorrow bring absolution for my sins.

Two Horses Came To My Pond

I still can’t make them ducks. I can’t even make them drink.

They are here, and they are, I think, admiring the water.

Caring For The Carer

Parenting is draining.  Emotionally, physically, financially, across the spectrum it is draining.

Look on the internet for ways to counteract the drain and you will be told to practice self care.  That is the point at which I zone out.

What happens when parenting a particular child is more draining than “usual”?  When more of the village is needed to support the child and their parent.  Who cares for the village?

Parenting a child who is wired differently, who lives with anxiety, who has a specific diagnosis very easily leads to social isolation where the resources available to the parent get smaller and smaller.  This often means the parent has one or two reference points, specific supporters, people who are not parenting the child but are in a direct supportive role to the parent.   Outside of that is, well, everyone else.

Being the supporter is, in it’s turn, draining but in different ways.

Often the supporter is the only route for “Everyone Else” to reach the parent.  So the supporter is getting it from both sides.  They are being strong for the parent, trying to provide the help that is needed, and also being a buffer for everyone else and their myriad of opinions.

This is not about supporting change, or encouraging it by using the supporter as a conduit.  It is simply about supporting the supporter while the status quo remains.

And that brings me back to the title.  How do you support the supporter?  How do you care for the caregiver’s carer?

The obvious answer?

Ask them what they need, and then provide it.
Don’t provide the care you would like to receive.
Don’t presume you know them better than they know themselves.
Don’t tell them what to do, what to say or how to care for the parent.
Don’t use them as a route to the parent.
Keep your opinion to yourself.

I am not so great at the last one.  I am working on it.