I am sitting in my hotel room, lap top on my lap funny enough, telly on, ready to order food. Where should I be? At the BritMums Live Award Ceremony. I don't really know why I went in the first place.I paid for my ticket and my beautiful husband paid for this amazing hotel room. I went along, a little nervous, but hoping to have fun.
Oh My God. Who was I kidding? How many circuits of the hall did I make before I was just overcome with the whole bloody loneliness of it all? Lots of bloggers chatting away ... and to be honest I did chat to people too. But at the end of the day you are not going to find bosom buddies in the flash of a five minute conversation are you? Complete strangers are not going to say "Hey! We've just met!! Come for dinner!"
In the end I just thought "What the hell am I doing here?" I am a Finalist in a category of the BiBs, but they are just about to start and I can't face being there, to sit alone in a room full of jolly strangers, fighting back tears. So here I am.
And I wonder why my son is depressed ... The closest I got with anyone this afternoon was with Ruby Wax. She spoke about her web site Black Dog Tribe which is a meeting place for those suffering from mental illness. Afterwards I bought her book and as she signed it I started to say what a good job I thought she was doing. I couldn't finish my sentence. I just choked up and the tears started to well. I felt awful. I am so emotional at the moment. Even as I type the tears are dripping down my face.
I think perhaps I am heading for depression again. This year has been so hard and my emotion is so close to the surface all the time. Inside I feel so fragile.
I don't know if I will win an award and I don't really care. I don't know if I will go back tomorrow. The fun of these things is to be with friends, to talk and exchange ideas. This is more about sitting and listening to speakers. And I have nobody to sit with. I just feel terrible that my husband has taken 3 days off and paid for me to come here. How can I tell him that I gave up and sat in my hotel room? I feel so pathetic and so lonely. This is the only place I can come to to be honest and write my feelings without fear of ... oh God, I don't know. I just hate that I am so bloody weak. And what I hate more than anything is that I have passed my mentalness on to my son.
Friday 22 June 2012
Monday 11 June 2012
Frustration and anger and moodiness
Things seemed better today for a while. My son went to school in a reasonably positive frame of mind and came back in the same way. All was well until the three boys - my two sons and my husband, decided to have a nerf gun war. And then it all went wrong. Bad tempers, sulking ... and that was just my husband.
It is so frustrating. I love my husband very much and he is a good kind man, but when he gets angry about something, or with someone, he cannot see that he might be in the wrong. With both him and my son in moods I could just walk out of the house and drive straight to the airport.
Of course I don't. I spend my evening attempting to pour oil on troubled waters, trying to calm them both down, sort out their sulky stubbornness. My husband rarely gets cross. He is calm, loving, funny, but when he is tired and frustrated a dark cloud can take hold of him and he just goes ... well, really quite annoying really. It bugs me that his behaviour can be so childish. After all, he is the adult. He should swallow his pride for the sake of our son. Our son should not be so stubborn and rude himself.
I suppose its all just a reflection of the situation in our family - tension, frustration, unspoken anger. My son has all the selfish egocentricity of a teenager. My husband has been working non-stop, awful hours. In the end something has to break.
I have made an appointment to talk to the SENCO at my son's school. Now I have to spend my evening sorting out yet another problem when all I want to do is scream " Pull yourselves together!!! This pathetic from both of you!!!!"
It is so frustrating. I love my husband very much and he is a good kind man, but when he gets angry about something, or with someone, he cannot see that he might be in the wrong. With both him and my son in moods I could just walk out of the house and drive straight to the airport.
Of course I don't. I spend my evening attempting to pour oil on troubled waters, trying to calm them both down, sort out their sulky stubbornness. My husband rarely gets cross. He is calm, loving, funny, but when he is tired and frustrated a dark cloud can take hold of him and he just goes ... well, really quite annoying really. It bugs me that his behaviour can be so childish. After all, he is the adult. He should swallow his pride for the sake of our son. Our son should not be so stubborn and rude himself.
I suppose its all just a reflection of the situation in our family - tension, frustration, unspoken anger. My son has all the selfish egocentricity of a teenager. My husband has been working non-stop, awful hours. In the end something has to break.
I have made an appointment to talk to the SENCO at my son's school. Now I have to spend my evening sorting out yet another problem when all I want to do is scream " Pull yourselves together!!! This pathetic from both of you!!!!"
Sunday 10 June 2012
Depression in young people.
It's been quite a while since I wrote on here. Partly because life has been busy, partly because my son began to get better. This week has been half term here and my son was due to go away with the school on an adventure holiday. He went last year with his old school and absolutely loved it. It was touch and go this year as to whether he would be well enough to go, but in the end he did go and we were very proud of that.
My husband, eldest son and I were looking forward to a stress free week together. Sadly this only lasted 2 days. On the second day we got a phone call to say my son was not coping, wouldn't stop crying. I came off the phone and couldn't stop my own tears dripping down my face. We drove home from the garden centre where we had been having lunch and I packed a bag to drive down to the coast.
Before I left the three of us just held each other quietly. Then off I went.
When I got there to pick him up he was silent, subdued ... a shadow of what he was this time last year. We drove home together and as we got closer to home he began to cheer up. We started to sing along to the radio.
This whole experience is exhausting as a parent. To be with someone who is constantly negative, constantly needy is so incredibly draining. I try to be patient, loving, reassuring, but some days its too much. I just want to scream.
The therapy sessions he is having with CAMHS are appalling so far. The therapist is an incompetent nincompoop. I phoned my GP on Friday, having reached a low ebb and was told by the delightful receptionist to phone back next Thursday ... or I could have an appointment on the 3rd July. I curbed my impulse to say that I hoped my son hadn't actually killed himself by next Thursday and asked if there was nothing sooner bearing in mind my 12 year old's desire to be dead. A vacancy in the doctor's schedule on Monday miraculously opened. But that was still 3 days away.
This whole experience has revealed to me the hopeless position one is in when confronted by illness like this. You have to fight for everything.
So ... tomorrow my jobs are:
My husband, eldest son and I were looking forward to a stress free week together. Sadly this only lasted 2 days. On the second day we got a phone call to say my son was not coping, wouldn't stop crying. I came off the phone and couldn't stop my own tears dripping down my face. We drove home from the garden centre where we had been having lunch and I packed a bag to drive down to the coast.
Before I left the three of us just held each other quietly. Then off I went.
When I got there to pick him up he was silent, subdued ... a shadow of what he was this time last year. We drove home together and as we got closer to home he began to cheer up. We started to sing along to the radio.
This whole experience is exhausting as a parent. To be with someone who is constantly negative, constantly needy is so incredibly draining. I try to be patient, loving, reassuring, but some days its too much. I just want to scream.
The therapy sessions he is having with CAMHS are appalling so far. The therapist is an incompetent nincompoop. I phoned my GP on Friday, having reached a low ebb and was told by the delightful receptionist to phone back next Thursday ... or I could have an appointment on the 3rd July. I curbed my impulse to say that I hoped my son hadn't actually killed himself by next Thursday and asked if there was nothing sooner bearing in mind my 12 year old's desire to be dead. A vacancy in the doctor's schedule on Monday miraculously opened. But that was still 3 days away.
This whole experience has revealed to me the hopeless position one is in when confronted by illness like this. You have to fight for everything.
So ... tomorrow my jobs are:
- phone GP to discuss uselessness of CAMHS therapist ( does he even have a qualification??)
- phone school to ask SENCO for appointment for help.
- Try and push for counselling somewhere effective.
I so desperately want my son to be better. I look at photos of him a year ago and wish I could get him back. I just have to stay positive. He did start to get better and this is just a set back. We are in a far better position than some people.
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