Anxiety continues.

School starts tomorrow for my sons. Son #2, my son who is struggling with anxiety issues, is full of worries about tomorrow. I try to be calm and talk about positive things, but he cannot see how he will ever be better. I just don't understand what he is worried about or why he becomes so consumed with anxiety. This summer holiday he has been pretty good, pretty normal.

He continues to see a therapist once a week through CAMHS who is using CBT but I can't see that it is having much effect. My son is stubborn and finds it difficult to open up to a stranger who he doesn't particularly like.

I just want him to be better, to live a normal life, to be happy. We have had times in the last 6 months when I longed to hear him laugh again and, thank goodness, he has laughed over these holidays. But we are back again to him being drawn and shadowed. I don't know how parents with seriously ill children cope because I find this situation so difficult. I keep plodding on, but just as I think things are getting better they crash back down.

His sadness and fear impact on his life in a way that is heartbreaking. He is such a bright, funny, cheerful boy ... or, at least, he was. I just don't understand this change. I hope that a new year at school brings new confidence and an end to this 6 months of awfulness.

Keeping going ...

I have written on my main blog about how I am feeling. I haven't gone into details particularly, just said that I am struggling and can see the signs of depression. Its not as bad as when I had PND, but I can feel it starting.9 months of first bullying and belittling at work and then, on top of that, my son's struggle with depression has taken its toll.

I told my husband that I had made an appointment to see our GP as I want to be honest with him.Part of me wishes I hadn't though as I don't want to put him under any more stress. It makes me feel that I need to try as hard as I can to appear normal. If people, including my husband, ask if I am ok I reply breezily " Yes thanks, I'm fine!"

But I am not. I went to football today and it was painful. It was the longest hour I have experienced in a long time. All I wanted to do was leave - just go and lie down on the side of the pitch. But I didn't because I need people to think I am ok. If I had said I was feeling ill it would have attracted more attention than struggling through the game. People don't want to know that the world is closing in on you and you just want to have it all stop.

Things got better. I went for a drink with the girls and in their company I came back to life. It is such a bloody effort though - planning things to do to keep me occupied, putting a smile on my face ...

I hate that after all these years I am back in this place - a place of muffled emptiness, where nothing has any point or purpose. I am only writing this because this is my honest place. In my real world I am keeping on - cooking tea, going to work, comforting my son, supporting my husband, working. I have to keep going for these next 12 days, until I have my doctor's appointment

BritMums Live Failure ...

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.

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!!!!"

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:

• 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.

Bullying in the work place.

How do you fight against lies? What do you do when your immediate superior lies about things you have supposedly done, not done, said or not said? How do you fight against someone who feeds a steady drip of very believable lies to those around you?

There are days when my heart beats out of my chest as I approach my place of work. I am just beginning to realise that this person has been making allegations against me for months. I have never been told to my face that I am doing anything wrong. When I have asked if I can do more to help I have been told no, you are doing everything that is asked of you.

I can take criticism - I am not perfect, I know that. But I will not consent to lies being put on my permanent record as fact. When you are being bullied I am beginning to realise that the onus of proof is on the person being bullied. Nobody can understand how much shit you go through before you even think of going for help. And when help is not forthcoming ... Its bloody awful.

When there are only the two of you party to the behaviour that constitutes bullying then it is your word against theirs. It is exhausting. I want to quit my job, but I don't feel I should be pushed out.

What is happening to me? My son up and down, needing my love and support and me finding it hard enough to get myself up in the morning, never mind look after him. Thank God for my husband who is strong for us both. He has been wonderful lately - so caring and loving. This is like a hideous nightmare.

I have been told not to speak of this situation so as not to undermine my superior. I can understand that to a certain extent, but it is putting unbearable pressure on me to put on a happy face all the time. There has been no investigation into my claims.

I am so pissed off. I don't want to go my union route as I just want to come in and do my job - not cause a huge stink. If I went that way how could I continue to work at this place? They would hate me for rocking the boat. How can you fight someone who lies so consummately? She is beating me.

Update.

I haven't been on here for a while as life has been very busy. My son continues to be up and down in his behaviour, but I think I can say, with relief, that the trend appears to be a positive and upwards one. Thank Goodness. I am almost afraid to write that down in case its bad luck, but I think its the truth.

Its still pretty exhausting at times, but he is getting slowly better. Tomorrow we have our first appointment with CAMHS ( Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) which will be interesting. Fingers crossed.

I have deleted my last post regarding my work situation. Although I know that I am in the right and have done nothing wrong I feel very uncomfortable even speaking about it to the powers that be, never mind writing about it. Even anonymous posts are too dangerous so its best I stay schtum.

Its not over yet, but I hope it soon will be.