Scars

Well it has been a very long time since I wrote on my blog, especially since I was writing at regular intervals before. There is so much going on that I will write a few entries with specific issues, in hope of updating my readers as to what has been happening over the last several months. This one will be more about my introspection over the last few months.

I have been spending more time than usual trying to figure out why life has been the way it has been for me and my children. This has led me to try to understand my own life and why things have happened the way they have long before I married my ex husband, long before my children, and long before my son's addictions. I am wondering what is it about my behaviour, my patterns, my background that may have taught me dysfunctional traits that have led to make decisions that have created more and more dysfunction.

I have come to the conclusion that two major elements of my life have led me to be where I am today. Firstly the relationship with my mother and her premature death. Secondly, the traumatic onset of my bowel disease (ulcerative colitis) at a very young age (7).

I had a very close relationship with my mother. She was a stay at home mom until I was around the age of 6 or 7 and again from the age of about 10 or 11. I loved her and looked to her for comfort and assistance. She was my everything, she loved me unconditionally, she was a wonderful role model, she was self sacrificing, she was nurturing and hard working in everything she did. She was gentle and loving yet also a fierce lioness who would always step forward to protect or defend my sister and I. My illness must have caused her great worry and it was when I became ill and spent a lot of time at home and hospital rather than school which was the beginning of my somewhat less than ordinary social development.

I can not recall how many years I was at home, but during that time I did not go outside and play with the neighbourhood children, or if I did I have no memory of doing so. I know I missed a lot of school so the "normal" development children gain from the social and societal structure that school gives and teaches us was absent in my life. We had no real close family friends, no family what so ever in the same country let alone near by. For this reason my mother became even more important to me.

                                                    My mother and I before I became ill.

As the years went on I eventually began trying to do more things and though I missed much of my school years, my mother encouraged me to continue  education and sign up to community college. She was supportive and encouraging. I started taking one or two classes in the evening and eventually worked up to attending full time during the day. In the beginning it was very hard for me, though I was intelligent enough and eager to learn, I lacked the past experience the teacher expected of the students. I was ready to quite early on, however, my mother sat with me and we did the work together until I became more comfortable and confident with the work! When the first year was a success, and I started my second year, my mother encouraged me to apply to University and I was amazed I was accepted to all I applied for. My mother was so proud, I know she was. She wanted a bright and successful future me, even more so given the circumstances of my childhood.

Basically my mother was always there for me, always helped and advised and cared for me. I did not have the typical childhood in which I built up social circles and learned coping skills based on normal social development as other kids do through going to school and being part of a group. I did not live in a family in which there was lots of activity. There was no extended family, my parents only had one couple who they were good friends with and they were older and therefore their children were very much older than my sister and I. So while I spent a lot of my childhood at home, the home was quiet and I depended on my mother for all my learning and needs.

My mother and father did not have a healthy relationship and my father (as most men in those days) saw his main role as provider who went to work and earned money to fulfil his needs as husband and father. My mother and father fought often and seemed to have a love hate relationship, very much having their ups and downs. They eventually divorced when I was about 12 or 13.

They say women look for someone like their fathers to marry, I think I have always searched for someone to take care of me, love me  and support me as much as my mother did. I was just getting my feet on the ground, second year of studying at UCLA, loving it and doing well. Learning how to talk to people and socialise. Feeling better about myself, my life and the future. Then out of no where my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given 3 months to live. My world crashed. My life changed. I cared for my mother at home. I took her to her doctor appointments, to radiation and chemotherapy. I cooked and shopped and cleaned and tried my best to maintain my academic studies. My mother and father were no longer together and my sister no longer lived at home. I watched my mother deteriorate and suffer and eventually saw her take her last breath after hearing that haunting sound of the "death gurgle".

I never found anyone who was even near to filling my mother's shoes because I must somehow project the wrong energy since the men I have attracted or been attracted to have been anything but a caring, loving, supporting giving man!

This is one factor of my life, my past, my personality created by my childhood that has contributed to my life's choices and my behaviours which have resulted in difficult situations and upset. The other one was a byproduct of my illness that affected nearly my entire childhood. As I mentioned, this illness resulted in years of near isolation. That plus the pain and discomfort and doctors and embarrassing procedures, all contributed to a very sad childhood.

Just before starting middle school my family moved and I had missed a lot of primary school due to being ill. I had a year of home schooling in our new home. I was also put on a high dosage of steroids which created a child who had the look someone with Cushing's syndrome. When I started middle school I was still slightly overweight, with bushy eyebrows and I wore my hair in two plaits. I wore unfashionable clothes and was painfully shy. I became the middle school's perfect candidate for bullying or as it was called then "being picked on". I was called names and laughed at in class, I was the one no one wanted on their P.E.teams or any activity that we were put into groups or teams. I was laughed at and rejected during lunch and recess. I was humiliated on the school bus. I walked alone from the bus stop to my home with a group of children (mostly boys) walking behind me calling me names and laughing all the way home. I have blocked out most of the names I was called and only one phrase has stuck in my mind all these years, "whale on the beach, whale on the beach".

                                                        Me at around the age of 10.

Naturally this lessened over the years and my appearance improved, a lot,inside I felt like the whale on the beach for many years to come.

As a result this made it very difficult to "put myself out there" as an adult when it came to socialising, first because of shyness, insecurity, now because of age, depression and my parental responsibilities, I  now realise that I have had a need to be accepted and liked and "popular". I have been somewhat vain and often insecure. I want to be wanted as a result of my illness and my childhood.

The years of exclusion and then the bullying when I re entered the world during my most informative years, created such insecurity and self doubt within me. This was because of my illness and then the horrible way I looked thanks to the only treatment at the time, long term steroid (prednisone) treatment. I felt fat and ugly for a very long time and whenever life was stressful I immediately started to attack myself and felt fat and ugly and useless. I have been looking for validation all these years and that is maybe why I stay in unhealthy relationships because I want validation regardless of the health of the relationship. Perhaps this need of validation and approval and being liked is why I wanted to be liked by my children's friends rather than being the parent who treats their children with more authority. I am deep down inside afraid to upset my children, I want them to like me as well, maybe that is why I lack some of the strictness that maybe a parent should have. I want to be seen as the popular mom and the cool mom in my children's social circles. That is absurd when you consider that all stems out of childhood experiences of being rejected and unliked.

This fear of being rejected and ridiculed and not being accepted, along with the void my mother's absence has created within me, has made me into someone who is a people pleaser, someone who avoids confrontation, always seeking approval from most people who come into my life. Maybe this affected my parenting and I should have confronted the terrible home life much sooner than I did. Maybe I could have avoided some of the damage my ex husband did to our son's emotional well being. Maybe I should have been more confrontational and cared less about being "liked". Maybe because of these issues within me it has somehow made me insufficient with dealing with all the hurdles and obstacles and in so doing I have created more and more issues until our life is as we now know it, chaotic, dysfunctional and unhappy.

This is me!

The expression that something can "scar you for life" seems to be true. My scars seem to have affected me and my choices and my emotional health which in turn has affected my children's lives. No one can ever take the place of my mother, but I should not be looking for anyone to fill a void even if she was the soul provider of all my needs. I suppose in meeting all my needs and my social isolation I did not learn how to be self sufficient and build a life worth living due to all my avoidance behaviours. No one can erase the years of bullying and feelings of low self worth, but I should not have spent too many years looking for acceptance. Now I find myself living in a society which is becoming more and more obsessed on how many people follow us, how many "friends" we have or likes we get, I feel that it feeds on my insecurities and though I am no longer an adolescent or in my 20's I seem to succumb to that horrible competition when it comes to my online life, and I HATE that about myself.

The real question is, if I am indeed scarred for life, how do I make those scars less permanent? If indeed these aspects of my psychological make up have helped create this hugely messed up life, how do I move on from understanding it to changing it? How did these things contribute to my son's feelings and seeking solace in drugs? My daughter's anxieties and fears and almost emotionless existence? How will affect my youngest in the nest few years?

On that note my next post will be how these issues allowed me to fall in love with a compulsive liar, womanising addict which in turn caused not just me but my son and youngest daughter great betrayal and broken hearts.

Once I have addressed these more introspective issues I will tell then update you all on my son's roller coaster ride of a life.

Dysfunction, is it Our Addiction

The term addiction is defined as:  the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance or activity. Synonyms are: dependency, craving, habit, weakness, compulsion, fixation, enslavement. When I think of what is the biggest benefit an addict has when using, I would have to guess it is the immediate satisfaction they feel from the high, but the high may come from a variety of substances or behaviours. Most common addictions society thinks of, are of course drug and/or alcohol addiction, yet there are so many other types. On Wikipedia it did surprise me the types of addiction they refer to: substances, gambling, eating disorders, cell phone use, internet/computer use, tanning and exercise. In my opinion there are  so many other behaviours that can become an addiction, but the one I want to focus on is not the one that led me to write my blog in the first place (substances) but rather, I would like to consider self harm as an addiction, which many organizations have already acknowledged it as such.

                                           

On the "Addiction Care" website, they offer help from a far more extensive range of addictions. They cover alcohol and drugs but also: Gambling, Sex, Co-Dependency, Eating Disorders/Compulsive Over Eating/Bulimia, Spending, Exercise, Internet/Gaming, Work, and Self Harm. On the website they explain that:

Self-harming does make people feel better; the act releases endorphins, a brain chemical, which can bring on a sense of well-being and relaxation. Self-harm can be a way to get a release from intense emotions that can seem overwhelming and impossible to survive. A self-harmer might typically cut, burn or scratch themselves. The objective of self-harm might be to quell intense rage or anger or even to distract themselves from other physical pain.

Self-harming becomes addictive because there is a feel good factor. It appears to work. But of course the need to cause injury to oneself escalates.

I sometimes think that my daughters self harming is her addiction and she is getting the same sort of release from her self harming as my son gets from substances. She started self harming when her brother lived her and there was a lot of chaos and anger in the home. She has continued off and on though and many times we think she has "overcome" this problem, she then begins again. Her self harming started with scratching her head until it bled, then cutting, and then she began burning herself. The marks and scars on her are many. I was the most distressed by the burning since they eventually left large scabs that she would then pick. After the burning, blistering, healing, picking, process she would be left with these marks/scabs that resembled craters. No matter how many times I would search her room for sharp objects and matches, she would find a way, especially since all she would need is to break the blade out of a pencil sharpener from her school bag to start cutting again. I would hide knives, matches, scissors, etc but it got to the point where I would feel it is never enough because there will always be something I had not thought of. Even if there were no "tools" to harm herself with, she always had her fingernails to scratch the bloody skin off of her scalp. Just as my son would always find a way of getting his hands on any substance that would sedate him.

                                           

I understand how this could be classed as an addiction and interestingly enough my daughters behaviour at home is much like her brothers was in the sense that they seem to have addictive personality type behaviours. I am referring to some behaviours/feelings  that fits into addictive personality traits such as:

• Need for immediate gratification, 
• Low self worth.
• Mood swings.
• Social alienation and loneliness.
• Constant stress and/or anxiety.    
• Inability to control impulsive behaviour.

Also, her behaviour with me when she wants something is very much like the behaviour of her brother, an addict. She can be extremely:

• Manipulative.
• Controlling.
• Dishonest.
• Angry and threatening.
• Relentless.

Then I began to realise that my daughter also seems to have a lot of attention seeking behaviours as well, but in a completely different way to my son's. Of course, both my son and daughter craved attention and love and acceptance in one way or another, as all human beings do. Sometimes seeking other people's attention and approval can manifest into a disorder as well. One of the theorised characteristics of people with attention seeking disorder is that they also look for immediate gratification in situations. In relationships they tend to use emotional manipulation on one level but displaying dependency on another level. There are many incidences when my daughter's behaviour is not in the realms of an attention seeking disorder, but are most definitely a young person trying to get attention! Of course we can also argue that the reason much of my daughter's behaviour mimics my son's is due to learnt behaviour or possibly even genetics.

Some people may argue that most of my concerns for what my daughter does or has done is ALL attention seeking. Self harm, an overdose suicide attempt (which she immediately induced vomiting), complaining of constant pains and generally feeling unwell, issues revolving around food and eating, refusing to go to school,  changing her mind on her sexuality more than once, refusing to cover up her neck and chest when covered in hickies, and others. Writing them down, I feel it unlikely that they are ALL attention seeking behaviours, but some I feel are. As I said though there are people out there, both professionals and lay people who I know would shake it all off as attention seeking.

                                             

Maybe the simple truth is that my children, the first two in particular grew up in a dysfunctional family in which impacted on their self esteem and sense of self worth which lead them to seek gratification in less traditional or socially acceptable ways. Perhaps they both suffer from the lack of a positive male role model and in fact rather than having NO male role model, their role model negatively affected their emotional development. Alongside this there was little, if any, extended family or social support system to help offer these children guidance, love and acceptance. In addition to this, the main female role model was emotionally and financially controlled, and though she loved and praised and praised her children it was not enough to alleviate the tensions and inequalities within the family. Perhaps her self doubt and frustrations overshadowed her trying to be a positive and loving mother she was/is. Perhaps these children, a product of an unhealthy and to some extent forced union, were just confused and ill prepared for life and they have tried to help themselves along in the only ways they found that worked for them.

                                             

Whatever the twisted and complex reasons that we are who and what we are, and why we have become this way we may never be privy to, and in some ways it is irrelevant. I can only try to help myself become a better person, stopping bad habits and fears and insecurities influence me and rather seek out positive people and positive solutions to better my life and my children's lives as well. I must try to stop the cycle of negative learnt behaviour and dysfunction. I will continue to love them and support as well as become frustrated with them and even angry with them, but at the end of the day I want them to learn that they ARE worth it and they deserve happiness and a healthier way of life. Maybe we have all become  used to and addicted to dysfunction since it has been our way of life for so long, but it is not what I am compelled to do, it is not my natural self,  I long for a life in which I can truly be myself living with the family I feel robbed of. Dysfunction and addiction have messed up my plan, damn it, and I want to find the power to reclaim my dream and make my kids believe in dreams too!

Love, love and more love.

Not really focused on addiction today. Not really wanting to be logical or thought provoking about the way drugs and alcohol took over my family's life and all the repercussions of that. Nor do I want to intellectualise the possible reasons why my son or anyone becomes an addict. Tonight I just want to write. I want the cathartic process to help me purge my emotions and to allow the tears to flow smoothly and with purpose. I want to write about, love.

A range of loves have just came to my head as I write: parental, sibling, romantic, friendship, but also the love of self, the love of drugs and unhealthy love. I believe every human being is born needing to be loved and there is an abundance of research on how the lack of parental love in childhood has negative impact on cognitive, developmental, emotional and social/psychological growth. So from the beginning we need to feel the warmth and fulfilment love gives us the best start in life and if we don't we are more prone to having an onslaught of problems in life!



I have written in previous posts that al I wanted for as long as I can remember is to be a mother and when I discovered I was pregnant with my first child my first reaction was pure joy. It was very unfortunate that the baby's father did not share in my joy and most of my pregnancy was spent arguing. Despite the negativity and arguments, I loved, I mean I really LOVED being pregnant and carry my baby within my womb. I talked to my unborn child and messaged it as it moved about and felt intense happiness within myself at the knowledge that I was indeed going to fulfil one of my most precious dreams of becoming a mother, and nothing, not even the baby's father would take that away from me. It seems, through people I have met and stories I have heard, that sometimes having one "good", loving parent is enough while the other parent may be absent or is emotionally inadequate. However it may not be the case if one parent is emotionally abusive, though I tried to love my children and nurture them and stimulate their development as much as I could, maybe the "energy" of the house as well as the negative behaviour from their father made it so my love was not enough.

My first child was an unplanned pregnancy and caused a lot of conflict in our relationship. We did stay together and tried to make things work. Our little boy could not have been more perfect. He was loving and kind and good natured. He suffered no terrible twos or tantrums. He always held my hand and was a joy to be with. When there were moments when he had to be disciplined, he stood in his time out corner and always listened carefully to my explanations why he was having a time out. He was so full of love and positive energy and lust for life that I felt that his loved deserved to be shared and that he and his sibling would benefit from sharing his love. I always wanted a big family, but I never thought that possible and did not want that with my husband, but I felt that having a little brother or sister would be wonderful for my loving boy.

Our second child was our only planned child. It took a while but we did get pregnant and funnily enough I can not remember the exact moment I discovered I was pregnant like I do with my first. Perhaps that is because the first pregnancy is such a  milestone or perhaps it is because the second pregnancy was somewhat clouded with worry when we discovered she had club feet and were told that that may be a sign of other developmental problems. Luckily there were no other genetic or developmental problems but it did make us worry.

Sibling love. It was there and it was good for a while, then as the years went on it changed and here we are now and those two have not spoken in 18 months now. I tried to love them both, both since I was the primary care giver to my son and the person he spent most of his time with, actually ALL of his time with, there was going to be some changes. Also with the added element of severe club feet to a new born, as well as regular physiotherapy and hospital appointments and surgeries, there was a lot of added stress.

                                    A picture from the internet which resembled our baby's feet.
                                                                                                                                                                           

So for whatever reasons (extra stress, tense relationship between parents, increased resentments, lack of attention) those early days have impacted on all of our relationships with each other; however, in the beginning despite difficulties there was love between brother and sister.

As far as the relationship now, well obviously living with a chaotic drug addict and having mom's attentions being fully consumed by the problems she faced, has taken there toll on the brother sister relationship. That as well as the early stresses and that dad was not a loving and affectionate and involved father have created a sibling relationship which now seems devoid of all love.

The bonds that my two older children have with the youngest seems different again and each seem to have more love for her, yet my son seems to be more interested in pursuing a friendship with her than my middle daughter does.

In http://www.education.com/reference/article/influences-sibling-relationships/ the author discuses a range of sibling issues as well as other relationships influencing sibling relationships, as well as only children. She says:  "In homes where fathers are affectionate and helpful there are more positive sibling interactions. On the other hand, conflict between mother and each child is associated with increased sibling conflict". She goes on to say: "Children's personalities, social and cognitive skills, self concepts, values and sense of self protection from the outside world are influenced by their sibling relationships". So this type of love is different from the love we get from our parents but is very influential in our development and creating how we understand love and relationships and the world to work.

I am a die hard romantic, I have written about my feelings of true love more than once, and believe that much of my inner conflicts and feels of self doubt are due to the fact that I have been unsuccessful in finding true love. True love, romantic love is a very big part of the culture we live it, It is very commercialised and engrained in us from the first fairy tales we hear as small children. We grow up feeling the need to find that one special person out there. We also grow up feeling that is we don't have such love in our live that we are failures. I sometimes go through moments where I feel I have failed myself and also my children by not being able to find true love, yet on a deeper level it is not as simple as failing to find something I want, it is an emptiness that is created by the biological and physical as well as spiritual need to give and receive love. Human beings need love. They flourish in a loving environment and in loving relationships. People are better people when they are loved, it is that simple. When we are not, than we become bitter, self absorbed, negative, self hating and we begin to languish.

                        


Friendship is a key factor to us as children, forming our identities and branching out into the world and leaving the close-knit unit of just our family that we had as infants, toddlers and young children. However, the role that friendship plays in our development in adolescents does not stop there. Friendship is vital to us as adults, especially if we come from less than loving families. Friendships offer us not only a special type of love but because we choose each other as friends, it is unique in its bond. We have similar interests and we like each other and we want to spend time together because friendship often give us a great deal of fun in our lives. On the other hand, we have all experienced the age old saying that you  know who your friends are when the chips are down! When life throws us conflict and struggle from all angles we need the support from friends especially if we are single, in a dysfunctional relationship. and/or have poor family ties.

I often turn to music for comfort and release and I find if we aren't singing about love, then we are singing about friends or if neither than we are singing about getting high or drunk!
There are so many songs about friendship! This song "Lean On Me" popped into my head last night after not hearing it for many years and the lyrics are very poignant:

Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain, we all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow

Lean on me when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need somebody to lean on

Please, swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you won't let show

You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'll understand
We all need somebody to lean on

Lean on me when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need somebody to lean on

You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'll understand
We all need somebody to lean on

If there is a load
You have to bear that you can't carry
I'm right up the road, I'll share your load
If you just call me

Writer(s): Bill Withers
Copyright: Interior Music Corp. 

In times of sorrow, pain or when we are lost and confused, we need a friend to lean on. We need the support of our friends. Our friends will remind us that no matter what,  they will still be there and just as importantly, that a true friend will in turn be there for you despite their own problems. We do not need to feel weak or ashamed that we have "lost face" or are incapable of fixing our own problems, we are not in the least. I think that when we are "brave" enough to go to our friends with our demons then we are showing how much we love and respect our friends that we trust them. We are also opening ourselves to them and showing that we trust the friendship that we can put ourselves in a vulnerable position, "bearing our soul" if you like. I know we all have friends that serve a purpose, friends who are specific to certain situations, acquaintances etc, but while talking about friendship I refer to the real and true, tried and tested friendships that we may have, may only have one of, some of us may have had and lost or some of us are still hoping for. Our friends will not fix our problems, that is not what we want or need, sometimes we do not even ask for advise, we just want and need support, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on or sometimes we just want to go to our friends and let lose and have a bit of fun so that we can feel rejuvenated and refreshed and energised so that we can face our problems as a stronger person. Friendship, reciprocal and supportive friendship is like gold to us. If you are lucky enough to find love AND friendship, then you have found the whole pot of gold!

                  

The irony of love is that sometimes we need to have experienced being loved in a healthy way in a healthy home to be able to find healthy love later in life , but people who grew up in loveless or dysfunctional homes and who need love most, do not have the skills to find or maintain healthy and loving relationships/friendships. That is when we often turn to "things" to make us "happy" or actually to make us forget that we are feeling unhappy and unloved. "Things" such as: drugs, alcohol, food, shopping (retail therapy), money and status, just about anything that makes us feel good temporarily. If we did not experience healthy love, we sometimes are attracted to people who are unhealthy for us, treating us in ways we should not be treated yet because it is a familiar feeling and it helps "prove" our self fulfilling prophesy that we are "unworthy" and do not deserve to find happiness. This is way so many people stay in co dependent relationships, do not seek help if they are suffering from a dysfunctional family relationship or allow people to use them as objects of ridicule rather than including them in peer groups, or to be controlled by others. I can understand when my son says he LOVES drugs because in fact since his childhood he has had very little successful relationships within the family and in school and in friendships and he has never experienced any form of romantic love. So if he takes opiates that give him that "warm, fuzzy hug from inside" then, yes, he would want that again and again. If he has many unpleasant and unhappy memories and taking dissociative and sedative drugs  help blur his reality and impair his memory, then yes, he will want to use them again. The longer he relies on substances, the harder he will be able to create happiness without them, for obvious social and psychological reasons, but also from a brain chemistry point of view because the opiate receptors will rewire his brain so that pleasure will be associated with opiates rather than other "happiness". It will be a long process for my son to find other forms of love, to believe in love, to rewire his pleasure and happiness receptors, to trust others and make himself vulnerable. The reward would be friendship, love and happiness,that is the ultimate goal.
                                                                                                                                                                                        

So the bottom line wont come as a surprise to anyone, we all NEED to be loved from infancy throughout our entire life. Though our needs change and the types of relationships that give us love change, we all ultimately function better and thrive when we are loved and can love in a healthy and open way. We do not need to fear what love and friendship offer us, because it does not make us weaker or insignificant or shamed. We can still be true to ourselves and be responsible for ourselves but gain support and energy and respite from turning to those we love in times of chaos and conflict.

It may sound simple, but like another great song says, "love is all you need " and everything else will fall into place!

                              
                            
                             

Breaking the Dysfunctional Family Cycle

As many who have read my past posts know, I am a divorced parent. A woman who lived in a relatively loveless marriage brought on by circumstances. Though we did have our moments when life seemed to be ok and even a little enjoyable, we had many more down times and as the years went on the bitterness and resentment  grew along with the level of dysfunction and emotional damage. As I have been dealing with the fallout of this "failed" marriage, I often think that I should have left years before because staying together for the kids or because you feel trapped or because the alternative seems to be worse doesn't work, and guess what? I think that children are extremely intuitive that they will sense a false marriage and be affected by that far more so than a "failed" marriage. They will not only grow up with a false reality that may make them question many things as adults, but they will also base their idea of relationships on a faulty and dysfunctional model, which will in turn make it more difficult to maintain healthy adult relationships in the future. As parents we think that our children will grow up in the false security of staying together for the kids type of marriage, and will be thankful and grateful when they are adults for sacrificing themselves for the children. Actually, that too is exactly the opposite type of role model we want for our children, someone who is false and untrue to themselves. In fact, I think that most children from such fake households will grow up and feel resentful at being lied to. 

           

                              

In this excerpt from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/30/divorce-children-parenting-conscious-uncoupling-gwyneth-paltrow-chris-martin   the author is correct in saying that "unhappy parents make for unhappy offspring" :  Dr Penelope Leach has been a passionate defender of babies and children since the 1970s. But she is no upholder of the idea that adults should stay together regardless of the measure of misery; unhappy parents make for unhappy offspring. "Divorce and separation is a safety valve for marriage and cohabitation," she tells me. "And society cannot do without one." So when the break occurs she advocates what she calls "mutual parenting". It doesn't have the slightly sexual, semi-spiritual, yogic-infused ring of "conscious decoupling" but it amounts to something similar, albeit with the celebrity varnish scraped away.

Another article in The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/24/divorce-bad-for-children-lets-not-fetishise-marriage-parents-children also states that parents who stayed together for the kids until they were a little older, actually did more harm to the children:  "Some of the most messed-up kids I have seen are precisely those of couples who waited until they went off to university to divorce. It meant that their entire childhood and adolescence had been a kind of lies."

I think I should have left my husband years before I did instead of remaining in the co dependant relationship and feeling as if I needed to be a martyr. If I had done so, I believe that our son would have been far less damaged and may not have had as much emotional pain that was one of the driving factors for his need to escape through drug use. My sister often says to me that if I did, I would not have had my other two children, who I could not imagine life without. However, I believe that I may have had more children with someone else after leaving and my children would not have been the same as the ones I have now, but I still would have had them. Not only is my son a drug addict but he is also very angry at me that I stayed with his father for so long. My son and my middle child both have very cynical views about relationships and neither say they ever want to have children (I know they are very young and their ideas may change as they grow). I also wonder how all the subtle messages that our children surely picked up on while my ex husband and I were together will affect their future relationships. My son has very skewed ideas of relationships i.e. you need a man of the house, children need strict discipline, men are aggressive, men make the decisions etc.. Though this was not what he necessarily saw while growing up, these are the unspoken ideas of his father and our son picked up on his father's true feelings.

My husband and I were very unhappy, but it was not a physically violent relationship and though he was very controlling and somewhat emotionally abusive to me, it was done in a very indirect way and his control was there without having to be "in your face". We did not yell and scream very often at each other, but the tension was always there and could be felt by others. My ex husband's actions and emotional numbness were also very powerful tools in his establishing power over us. He was very emotionally abusive to our son and those were the times when there was lots of shouting. When it came to our second child he wanted to destroy her wild spirit and lust for life by constantly telling her not to do the things she was doing and threatening her with punishments. My ex husband did not know how to communicate and would not be chatty with us, he reserved this for nights out with his male friends when his friendliness would come alive after a few drinks.

                                              

Our two older children have been very affected by the way they were raised in an unhappy marriage and most of the influences were due to subtle behaviours, unspoken words, decisions that were made, the lack of love and affection between their parents, tensions, frustrations, avoidance etc. It was not the stereotypically portrayed bad marriage, but it did consists of lies and guilt and feelings of obligations and sacrifices. All those unspoken feelings and emotions were picked up on fully by our little sponges, for that's what children are, sponges and intuitive sponges they are!

Some of these ideas I have that a FALSE marriage is much more detrimental to children are penned in the following article in a nice and concise manner:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/01/divorce-kids-_n_4862357.html

I can understand though how if the marriage is unhappy and false, with the idea of "staying together for the kids" but ALSO burdened with one partner having any mental, emotional or substance misuse issues, the guilt and the feelings of obligation to stay becomes so much stronger. My ex-husband was physically and emotionally abused as a child, My husband also had alcohol issues, I still believe him to be a "functioning" alcoholic. These elements create a profoundly strong co dependent relationship which makes it even more difficult to leave and clouds our judgement as to what is ultimately the best decision for the children.

                        

This link explains the "signs" of a co dependant marriage, and as co dependency is indeed a learnt behaviour, staying in a co dependant marriage has all the negative implication I have already discussed, but has the added ingredient of teaching your children to be in co dependant relationship! Who wants their kids to learn that? I don't and another reason why I wish I would have left earlier.

http://www.wikihow.com/Tell-if-You-Are-Codependent

We can not fix our partners, and I made the mistake of thinking I could fix my ex because I felt sorry for all he had been through and felt responsible to help him. Wake up, no one can do that!

Sometimes being true to our inner selves and recognising that bringing up children in a marriage devoid of love and passion and mutual respect will ultimately create more problems for them, is a very hard step to make. I think that it is because our society treats divorce in marriage, as divorce from the family. And though there are cases that once the couple is divorced, one parent becomes almost non existent in the children's lives, that is not what most parents want. This is because of the way we treat divorce and also because in trying to create stability in the child's life by keeping them with one parent while the other parent may have the children on the weekend or every other weekend. We should look at the option of shared custody more. The children would have regular contact and stability from BOTH parents and feel the love of both parents and be reassured that the marriage split was not because of the kids!

As this excerpt states:  "Research has determined that when children have experience of shared custody they have better relationships with both parents and are more satisfied with their lives. It’s also shown that even when there’s strong animosity between the parents, shared custody works well for the children."

Taken from:  http://www.separateddads.co.uk/sharedcustodyofyourchildren.html

And this article is interesting on how shared custody benefits society on a more political and financial level:  https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/michael-reed/why-does-no-one-talk-about-benefits-of-shared-custody

Joint custody seems to be the best option in which both parents still want to be involved with their children, of course when one parent is abusive or neglectful than that would not be in an option. It would also mean making changes and sacrifices in each parent's lives, but not at the negative cost as staying together, and rather would actually benefit the children most.

Well, all I know is that hindsight is always 20/20 and I can not do anything now except to be true to myself so that I influence my children in a way that will make them feel more able to be true to themselves in the future and hopefully stop the cycle of codependency and dysfunctional families!

                            

Trauma

My middle daughter has been suffering with stomachs and head aches and trouble falling asleep for a few years now, most probably brought on by the stresses at home with her brother. Though her brother has not lived at home now for 9 months and never comes to visit while my daughter is at home, she still suffers from these problems. Out of concern for her as well as validating to her that I am taking on board her complaints and not just brushing them off as "stress", we have seen the GP and have been referred to a paediatrician at the hospital. She had her appoint last week and the outcome was much as I suspected and much to her disappointment. The doctor's comments were mostly to do with her "low mood" and that since her complaints are general and vary from day to day that her tummy complaints are nothing "sinister". He referred to her "low mood" several times and told her to "relax".

                                            

How long after living with trauma for a young person in the midst of "normal" changes and stresses, take to recover? How, as her mother, can I facilitate her?

What is trauma and is that what she suffered during the difficult years she watched her brother abuse drugs, abuse me emotionally and financially, abuse her emotionally?

If I use the professional psychological definition of post traumatic stress disorder then I would say that my daughter has been and still is distressed from the trauma (i.e. a deeply distressing or disturbing experience).

PTSD, the professional definition is as follows (plese read the link):

https://www.estss.org/learn-about-trauma/dsm-iv-definition/

                                       

I think people associate PTSD or in fact the word trauma itself with some horrific and possible fatal event that a person has witnessed or lived through. In that case people may think that using the same terminology in association with emotionally distressing and ongoing experiences may be a bit melodramatic. I know that for myself I am guilty of such beliefs. I thought that it is ridiculous that my daughter may be experiencing such a disorder, but then I looked into the definition, symptoms as well as trying to think what her life as a young child through to early adolescence  was like. Then I realised that indeed, my daughter experienced a great deal to warrant such terms to describe her emotional state.

When you consider that the police had to be called out on a number of occasions for "domestic abuse", that there were "children in need" meetings done by social services; there were a number of different agencies working with us as a family, with my son, with my middle daughter and for me as well, there was a lot going on and there was serious behaviours that needed to be addressed. Looking back at the amount of verbal abusive and how many arguments went on into the wee hours of the morning and when there were no arguments at night upstairs we could hear my son tinkering in the back room with his chemicals, or just his general moving about and making noise when the rest of the world around in slept, no wonder my daughter developed sleeping issues.

                           
                                                 

I can continue looking back to see  how life at home with a drug addict. who was very aggressive one minute and other times would pass out in the middle of dinner, could be viewed as traumatic, especially for children. However, I do not need to look back, I need to look forward. I need to address how does she, and myself and also youngest daughter, come to terms with the past and deal with the issues so that life can continue in a healthier fashion moving towards emotional well being.

My flashbacks and memories of how things use to be are gradually fading. These do come flooding back when I am exposed to my son while intoxicated and then I do get extremely anxious with the heaviness in my chest from anxiety returning. My daughter will not talk to me about her feelings on the subject and is still very angry and when I do try to discuss it I only get her anger. I do not know how much the support worker she sees once a week manages to do because when I ask my daughter, she tells me that her sessions are suppose to be confidential and it would defeat the purpose of them if she told what is discussed!

 Maybe it is time that is needed, time heals most wounds, I do not believe that time heals all wounds though. With time and support and understanding, I hope my daughter will begin to move forward. My son does not understand why life with him was so chaotic and traumatic, but it was, it really was. This is why I have said before and will continue to say that we all carry our different emotional scars left by addiction and we all need to recover from our own pain and turn our negative behaviours into positive ones.  We all lived with the addiction and we must all try to live without it, it no longer defines us as a family, though it is still holding on strongly to my son. We all need to recover in our own ways, in our own time, and the hope is that one day we will all find the peace and understanding achieved through our insights and improved lives that we may function once more as a family, though I am aware that this may not be the case for a very long time.


                             

Peace, Love & Happiness, Despite Temporary Depression

After writing my last post, I started to think about my readers who do not know me. I may seem depressed, and on some level I am. Funny thing is that I am not a negative or depressive person by nature. I am quite the contrary. Maybe it is not true depression, maybe what I suffer from is just an over sensitive and romantic nature? My longings are always apparent to me, especially since I have not succeeded in creating the life I have desired.

                                 

People say, "be positive and have good energy and that is what you will attract back into your life". I do not necessarily believe that, because I am also quite a loving person who finds so much beauty and goodness in the world. I have a lust for life that shines through. I spend much of my ordinary days smiling and laughing, though at a drop of a hat, if something hits an emotional cord, I will cry.

I suppose I struggle with that belief that positive attracts positive and negative attracts negative. All that business that you get from life what you put out. Because that is no different than what I have been struggling with, a concept that seems so child like, "good things should happen to good people, and bad people will get what they deserve". That is not what really happens and this is what creates the conflict and thus sadness inside me. This is not the way it works, at all!

                                         

Maybe it comes from the lack of religious beliefs, because those who have faith ultimately find comfort in that the "good" people will go to the promised land, and those who have been "bad" will pay the ultimate penalty when they go in front of their maker. Simplistically put, I know, but I do not want to get  deep into religion here. I am not an atheist, I am spiritual to an extent, and I think there are things we do not fully understand or are aware of. However, I also think that we should be rewarded for our efforts here on earth while we are living our lives, our reward should be to create a good life and to do exactly what people say, "get the good back that we have put out there". My life, the life of my mother, my son and others, do not show me that that is the truth. This causes me great disappointment and confusion, which makes my very sensitive soul cry out.

This is also what hurts me so much about my son's attraction to the drugs he took/takes because a lot of his pain stems from the same sort of ideas. He is hiding from the same conflicts that I struggle to understand and I deliberately analyse: the harsh reality and unfairness of why so much crap happens to people who are trying to live a good and honest life! He could not find any answers, and the more he thought about it the more he blamed himself, but still also blamed others and his pain and lack of understanding was too much for his sensitive and just soul to comprehend, so he needs to numb his thoughts, dull his pain and hide from his own inner conflicts through self medication.

                                       

This is a form of depression of course, but it is not the clinical/organic type of depression that people suffer from even though they have no apparent "reason" to be depressed. It is not the severe depression in which you no longer find any joy in anything. I suppose it is a form of situational depression which has also become a pattern of behaviour. My depression only lasts temporarily while I deal with too many thoughts after certain situations. It is a bit of a roller coaster, but not a manic depressive state. The situation does not have to be significant or profound, but if something triggers within me this need to analyse why life is crap when I have been nothing but good, then yes, I get down and I cry and I over think everything!

I remember bringing up my children when they were very little. I would clap and cheer with delight when they succeeded in anything they tried to do, how ever big or small that was, even if they built a tower of three blocks! I would stop and smell flowers, and we would pick up snails we found on the pavements and we would rescue snails from unseeing feet which may step on them! We went to playgrounds, we fed the animals in the city farms, we painted and read and cooked and baked and cleaned together. Everything was made to be fun and enjoyable. I always praised them. I loved to sing silly made up sons and dance and laugh. I encouraged friendships with other children and made sure I always had a report with teachers. I kissed them and loved them and told them how much they mean to mean.

                                    

Yet, my children are not self confident. My children are not overly happy, well the two older ones, the younger one is still quite a happy spirit. My two older children are also very sensitive and deep thinking. They are also both cynical and they do not share my my belief that the world and most people are generally good.

To a mother who adored her children and believed motherhood was the most special thing to ever happen in my life, I would have thought that those wonderful and pure and positive energies would transcend into my children. Can you imagine my inner conflict and sorrow when I discovered that my son was sad and insecure and started taking tablets he found to make him "feel" better? The defeat I felt when these negative feelings grew along side his drug taking. Not only that, but then after all that and witnessing how strong my love for my children is, how much ALL my children mean to me and showing how I would never give up on them because my love is so strong and I believe love can conquer all....my daughter gets depressed and starts self harming and even starts to think about taking her own life.

All this on my shoulders, while their father, the man who continually insulted and belittled our son from the age of 5 to the age of 12 (when we split up), who was selfish and emotionally absent, insulting, intimidating, verbally aggressive, avoids all responsibility and continues living his life on his terms without any remorse. In our children's eyes, no matter how hurt they were by their father, they have witnessed for themselves that the "bad" one keeps living, he has a good job,  having enough money to travel regularly, to always be in new expensive shoes and clothes and go out with his friends, to continue to drink, to get a girlfriend, live in a nicer neighbourhood than we do and all the while never helps them or gets "bothered". While on the other hand they also see how the "good" one suffers, lives almost on poverty level with bailiffs and bill collectors constantly hassling her, the worry, the stress, the responsibility, the tears,  they are hers as well as the solitude and alienation and loneliness. How is this teaching them that the world is fair and if you  put positive energy out there you get it back and that if you are a negative son of a bitch, you will attract negativity in the world??? How???

                                     

My son is convinced that everyone is a piece of shit in this world and that everyone is out for themselves and no one would genuinely wants to help or sacrifice for another, especially for him. I have faith that this is all a façade and that deep inside he believes the opposite, however it is still too painful to think anything other than negative thoughts towards humanity, because this way he can not be disappointed again, he can not be hurt and let down, they way his father did.

Drugs help him hide. I can not hide, so I get down and struggle to deal with my complex emotions. However, I do not bury my faith in humanity as deeply as my son. While I may complain and bitch about the shit and the shitty people in my life, I still believe people to be good by nature, but society and relationships sometimes screw us up so much that we forget how to be ourselves and how to be kind. Most of my friends, or so called friends, do not intentionally hurt me, they are more than likely oblivious to it. Who am I to tell them that they are falling short sometimes? If someone really does something wrong or unforgivable or completely disrespectful, I will tell them or completely shut them out. I care for the people in my life, all on different levels. Some I do not care for that much on a strictly personal or spiritual/emotional level, but as a human being I do care what happens to them and wish them nothing but the best. Some people, do hurt me, that is usually because I feel love for them more than they love me and I am still searching for someone to really love me, to notice when I am not around, to miss me, to fight for me, to bend over backwards to make make me smile when I am down. Those people in my life who fall short of that, despite my love for them, well I may get hurt and sad and disappointed, but at the end of the day it does not make them a bad person. I will never give up on people!

                         "....our  unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties
                          and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our
                          personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather interesting 
                         things."  Ron Ronson, The Psychopath Test


Sometimes I envy those who put all their faith into their God, and are comforted in the knowledge that everyone will have to answer for their behaviour when they stand before God; however, I do not have that belief and I do not want to offend anyone with my honesty, I do though have faith in humanity even though my faith in humanity is tested repeatedly. I also believe in the power of love and I have not given up on my son nor my daughter and I have to believe that my love will one day succeed in making them believe in themselves. I believe that love is powerful and I do love a few people and even if I do not get the love I feel I deserve  returned to me, I have to keep believing and hoping that one day, someone will be free enough to love me.

So though I am displeased with life as we live it at the moment and though I may have seemed severely depressed in my last post, I wanted to amend my last post by clarifying that it is a temporary state of mind and it is situational. I still believe in life, love and beauty! Peace to you all and thank you!


                                 
                                         

Feeling Low

I am feeling quite sad at the moment, I am not really sure why. I have been thinking too much lately about my life and the feeling of emptiness that I have experienced for much of my 49 years. Maybe emptiness is not the right word, maybe sadness or longing. I am analysing my relationships with my mother, father, past and present friendships, men I love (there are only 2 I fell in love with, though I had many men in my life before I married. Neither of those two men is not my ex husband which is sad in itself, but even sadder is that neither of the 2 men that I loved/love is in the position to have me in their life fully, one was in the past and one is current), my children (there upbringing, their current situations and what their futures hold), my future, my health, my financial situation and my many failures and a few of my successes). All these ponderings leave me with this sensation of emptiness and somehow wanting to fill a void within me and in my life.

                                                        My mother and I before my illness.


I think that maybe some of these feelings stem from the relationship I had with my mother. I adored my mother, so very much. I had a less than typical childhood since I became ill at the age of 7 and spend so much time at home and in the hospital, all the while my mother was by my side, nurturing me, protecting me, loving me, trying to teach me ways to cope with the agony I was going through. At around the age of 10, my symptoms were finally getting under control because of a very high and long term steroid treatment. At last I was able to go back to school, but then a new bag of troubles started, bullying at school because I looked hideous from the steroid treatment, and of course I was isolated even more for having no friends since we had also moved homes around that time. My mother was my rock! She was the only person I could talk to. She helped me get through the hardest periods of my childhood. When I was around 13-14 years old, the bullying was so bad, with threatening phone calls and fears of beatings and threats to end my life that I refused to attend school! My mother's love then became enabling and she allowed me to stay home! So we spent a lot of time together, and even though I completely disagree with the fact that she let me stop going to school, and I never finished high school, I do still so admire her love for me.

                                                    Me during my Prednisolone treatment.


She did try to help me later when I was 16 and enrolled me in driving school so that I could get my license since I was not getting my driver's education, as I would have done if I remained in school. Then she tried to help me find work, she accepted my dream to be a model and paid for modelling school and an expensive portfolio and took me to various assignments and appointments. We even tried to run a small business together, and when all that failed she was very supportive when I signed up to our local community college when I was 18. After nearly 2 years at our local college, my real dreams started to formulate. I loved being a student! I wanted to learn and I wanted to study psychology and eventually be a practising psychologist. My mother helped me as much as she could in the early days of college, since I had virtually no high school education to apply to my classes and assignments. So she studied with me! Finally I did not need that support from her as my confidence grew as I was receiving good grades and I started to immerse myself in academia.

My dreams were such that I would need to attend university. I nervously applied to three and one was the ultimate dream, UCLA! I was overjoyed when I got accepted to all three schools! My mother and I cried tears of joys after remembering what hard times I went through to get to where I was! It was wonderful, my dreams were starting to come through and I would make my future bright as well as giving back  to my mother the love and care she always bestowed upon to me! I was feeling happy. My UCLA days were some of the happiest days in my life and my mother was so very proud!

Then a terrible unforeseen event happened; my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The diagnosis was by chance during a routine gall bladder surgery. I was the only one in the hospital waiting room when I was told the terrible news. Not only was I told she had cancer but that it was inoperable and she had about 3 months to live! That was the beginning of my dreams, as well as life as I knew it, crumbling down upon me.
I did lose my mother, 6 months later. I took her to her chemo and radiation appointments. I cared for her and nursed her and towards the end gave her more liquid morphine than she was allowed because she was screaming out in pain as well as withdrawals, and having hallucinations as she was wanting more and more and more! She died from a morphine induced coma and I was the only one there by her side, I tried to study during that long restless night as I had final exams the following day. Eventually sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I was next to my beloved mother as she drew her finally big breath of air, as if she was about to go under water, then she was gone.


                                   

                                 
I now realise that ever since then, I have NEVER been anyone's priority. I was my mother's priority much of the time because of my illness and the subsequent problems it created in my life. This priority did cause resentment within my sister, but that was not my mother's intention, for I remember many times when she too was my mother's priority! All I want, all I have ever wanted was to be someone's priority. This I wanted from the men in my life and I have never ever felt that from any man. Now at my age I realise that I will never have such a love in my life and this makes me feel very, very sad indeed. I am not saying I will never be loved, but I will never be anyone's priority because once we have children our priority will always be our children.

                                           
                                   
My children are obviously my priority, but sometimes I think why? Doesn't that sound horrible? But then tonight in my support group I heard 2 different women say basically the same thing. I heard one say that she is starting to feel that she does not want her children to go on holiday with her, she wants to go alone, she does not want her kids...obviously she does not honestly feel she does not want her kids any more, but there are fleeting moments when you feel like, "I just want to be a person without my kids"! Another woman said that sometimes she wished she would get into an accident, just so she could have a break from her kids in the hospital! And we are not talking young children, young children may be physically draining, but older children can sometimes drain your spirit!

Today I saw my son, who has been my priority for 19 years! My ex husband never felt this sense of priority. He continued with his life, his socializing with his friends, going away on his own holidays, weekends away, night's out, overnight stays, laziness at home, not caring for his children etc. It hurt me that my son was so disrespectful to me today and it comes so easily to him to try to blame me, control me, hurt me. I felt so stupid, I wish I had a better word to describe myself, but stupid is the only word that I can use. Stupid because I have made my children my one and only priority for all these years and yet my only son finds it so acceptable to treat me the way he does. He does not treat me this way most of the time any more, but that is probably because he is not living at home and we do not spend that much time together as we did when he was at home. I left feeling all wound up and on edge, with my heart thumping in my chest and feeling agitated and snappy with others.

                                     

I hated being told how everything is wrong in his life and that it is all my fault. I told him that I might go away for a short holiday break, and then he started demanding that he is the one who deserves a break, not me. My life apparently always works out and is better than his, and if I would have listened to him in the first place and did as I was told there would have never been any trouble and he would still be enjoying life doing what he enjoys doing, but I took everything away from him. When I asked him if it was ok for his father and or his grandparents to have breaks and holidays he said yes it is but I can not go away unless I provide a holiday for him as well since I am the one who created so many problems! Lovely, at least I did not have to listen to him calling me a f****** c*** over and over again like I use to when he lived at home!

Then later in the evening, as I mentioned above,  I went to my support group for parents who are "suppose to" have children with drug problems. I say, "suppose to", because, well I am sorry, but living with a son who goes to work, has friends, has some decent hobbies and generally behaves himself, but he likes to smoke a bit of weed from time to time, is not a child with a drug problem. OK, I am feeling quite self obsessed and maybe a bit of self pity is playing on my thoughts today. . Another member who just started our group today is another one who says her son only smokes weed, but he has very abusive behaviour towards her. I feel a lot of these parents who may have badly behaved children, with some underlying issues and they have challenging situations at home, but I do not see smoking a bit of weed as being a drug problem. Cannabis is different than it use to be, I know that, and I am sure that smoking weed on top of underlying issues and aggressive personalities will make life worse rather than easier, but I feel that somehow there should be another group that I should be in! I know my son has many underlying issues, but he was never, up until maybe 3-4 years ago, badly behaved, but he has a major drug problem with several very dangerous drugs. But I walked away from group tonight feeling like an alien, I did not feel I belonged in the group and in fact tonight I had very little to contribute and felt an unnecessary member. I also left the group being reminded about this "priority" dilemma I am feeling. Out of the 8 people in attendance, I felt again, this self pitying feeling of, "I have no one really by my side who I can lean on when I need to. No one who is in my life who is part of it. You know, I am talking partner, parents, siblings, that many people do seem to have to talk to and get comfort from. I came home feeling that I was very alone and I am not sure why exactly as half of the people are single parents and a few are going through some really tough times.

                                    

So today I was made to feel quite unnerved by my son. I was reminded of what my life was like on a daily basis and I do not know how I coped for so long like that. I was also told by my son, who was feeling suitably "relaxed" (his way if describing being on something) on Etizolam, that it would be far better for him physically, emotionally, financially to be on his etizolam regularly and that the money he would save on not buying as much alcohol would be a great way to start saving money and that he generally feels so much better this way and he does not understand why I am so resistant to accept this. He also explained that he had a chat with one of his workers at the drug rehabilitation appointments that he does not intend to give up all drugs and what would happened if after his requirement is met ,he was found out to be taking legal highs or benzos he purchased on line. Well good news for my son is that they said nothing would happen, under the eyes of the law it would be an improvement from what he was doing when he got arrested, and that they are not illegal!

So my precious boy who I loved and adored and brought up so very well can sit eating the doughnuts and tea I bought him, while he was talking to me in an emotionally abusive tone and tells me he has no intention of giving up on his drugs. I am so tired of telling him that this is his opportunity to start moving forward because one day he will realise the life he is living now, is not what he wants to be doing. He does not want to change his life, but I do not want to watch and wait until he does; however, I do not want to have him out of my life, I love him too much!

Sorry, I am having a shit day. I am feeling alone and like things will never change, though I know they have changed in subtle ways already, it is sometimes easy to lose your focus. Maybe I am getting impatient and greedy. I want to be happy. I want my children to be happy and thriving in a healthy lifestyle. I want someone to love me and be there for me without any restrictions. I want to be free to express myself without fear of being judged or losing those I love. I want to be free from financial worries to do things that make me feel happy. I have waiting so very long for these things and I am getting tired of waiting.

                                             

I am very low in mood and I do not like writing such posts that come across as "woe is me" but sometimes we all feel like this and it does help to get it out and since I can not sit down and talk to someone whenever I need to, I sit down and talk to people through my computer and hope that someone who will read this will "get me" and also the sheer fact that I have somehow purged these thoughts and formulated them into words in my blog helps me work through my complex emotions.

Tomorrow is another day as they say,  and we can only hope that tomorrow will be better, when we are feeling less than happy today!