Things are still not going great?

I am having a hard time. My driving instructor says he doesn't know what to do with me. My husband said last week he "can't live like this" (we made up, but it was about cleaning - something that I don't believe will ever flow naturally for me no matter how much I understand it's important to him, I've improved for now but long term...) and today my boss has come straight out and said she "can't work with this" about me. Because of my organisation and time management.

I feel like... I'm always making promises that I don't know if I'll be able to keep because of my ADHD. Because I know what they want me to say, I know how I'm supposed to act following these things, it's not acceptable for me to be honest about my expectations, but I literally don't know how I could have pre-empted any of these problems, which means it's likely that they will happen again.

Also finding it hard - the contrast with when I was a teenager and struggling at school and the people who were cross with me were also trying to help me find out why it was so difficult for me. They don't do that now... because an adult who can't do those things is just obviously a lost cause. I feel so sad because I really want to fix these problems, I just can't see them in advance like other people can. But it comes back to the same thing - it doesn't matter how much effort you put into something or how much of it is in your control, the only thing that others see is whether you hit or missed the mark.

I know I have so much to give, but I can't get a handle on these basics. It is so enraging and senseless. But I'm too tired even to be angry about it so I just feel defeated today.

It never rains in southern california

I was talking about emotional abuse and I wrote this, and wanted to share it. 

I feel like my ex robbed me of my chance to be a good mother. I'm sure some would say that is excuses, I left when DS was one so I should have been able to be a good mother after then (and I believe I was a good mother before I left, too.) But I feel like he stole it because if it had been up to my judgement, I wouldn't have got pregnant in that situation or relationship, at that time of my life. He pushed and pushed and pushed until my heart won out over my head and I fell into that dream, of course as soon as it happened, I knew I'd be raising my child alone.

I am angry that he pushed me to make a decision I was doing quite well at saying no to, despite wanting it, and then dropped the ball. I can count on one hand the number of nappies he changed, I remember every one because it was such a drama trying to get him to do anything. He hasn't seen our son for four years. And yet occasionally when my six year old has a tantrum, something in that expression, my ex's face flashes through his, and I have to remind myself "You are not him".

I'm not a great mum. I'm okay but I'm not great. I'm still recovering from that relationship and I haven't had any space to do so, so I make my own space by pushing anyone and everyone away sometimes. You're not supposed to push your child away, but I have to to survive, and I am only just surviving. I am thankful every day that I happened across someone who is caring, who fills both gaps - my gap and my ex's gap. Really, they are both his gaps. His doing. Honestly if I think about my marriage too hard I know that I don't deserve it. I am not a good or easy wife. But I am in some ways forced to be a wife, to share my life and my home with this child, who I love, and this man, who I also love, but feel neither of them get anywhere close to the best of me.

I sleepwalk through most of these years. I have a poor grasp of time. Months and days feel the same, sometimes crawlingly slow but mostly vanishingly fast. My memory doesn't work like it used to, but mostly this sense of time going too fast. It never used to be this bad, before.

It's hard even to focus for a full post. I want to say more, but it's gone. The title is an autocorrect that I accidentally typed in, but it sort of fits. I'm tired - that's another thing, I'm exhausted all of the time. I feel like I could sleep for weeks.

I need to see a doctor, I know, but time... slips away. There is always something in the way and meanwhile months and years go past.

Maybe another five years and I'll be better?

Hiatus...2

And the last post I didn't finish brings my number of drafts up equal to my number of published posts.

I really really miss writing, but can't seem to get into it at all :(

Thank you, Wil Wheaton

So I saw this tweet the other day.

Ugh. Depression and Anxiety seem to have activated themselves without warning or reason. I hate when this happens.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) June 27, 2014

It made me feel sad and comforted in equal measure. (Or not because WTF who measures feelings, they're not cake ingredients, you can't put them in a cup. Whatever it's a sentence opener. Yes I talk to my actual brain like this, what?) (ahem) .

I felt sad because I know how that feels, and because I was exactly there, riding the depression train down to the pit and saying "Hey wait, I wanted to -" but you can't get off because NOPE this is a one way train and the only way is down and it's going too fast for you to notice, normally. So I felt that. But I was more selfish, because the first thing that I felt, the first thing that always hits me when someone admits their depression is relief, and there are two levels to this relief. The first is "Thank God I am not alone", and I do honestly think that that incredibly simple sentiment can mean so much. It does to me, anyway. When I hear someone say "You are not alone", and I can tell by their words or their eyes or the way that their voice intones that they know, and they mean it, that helps most of all. Nobody talks about depression, not really and not relating to themselves. It is shameful or embarrassing. There is a fear that nobody will know how to react and will feel awkward. It's especially rare for someone in the public eye to speak out.

The second level is different. You can know intellectually that depression is an illness, a fault in the brain wiring or hormones, or a reaction to an unimaginable situation, but the way that the beastly thing is designed overrides any kind of logic or intellect with an overriding sense of "You suck. Everything is all your fault. Especially the way you're feeling right now. Oh, you know what, just this. It's a much better explanation than I can do and it has funny pictures.

Anyway. To see someone like Wil Wheaton, who is extremely funny, clever, talented, kind and successful all at once admit that he also suffers from depression is like a revelation. He has all these amazing things - an awesome job, bags of talent and fun, his own TV show, a wife who he comes across that he genuinely adores and has fun with, great kids he loves and is proud of, he has all of these things and he is still depressed. That means that (although you knew this before) it's not you. It's really just NOT you being useless and pointless and a waste of human space. You could be awesome and you would still get depression. Look at these awesome people who are stuck on the stupid train with you. It is just an illness, and it doesn't need to define you. In the meantime, maybe we can party on the train. Or at least sit around and play sad music and hold hands. Does anyone have a guitar?

I am 26

I have just turned 26.

I have a five year old son who I often struggle with but who is starting to show his true personality and that awes me completely.

I am married, have been for around 6 months. My husband is great and I could not imagine life without him, but he is in pain and he doesn't like to talk about things which hurt, and I worry that I am not noticing enough.

We want to start trying for a baby but there are medical issues which need to be discussed first. This is one of the things my husband is struggling with.

We live in Germany, where neither of us are from. I am working as an English teacher and really really love it. I should be taking both German and driving lessons, but I am taking neither.

Our flat is tiny and we have to consciously work out ways to get space from each other (it means taking turns to "walk the child" and sticking to bedtimes, in practice. And headphones. We have an abundance of headphones.) We want pets but we don't have the room, or the money or the time at the moment.

A lot of our friends are stunningly rich expats (or so it feels) and we are just about hanging on financially. (Although better off than we were in the UK.) But we are here and that is a thrill in itself. We did it.

I feel like I am teetering on the edge of a quicksand pit of depression and I am trying to block it out because I have been in that pit before and I don't want to get stuck in it again. I am surrounded by beautiful buildings, skies and mountains and a beautiful boy and kind people (who all feel like strangers, but that is because most of them are) and I'm even feeling a lot more confident in myself these days but still it is there, and I'm trying to ignore it and I don't know how to get away.

I can't be that person

I am not the mother that I want to be.

I am patient but only when I am not tired, which is most of the time. I am too easily irritated. I blow up in a rage too easily (I am getting better at avoiding this). I don't always enjoy the company of my son - THAT is the worst one, for me, the bringer of the biggest load of guilt. God, how I used to "feel sad" for kids whose parents didn't want to spend every waking moment with them. Hi guise. I am sorry. Please can I join your club?

When he was tiny I had all of these expectations and plans and everything was going to be perfect. Well, I failed my first hurdle when I tried EC (elimination communication). That's where you hold them over a pot every time you think they need a wee, and somehow your superior connection with them allows them to do this. Skips potty training. Yeah, failed that one. Once he could crawl he didn't want to be held over a potty, he wanted to be out there, crawling and doing stuff. Didn't potty train until he was over 3. Still won't poo anywhere other than home two years later.

I was going to get him used to all of these lovely home cooked foods and instead when we were first on our own we had no oven and no microwave, he lived off veggieburgers and frozen veg for months and then stopped eating and since then has been the fussiest eater ever. I see people whose children eat couscous and chickpeas and soup - fucking soup!! - and feel shit. Baby-Led weaning, you lied.

I was useless at wrap slings. I forgave myself for this one (like I forgave myself for the EC thing, once I realised MOST PEOPLE DON'T DO THIS and IT IS A MAD IDEA.)

I think I took from my mum, and my grandma, that to be a good mother you just had to be kind. And so I sort of sat back and relaxed, because I am pretty kind, I am a nice person, job done. I read all of these theories and they fitted in with my "be kind" mantra, and I think I felt like I was done. This is the old "clever but lazy" thing coming out in me again from school. Oh yes. I have the theories, I know how to do this right, I have great ideas about how to carry it out, too. This will be awesome. Do you know what I did this year? I planned little activities to do every day of Advent to celebrate Christmas and get the Christmas excitement flowing. Well, it's the 11th of December, 2 weeks to go and we have done not one thing on that list.

This is just, basically, a perfect illustration of every fucking thing I do. I have a good idea. I get really psyched about the idea. It's going to be fun. It's really going to work this time - look, I made a pretty colour coded chart and everything! Then, whatever it is happens, I'm motivated for maybe the first one or two, if that, and then I fall back on my usual which is to do nothing and stay up on the internet for hours.

It's some kind of torture. I know exactly what I want to do, I watch myself not do it, and then I have the exact details of what I should have done (and failed to do, again) differently to beat myself up with. Maybe my standards are too high and I'm setting myself up to fail, I don't know. But, to be honest, even when I make myself a totally piss-easy target I fall short from that after a short while, and I get down because it's not even that I don't do something well enough, it's that I quite often don't do it at all.

It gets me down. I can't seem to be the person I so desperately want to be. Hell, I can't even seem to be a normal person who functions adequately.

Depression can fuck off.

I've been trying to avoid being on the computer all the time since Creepy D asked me if I actually wanted to be here, as I seemed to be avoiding everyone and pushing them away.

Had to tell him this was just my coping mechanism for the last year or so. Bury self in computer, let life go on around self, easy. And so addictive.

Have started doing exercise, in order to try and boost my energy levels and also make me feel more motivated in general. But it seems that cutting off the computer time has led to my depression coming out again. If you'd asked me a week ago, or even yesterday, I'd have said that I felt depressed a year or two ago but I feel okay now. But no, here it comes again. We ended up having a stupid argument about childbirth, of all things, and it's reawakened my "Shouldn't have had children with (ex) utter knob end" thing, and then that has triggered my "Shit, you're so terrible at LIFE that you bought vegetables and didn't use them and now they are mouldy. Well done you!" (tears). Decided to go for a walk to calm down a bit and forgot to take the recycling down with me. Cue another rant at self. "Can't even remember one thing that you decided on a few seconds ago. Oh my god, you can't do anything." Leads to terrible fear that will forget something important for my new job which I'm supposed to be starting next week.

I mean, it's exhausting. And stupid. But when I fail at stuff, even really simple stupid stuff, that just seems to reinforce my self-belief that I fail at EVERYTHING, and it all feeds into itself and is awful.

Actually people are saying nice things about me on facebook (and I am not fishing with moany comments, either) and I suspect I am coming down with a cold and feeling a bit sorry for myself because of that, and I always feel a bit thrown by arguments even though we ended up on the same page. I am sure that in a month when I've settled into the new job and maybe even done my next mad venture (learning to drive, in the land of the Autobahn!) I will be feeling better. And exercise is supposed to help. And I need to take my iron. And stop beginning sentences with And.

Breathe. Sleep. Make plans. Eat. Live.

Floating Away

I had a horrible, horrible dream last night where I was in a park and was watching a family who were letting their baby ride on a helium balloon which was floating in the air. The dad in the family was very careful to keep hold of the balloon, the baby was happy and everyone was generally relaxed and having fun. Then after a while I heard shouting from that side of the park and I realised that they had let the balloon go, having put their older daughter into a basket under it to weigh it down, but she wasn't heavy enough. It was just an utter helpless despair seeing all of the adults in the park try to jump, hold each other up, climb things and yet be unable to reach this balloon which was floating off with their (happy and unaware) children in it and every second that went by it became more and more obvious that they weren't going to be saved. The balloon came down a little while later in a nearby wood and neither of them survived :(

I don't know if it was nudging me to be thankful for what I have but I have been feeling like that today and over the last few days. I've been struggling for the past few months, I won't lie – with parenthood and wrestling with guilt versus apathy. A lot of the time I have been feeling like I just don't enjoy my son's company at the moment and I feel like that is awful for him. But today and for the last few days I have started to enjoy it again. I have got annoyed and we have argued and I haven't always dealt with things in the best way, but I was able to let a slight bit of amusement sneak through the irritation when he was insisting on driving the trolley himself in the supermarket (with disastrous results) and suggest that maybe I could steer from the front if he propelled from the back, rather than just getting annoyed and snapping about it. And I told him I loved him when he was almost asleep and he smiled a little happy smile.

I don't think that the worst is over yet, this age (3-4) has really pushed and challenged me and I don't think that the stage is over. But I feel like I am finally starting to be able to cope with it rather than finding it so overwhelming all of the time. Which probably means I'm due a new seemingly insurmountable parenting challenge after this summer. (Can anyone say bilingualism in more than one language??)

Maybe this is why people have more than one child, so they can feel like they know what they're doing at least some of the time.