Coping Badly

Tags

2son, 3son, 4son, children, coping, energy, parenting, siblings

We’ve just started the third weekend of having 2son at home.

2son himself has been fine back at home. On the first weekend he went to CATE, on his second visit home he didn’t but he has been quite chirpy and chatty although clearly revelling in not being monitored quite so heavily.

This time we have a multi-coloured timetable for his actions until his return on Monday afternoon, which includes him making a pudding and washing up, as well as getting up at 9 o’clock every morning. He’s already said he has no intention of following it but we will have a go.

It’s the other two I’m really worried about. Five minutes after they walk in through the front door two or three of us are arguing and I don’t honestly see a way out. 3son is very aware that he’s older than 4son and glories in telling him what to do which naturally upsets 4son. 3son is also still incredibly argumentative, very pre-teen but I am losing patience with him.

He jests that I brought him up to speak his own mind and be stubborn which is true. What he doesn’t mention is being brought up to be considerate towards other people and to make compromises, to not always do just what you want to do. Yesterday I said to both of them that they need to think about how we are going to resolve this as I don’t want it to continue for the next five years or so.

One of the issues has been that over the last two or three years as all this developed I started losing my energy and motivation and gradually diminished taking them out in the evenings and at weekends. As they got older they naturally became more able to not need to go out every single day and as I had been taking children out every single day for 15 odd years I revelled in the ability to stay in for 24 hours. I’ve now gone too far the other way and need to put effort into dragging them out more so that at least we’re arguing about something different rather than computer/homework/Wii/Lego.

There is so much effort going into 2son which is great but other than family therapy sessions every three weeks for the rest of, nothing. Family dynamics change when 2son is or isn’t there. 3son is enjoying school so much that he thinks the sun shines out of his arse and he can win any argument with me if he just goes on and on. Then he tells me that he must have won because I’m walking away from him, which I only do when I’m either about to burst into tears or deck him. 4son is still having a miserable time at school and is counting down the days to the end of the year. He can’t cope with 3son’s arguments and storms off in a massive huff, although he does bear some responsibility for needling 3son. 3son throws things when he gets angry without thinking of the consequences.

Of course lots of this would be here even if 2son hadn’t got problems and was still at school but I’m feeling that I’m really struggling to look after all three of them and it’s getting harder. And the weight’s going up again, which is not surprising, but is certainly not helping.

So Tired

Tags

2son, dynamics, family, fighting, frustration, mental health, section, sibling rivalry, siblings

Exactly two weeks after 2son was sectioned and walked into an ambulance they have removed the section and he is now a voluntary patient. 3son and I took him out on Saturday, just going to the local park for a visit. So slow progress is being made.

At home though 3son and 4son are fighting a lot. It seems the only way to stop them is to put them in separate rooms doing separate things and then they argue about who’s had how much time doing what and whether there has been a strictly equal apportion of computer or Wii time. 3son said that 2son helped to stop them fighting so it was harder not having him here to stop arguments. Last Sunday they spent over 2 hours arguing over Lego pieces. It’s wearing me down. It has been for months but now that 2son is removed from the equation I’m realising how much of it is not about him.

I find this really hard to resolve. 3son gets upset at 4son for bursting into tears and says he’s over-reacting and that by doing so 3son gets more blame because he doesn’t get as upset. He accuses me of loving 4son more and being nicer to him. This of course means that I bend over backwards to not show any preferential treatment to 4son and I’m fully aware that I find him a lot easier to deal with. 3son wants to be proved right in the whole conflict dredging up what happened six months ago. I just want the two of them to be able to resolve things amicably and I don’t really care who is right. This irritates 3son who then accuses me of not caring. And so it goes on.

I’m sleeping more solidly and having more normally random dreams rather than re-visiting the same bad ones but I’m waking up tired most days and no longer able to sleep in at the weekends and catch up. I’m going to bed early and staying up watching television or reading and not actually going to sleep early.

I have, over the last month, given up any attempts at food planning and eating properly. My exercise has taken a major hit as well. I just can’t be bothered. Having spent three weeks doing the minimum of work with Easter holidays and worrying about 2son I’m now hitting deadlines and having to force myself to catch up when I still don’t feel bothered. And, on top of all that, I have to take time out to go and visit 2son. This sounds incredibly mean but 3son and I were gone for five hours yesterday which was a good chunk out of the day. I didn’t go and visit him during the week because I couldn’t find the energy. Then I had to persuade myself to not feel guilty.

I haven’t started on the cleaning I need to do since he’s gone. I need to wash his bed frame and other places where he has smeared faeces but I haven’t the energy. I haven’t even hoovered for a few week and that’s a lot easier and quicker. I’m tired of waking up tired. I suppose I expected to find life dramatically easier without 2son at home and it’s not. I miss his conversations and company.

That’s all a bit of a rant and a confused one at that. The family therapist phoned up and I demanded regular sessions so we’ve booked in three, three weeks apart. She doesn’t sound enthused about it all but I’m pushing her, explaining all this and saying yes, we do need it to continue.

So I’m fed up, frustrated, tired and burdened. It’s still a heavy load.

Dreaming of My Sister

Tags

dreams, hurt, one-upmanship, pain, rivalry, self-esteem, siblings, sister

Troubled sleeping means I very rarely remember my dreams. This morning I woke up furious.

I was with my mother and 2sis (I’m youngest of 3 sisters). I think we were at 2sis’s house. Anyway, the two of them were getting a tea tray ready and were fussing over spoons. I remember mildly suggesting that spoons weren’t that important and we could do without them if that made life easier as we didn’t really need them. But spoons are apparently a vital component of a tea tray and 2sis rounded on me and sneered at me. I have no idea what she said, but she made me angry. I turned on her and said something along the lines of I was fed up with her constant sneering and belittling of me and it was high time she grew up, stop being a bitch to me and acknowledged how vile she has been to me for the last 20 odd years. At which point I woke up.

We three sisters all have problems with low self-esteem and self confidence. 2sis resented being the middle sister, feeling that 1sis got privileges for being the eldest, and I for being the youngest. Not uncommon with middle siblings, but she never really got over it.

2sis decided that our father preferred me, that I was his favourite. It wasn’t, and isn’t, true but because my parents were that much older my father may well have had more time to spend with me than he did with 2sis. I had my first champagne at a younger age than she did; something she resented for years, along with other unearned privileges, mostly due to our family simply being better off. My father is incredibly proud of being a Yorkshire man, and brought 2sis and myself up to feel the same (1sis is a southerner). 2sis rejected this and wanted nothing to do with any Yorkshire upbringing which again created a barrier between her and my father.

I don’t really remember it as a child; we were friends at one time, but as an adult she would take every opportunity in conversation to belittle me to make those tiny little comments to put me down. I used to do the same in return, thinking it was just fun sibling rivalry and we were playing one-upmanship, and yes I had read the book and seen the film. At some point though it dawned on me that she really meant it. So I stopped.

I took the very charitable decision that if she needed to be horrible in order to make herself feel better, then I was going to feel sorry for her and let her get on with it. And she did carry on. If my parents were not around, we could have a tolerable conversation. As soon as they were within earshot she’d start with the sneering again.

My mother used to recognise this and express sympathy for me but a few years ago decided to re-write history and eliminate this from her memory. My father rarely listens to what “us women” talk about so has never noticed. No-one recognised it other than me. 1sis does but the three of us are hardly ever together.

I have just stopped talking to 2sis. Over the years I have tried to keep in contact but kept getting rebuffed and eventually I made the decision to stop trying. So I’ve never stood up to her and told her how angry I am with her or how much her remarks have hurt me over the years. Part of the reason is that I don’t expect her to listen to me if I did say it. Part of me thinks that she’d just laugh at whatever I said and hurt me even more.