My husband insisted I write tonight. He tells me I need it. He's probably right, I keep melting down and losing patience. Surprisingly with my daughter more than my son; lately she has been 'all mommy, all the time.' If I'm around, I have to do everything for her. She will not accept a towel from my husband, she will not let him get her food, she will not let him help her get dressed. It is increasingly hard for me to manage 'demands.' People demanding things. Even if it's not seeming to be a demand, lately just by being around me, I feel you wanting things from me. Wanting me to be a certain way, do a certain thing, sit in a particular spot (ok, that one's my daughter, and she definitely vocalizes that demand, as well as the demand to nurse, to play with her, etc etc etc). I honestly would love a veg out day, where we watch stuff or play games or whatever and eat whatever we want but do all this with a minimum of screaming and fighting... but neither of my children seem capable of doing that. With the death of D'Argo, with the results of a particular diagnosis, with, just, everything, I am feeling this overwhelming pressure bearing down on my head and heart.
Anyway. That opening paragraph is just to say, I have no idea what to write, but obviously need to. I keep having this image of fire in my head. My children are the fire, I think, burning away... Something of me. I hope they're burning away the bad, the parts of me that are not respectful, the parts of me that aren't the parts I want. I don't know. It definitely feels right now like I'm not the parent I want to be, or the wife I feel I should be, or the pet owner I wish I could be, or a friend at all to anyone. I constantly second guess myself, constantly wonder what other people think of me, whether they think I'm as big of a mess as I feel and if that's why they never reach out. So maybe it's just that I want to be scorched, to be cleansed, so that I can feel 'good enough.' Good enough for who, or for what, I don't know. In self-help mentalities, it'd be good enough for myself. I should be the one that I am trying to please. But there's that damn word, should. All these fucking should's in life are... toxic. You should eat healthy, you should exercise, you should get enough sleep, you should have sex regularly, you should should should should just fuck it all.
So, yeah, you can obviously see the mood I'm in. I can't keep to a budget, and I feel so inadequate that I can't give my children all the things they want, all the food they love, that I can't afford another cat after losing one that I couldn't afford to pay for the surgery to fix his tiny urethra. I can't keep up with laundry and dishes and cleaning and still be a mother - though aren't all those partnered with being a mother? how can one be a mother and not be able to keep up with the laundry and the dishes and the cleaning? I can't keep my patience with my daughter screaming in agony about EVERYTHING, and I do literally mean everything, she screamed because the only towel available to hold her red otter pop was white, not red. And yes, she needs a towel to hold her otter pop in, because it's too cold for her hand otherwise. Not that it's a bad thing to be opinionated or to have strong emotions. It is, for me, however, always been hard for me to be around strong emotions. It overwhelms me, overloads me. My mother was always strongly emotional, and I couldn't handle it then, and now both of my children are strongly emotional and it is hard for me to handle now. Though, to be honest, I'm also strongly emotional, so I suppose it just runs in the family. I know, for me, I feel everyone's emotions so strongly it's like... It's like I'm immersed in their agony, or their joy, or whatever. With joy, it's not that bad, joy is generally a great feeling to be immersed in. But the agony... The constant, never-ending agony that is life for my 3-year old is wearing me down to a raw, messy blob. So, obviously, that's why I'm here, writing it for all the world to see. Makes perfect sense.
I have always had this desire to write something that resonates with people so much it becomes... well, I guess, a classic. And for much of that, when my emotions get strong, I bare my soul for the world to read. It's never been hard for me, to bare my soul. Once I bare it, then I have all kinds of doubt and anxiety and fear, but the actual act is easy for me. Almost necessary. I will probably let this blog post sit on my website, unmentioned, quiet, half hoping no one reads it and half hoping everyone does. I think it may partially be because I can't talk about my emotions, but I can write them. So when I feel strongly about something, I want to write it, and since I feel strongly, I want everyone to read it.
Autism has been a current subject of interest (someone in my family has been recently diagnosed. I choose not to share who, because, well, that's their story to share, not mine, but it is not out of any shame over the diagnosis). Anyway, there's a Facebook group I've been frequenting that's composed of autistic people and people who care for autistic people, and the latter come to get advice from the former, and the former come to vent or get advice on how to handle things or just get support. It's actually super awesome, for the most part (and the part that's not, well, nothing is perfect). One of the things I see come up a lot is anger at 'autism parents,' especially 'autism moms,' who appear to be characterized by a fair amount of anger towards autism as well as frustration with their child and a general 'woe is me' for having to live with/care for someone who is autistic. This type of parent is a trigger for the autistic people in the group, and it does seem rightfully so in a lot of ways, primarily because the stereotypical 'autism mom' isn't actually autistic herself, she tends to take ownership of her child's autism, she tends to speak for her child, she tends to harbor ill will towards anyone who is autistic but doesn't agree with her about what's best for autistic people. I saw one post recently angry at autism moms who lament that they don't get to do all the things they wanted to with their child. I see the anger - but look at all that you can do! Look at who your child is, not who you wanted her to be! But I also see the mom's perspective, because parenting has not been anything like what I thought it would be.
I can only speak to my own children. They are wonderful, and I adore them, and they are exhausting (see = the constant agony noted above), and this whole parenting thing has been a constant cycle of reevaluating what I want, what I believe, what I feel, and how to be. And it is so incredibly hard to shift an entire worldview, an entire way of being, an entire super-structure of what you enjoy doing. An example - sitting down in the evening and watching a movie with my family is, to me, an ideal picture of relaxation. For my children, it is a picture of stress and overstimulation and will lead to running, jumping, screeching, hitting, etc. What I envision is never what happens, and it has taken us a long time to figure that out, to adjust to that, to accept that TVs are dangerous, dangerous devices (and somehow we have three of them, all boxed up in the garage). Tablets and phones are fine, but there's something about the large screen, especially in the evening, that always leads to a meltdown. It's a simple thing, and what we get instead is also nice, but it has taken a shift in my thinking and a shift in my instinctive desires and still, after a long day out and about, I want to come home and watch a movie on the TV. But, through the fire, right? My children have burnt the TV watching out of me, at least for now (there has been talk of bringing one inside the house again. It's hard to say if this will happen). In a similar vein, movies at the movie theater are a fond memory for me. With how hard the TV is, I can only imagine a giant screen would be even worse - but still, I remember going with friends, with family, on dates, and it's something that I want to share with my child. I want to recreate the sense of bonding I got when I went, and even though I *know* that I won't get the bonding in that place or in the way I want it, I still crave it sometimes. I know, now, that going out hunting for bugs and lizards and other critters is better bonding. I *know* that playing a game is better bonding. I know all this, and it doesn't change my memories and what I envisioned parenting would be.
I am constantly finding new ways that I unknowingly try to control my children, and having to figure out how to stop doing it, because any level of control leads to a meltdown. I am constantly finding new ways to speak, to be, and still, I fail daily (right now, as mentioned, my own meltdowns are coming when too many people want things from me and they are too vocal about their needs). I wish I could be constantly patient, constantly loving, constantly kind. I haven't been, and every unkindness eats at me. I feel sick, that I couldn't hug my daughter when she desperately needed one, because I was too overwhelmed with the needs - my daughter's, to be comforted when sick; my own, to have some alone time; my husband's, to focus on my son; my son's, to play a particular game. Everyone had their needs, and most of them were not congruent with mine, and if I'd accepted that, I wouldn't have melted down, my daughter wouldn't have been upset, my husband wouldn't have had to stop playing with my son. It was my failure to accept things as they were that led to a stressful evening, my desire for rejuvenation that led to a complete lack of rest. So often, I find this to be the case - If I could just accept that this is what things are, then things would be easier. I wouldn't have to swim against the current. But I get so set on what I want - what's up river - that I don't see what's down river, what's with the current.
