I don’t think I have ever felt this type of exhaustion
before in my life. I physically cannot
even get out of my own way most days and wake the next morning still craving
more sleep.
In April, I lost my job.
This set off a difficult tail spin of behaviors in our house from Little
R due to the change and fears she associated with a mom not working. It was a stressful phase in our lives but
one that I hope Little R will learn from, that just because a mom is not working
doesn’t mean she will be poor and not able to take care of her kiddo. I was dealing with my own set of emotions
over losing my job and feeling the financial strain and I wasn’t
therapeutically parenting Little R to the best of my ability. I was emotionally not able to meet her and
was at times short with her, which did not make things better.
I found a job in late May and began a new schedule of
working much later in the day than I ever have with Little R in the house. When she moved in I was given a schedule of
6:30am-2:30pm. It worked out perfectly since she is an early riser. I would see her in the AM, hubby would take
her to school and I would pick her up from school in the afternoon. We had time for homework, playing and our evening
routine this was our schedule for almost a year. My new job has me working at least until
4:30pm and sometimes later and not picking up Little R until 5-5:30pm and on occasion
6pm. We rush home and have dinner and by
the time that is done it is after 7pm.
Not a lot of time for playing or homework ETC. She doesn’t do well with
being rushed and just shuts down. So her way of expressing her dislike over all
of this change is through tantrums and defiant behavior.
In addition, the summer has been an extreme challenge for
Little R. She spent the better part of
the summer throwing major tantrums and expressing her dislike of several
changes in her life including my new job, school ending, and her favorite
teacher leaving the district, my parents (her grandparents) moving to Florida
and going to summer day camp. She has made
it clear that these changes were not acceptable to her but none of which I
could change. But even though I couldn’t
change them nor did I cause them I was the punching bag for little R over the
summer both physically and emotionally.
If I am not running around for normal life stuff, we are going
to Therapy’s, tutoring or trying to fit in some family time on the weekends. I have been sick over the past two months with
colds and infections and some stomach trouble.
I haven’t been super sick consistently like this in a long time.
I don’t know where the balance is. Little R takes up about 75% of my time due to
general care taking/ tantrums/explaining everything due to learning issues/re-direction/direct
line of sight monitoring/therapy/tutoring and the other 20% is work. I love her and wouldn't change being her mom but there has to be some balance.
Where and how do I fit in time for me? I really don’t want to be selfish but I am
exhausted and have ostracized myself from my friends and at times from family because
I don’t want to “add another thing” to my plate and I can’t have Little R
tantruming with them or I suppose I can I just don’t want to deal with it. I am physically and emotionally burning
out. My candle has been going at both
ends for over a year but in the past 3 months it has been running on just the
wick in the middle and it is just about out.
I have been blessed to have a mother-in-law who wants to
spend time with Little R and cares about how we parent her. She is always asking what she can do to make things easier and how she can "parent" her when she has her. She will take her
for a full day or overnight to give us a break. She has been a reprieve for us on many occasions
but the day in and day out parenting a special needs kiddo and working a full
time job and managing Little R's many many appointments for therapy and specialist's is exhausting me and all I want to do is take a very long nap…….
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