Nov 16, 2012

Different perspectives

Mistress went away over night in the beginning of the week, she had a job meeting in another town. Neither of us likes it. We do separate sometimes, either because life demands it of us, or because one of us want to do things the other doesn't. But if there is any way, we stay together.

I hated having her gone. When she's not around, my world gets... insecure. Shaky. Everything feels a little bit dangerous. It's as if I'm walking on a tightrope. When she's here I'm just walking around, nothing special, and the minute she leaves town, the road is a thin rope and under it is a gaping chasm, incredibly deep and filled with crocodiles. Nothing bad happens to me as long as I walk carefully, but the fear factor is way bigger.

My mother came over and had dinner with us and cleared the table and played with little S while I walked the dog. Clearing the table is one of those tasks I get really exhausted doing, it's way to many choices and clutter and stuff, so it meant a big deal that she did that.

But then we ended up on the sofa after little S had fallen asleep, and talked and talked and talked. Good talk, in many ways, but also heart wrenching. We talked about stuff we've never talked about before. The divorce when I was nine. Why she moved away then, why we didn't live full time with her. Why they separated. My childhood. If there was things that could have been done differently. If they should have been done differently. (Hell yeah.)

And about now. About how we keep walking in to each other, hurting each other. About why she's tip-toeing around me, afraid of saying things. And about little S. About why she tries so hard to convince me that our struggles, our pain, is common and natural and nothing not everybody with small children experiences. And she actually listened when I tried to tell her why I don't think that is so.

Apparently, when I try to evoke sympathy from her, when I want her comfort and her pity and her understanding, she things I blaim little S. She doesn't separate the experience of being a parent, and our experience of lacking basic necessities like sleep and sanity, from the love for the child. And from that point of view, of course she doesn't want to pity me. Because she said she would feel like she pitied me for having little S.

That hurt me. It hurt me that she obviously doesn't see how I feel for my kid. That the love I hold for her doesn't shine through. Two things comfort me though. One is that I do think little S sees it. I hold her, I hug her, I comfort her, I play with her, I tell her I love her and that she's the finest person there is, and most importantly I don't tell her a lot of other stuff. I don't take my irritation or fatigue or frustration out on her. I really don't. But I do show it to my own mother, and I do get hurt when she shuts me down or tell me my experience isn't valid.

The other comforting thing is that I think she lets her own experience get in the way when she interprets mine. She and dad got two kids very close together, and they lived far from their own parents, in a house in bad condition, working hard and having very little money, and my big brother was hyper allergic. I don't think she remembers much from that time, but I do think it's important for her to think that they made it al right. And from that follows that if they managed that situation, of course me and Mistress can manage our situation, and there's no need for her to pity us, or sympathise, or help out.

The ironic part is that she does help out. Quite a lot. It's not really the practical side of things that's my problem. It's the attitude. The snide comments. The clearly stated idea that we could make it easier and practical for ourselves, without asking if her solutions have been tried already or if we have any particular reasons we're not trying them (they always have and we always have reasons). And the absolutely adamant attitude that our kid is like everybody else's kids, that all kids are the same and that we don't have it any more difficult than anybody else, and therefore have nothing to complain about.

That I have a problem with.

All this talk was inspired by me getting an ADHD-diagnosis, of course. Somehow, it made it possible to talk about. And to me, it's an opening to say "hey, look, we do have it harder than many others. Could you stop moralising and brushing me off and just feel for me for a moment?". I wish I wouldn't have to have a diagnosis of a life long cognitive impairment just to get sympathy. I wish she would have seen me as I am, in the situation I am in, without the glasses provided by the diagnosis. I wish me suffering would have been enough. But somehow, it wasn't. Now she can't deny it any more at least, and that does make it feel better.

I don't know what her problem is about the diagnosis. For me, it explains a lot. It makes things make sense that before didn't. But for her... I think she now has to go back and change her whole impression of me. Or maybe I just hope she will?

Every time she criticised me, every time she yelled at me, every time I went without lunch or warm clothes and she scoffed at me and made it into my own fault for forgetting, every time she gave me to much responsibility and then scolded me for not living up to it, she now has to re-interpret. I was never lazy. I was never un-ambitious. I did care, a lot. I just couldn't do it. And I think realising that has made her change her point of view a little, or at least starting to change it.

Her main issue however is our suspicion that little S might have something similar that I have. Every time we hint at little S being more energetic, having more temper, or being more sensitive than the average child, she shoot it down. She just doesn't want to hear it. And now, when we talked, I realised she thinks we're blaming the kid. That we're angry or resentful or something at her for being how she is.

We're not. In our eyes, she's perfect. But the things demanded from us in taking care of her often exceeds our  resources. To the point of me finally breaking down and becoming really sick. We simply can't do it. That doesn't mean we love her one iota less, it just means we're sometimes very frustrated and tired, and often angry at society and the people around us for not helping us out. For letting us drown and standing by watching, shrugging. That frustrates us. That makes us angry. Not the kid. She's who she is, and she deserves the best. But when we can't give her what she needs, even when we literary work ourself into the ground, being told "well, being a parent is hard" and "you're no worse off than anyone else" is not what we need to hear.

"I'm so sorry for you, I hope it gets better soon" is what I want to hear. "Poor you, I know it must be hard, I feel for you". Not "poor you for having such a bad child" which I think is what my mom think I mean, but "poor you for not being allowed to sleep nearly as much as you need" or something similar. The love for a child doesn't take away basic needs like sleep or food.

I don't know if it's any harder to take care of little S than of any three-year old. I do know that kids are different from each other, because I know a bunch of them. And I do know that parenting can be  very different experiences. I also do know that for us, it has been really really challenging. And that some of the things that we have had to do and live through has been suffering, for real. And I want that to be mirrored by those I'm close to.

Mom and I stayed up to eleven talking, and then I slept lousy, waiting for little S to call to me in the night. We went up early, and when I'd finally dropped little S off at pre-school I went to the University and had a therapy session with a patient. When the patient left the room after an hour, I shut the door and just sat there. My brain couldn't take anymore.

And it's interesting to see how it works. All our sessions is on camera, and on the recording nothing shows of my fatigue, I'm doing a good session. But I can't keep that up. Afterwards, my brain just shut down. I had to sit for a long while before I could go get coffee, and then I had to go lie down for almost and hour in a completely dark room before I could muster enough energy to go write my rapport about the session.

I have been shaky ever since. I got through a busy Wednesday on coffee and calming pills, suffering through repeated panic attacks all day brought on by the fatigue, and then I slept and went around like a zombie all Thursday. Today I'm still affected, but I'm getting better. I'm counting on being back up on my usual base-line around Monday, but it gets very obvious that even if the immediate effect of  getting exhausted as I did on Tuesday goes away after a few hours, the lingering effects last for days. I can't afford it. I can fake it in the moment, it doesn't effect patients or my performance, but I suffer from it.

I'm glad I know to rest now. I don't try to force myself forward anymore, I don't get angry with myself. I just have to accept that this is how I function. I can stretch my resources a great deal, but if I don't stop in time, I will take a long time afterwards to recover. And if I don't the end result is the state I was in this summer, something I would very much prefer never to experience again.

Today I'm going to eat lunch, and fill the car with our pre-packed bags for a weekend with my in-laws. And walk the dog. That's about it. And that's perfect.







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