Hopes for a future

 

In the last couple of weeks I have struggled to get my head together and post anything.  Not because I haven’t written anything – there are several incomplete posts floating around in my folder waiting to be polished and published.

So what’s the problem? Have I just become lax and indecisive? Or, has life on ‘planet adoption’ sapped all the mental, emotional and physical energy out of me to the point where I can’t remember which end is ‘up’?

Well, I am definitely not firing on all cylinders at the moment (Viral infection, grief, living with a teenager).  To be honest I don’t believe anyone in the ‘Hive’ is on top form currently – each one of us with our own individual needs and ‘issues’ (I don’t really like that word, but it is how Buzzbee describes it and I can’t quite find a more appropriate word to describe it without going into a long list of ‘woes’ and sounding negative and self-pitying).

This weeks’ The Adoption Social’s #WASO theme is ‘when I grow up….’ , and as usual I begin thinking about writing a post with a clear idea of what I am going to say, but I am rapidly learning that no matter how good my intentions are for writing a thought provoking or amusing post, they always end up going in a completely different direction but somehow still fitting in with the current theme –this week is no different and in fact it ties in with the theme much more than my original ‘train of thought’ for this post.

Waxy has now been back at school for 2 weeks and to say the Easter holidays were stressful with him at home would be an understatement.  I don’t know if it is simply because he has turned 13 and has developed a skewed idea of how a teenager is supposed to behave and respond to adults (and his little brother) or if it is because the hormones are flying but he is emotionally unprepared or unable to cope as well as some of his peers with the changes.

There could be a thousand reasons for his current ‘pain in the backside’ demeanour and remaining therapeutic with him is certainly a challenge at the moment – especially for Bumble who is not only trying to manage his own grief but also the endless attempts by the ‘juvenile silverback’ to gain control over him.

Anyway I am waffling.  No matter how difficult Beeswax is being at the moment and how difficult he is making it for me to be around him or have a civil conversation with him that doesn’t involve him graphically describing what I should do to myself both physically and well, more explicitly (I will have to leave it up to your imagination what I mean by this) – there is a vulnerability about him that I haven’t seen for some time and it pulls at my heart strings. I find myself torn in two on one hand I am ‘hopping mad’ with him and on the other I am filled with empathy for him (this still intrigues  some of my family. They often wonder how I can do it – be completely incensed by his behaviour but remain filled with empathy for him at the same time)

My usual answer is “Answers on a postcard! I would love to know myself”.

Ok so how do my ramblings fit with this weeks’ theme?

Really, it comes down to an insane and rather pointless conversation between Waxy and myself last night about supper, which reached a point where he inadvertently allowed me a rare opportunity to look through the window into his inner world and let ‘slip’ what he thought his future would hold for him.

W: “I had fish fingers at school for lunch. I am not having f**king fish for tea tonight!”

H: “First of all. Thank you for letting me know what you don’t want but the food is already in the oven cooking and I will not be making anything else, but if you choose to not eat it then that is your decision. Secondly, if you had thought to ask me ‘what we were having for supper’ rather than going ‘off on one’, I would have told you that it was your favourite – chicken and leak plait”

W: “Well, you should have opened your big fat gob and told me. I shouldn’t have to ask. Do your job properly woman”

H: “Wow you are angry with me tonight.  Have I done something to upset you in the 3 hours since I collected you from school that I don’t remember?”

W: “You drive me nuts just by breathing.  I wish you would just shut up.  God, I will get more peace when I am in prison.  Actually at least then I will get 3 square meals a day that haven’t been ruined by you”

H: Again I am not sure what I have supposedly done to upset you but I am curious. Why do you think you are going to prison?  Unless you know something I don’t, I don’t believe you have done anything that warrants incarceration? Heck, you have never even been in trouble with the police as far as your dad and I are aware!”

W: “It’ll happen eventually! My parents (birth parents) were screw ups and it is obvious I will end up being one too”

H: “But, they have never been to prison as far as I am aware. It is really hard for me to hear you say this. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you if you truly believe that this is what your future holds”  “You know your dad and I believe that you will do great things when you are older and so do your school if the report I read this week is anything to go on.  I really wonder what has happened for you to feel like this. Or, have you always believed this and only now feel you can trust me enough to tell me how you really feel about yourself”

Very quickly the conversation turned back into a torrent of verbal abuse about my parenting and his general opinion of me as a ‘good for nothing women who is such a ‘saddo’ that the dog is her only friend’ (I got too close. He can’t cope with me ‘connecting’ with him).

I have to be honest I was not prepared for his ‘bombshell’ and I found myself trying to ‘make it better’ and wanting to take his pain away. Maybe I am just very over sensitive at the moment but I shed more than a few tears after hearing him talk like this – I am pretty sure he thinks the tears are for his cruel words and not because he has just told me how hopeless he believes his future life will be.

When I started thinking about this post, I thought I would be writing about how when I was growing up I had dreams of being a famous wedding dress designer or a radiographer. Or, I would be writing about how Buzzbee’s ambition in life is to not only be a world renowned palaeontologist but he will discover a new prehistoric creature and name it after his big brother.

I certainly didn’t imagine while I was growing up that one day I would be stilling at the top of our staircase, listening to my extremely bright and articulate, eldest son telling me that he believes by the time he reaches adulthood, he will have ‘screwed up his life’ and will be in prison.

By now I should have learnt that just when you think you know what is going on in your child’s head or believe that they are confiding in you more – they do a complete 180 on you.

Life on ‘planet adoption’ is always different and often full of surprises but there is one thing it is never – BORING

Oh, I nearly forgot.  I now know why he was in such a foul mood with me.  During the week I had to bring him home for a doctors appointment – quite reasonable really and it was not during school hours.  It transpires that he had been on ‘the cool list’ and was supposed to be going to the cinema with some others on his unit but he had also forgotten to hand his report card in (they all have one everyday) and that day he had had his best scores in weeks, but because he didn’t hand it in those points didn’t count and so he did not get enough points to be on ‘the cool list’ for the coming week.

So there you have it.  It was all my fault!

Past, Present and Future

I started out all geared up to write a wonderfully gushy post about my hopes for the future for my family now that we are only a few days away from our celebration hearing and can finally moving on with our life without living under a microscope but somewhere along the road between deciding on what I wanted to share in my blog and getting it written down, life happened and that euphoric feeling has left me feeling raw and fearful for what might truly happen to our very much wanted future.

As I said we are a week away from our celebration hearing and I am brimming with excitement, as is Bumble and Buzzbee (Beeswax is still finding it difficult but he is slowly getting there). For Beeswax’s sake we are keeping the actual celebration day strictly a private occasion and we are not inviting any of our family or friends to the court. Yes, we would love to be sharing this wonderful moment with our nearest and dearest but it feels right that it is just the 4 of us.

We are having a party a few weeks later which Beeswax is only too happy to get involve with and if the boys had their own way would bankrupt us.

On paper to outsiders it looks like we are finally going to have our “Happy Ending” after more than 4 years of fighting to make it so and I dearly wish this was the case. I want this to be the case.

OK so what has gone so wrong this week?  To be fair this is a culmination of several weeks of stress and worry. It is just events to the end of this week have given me that final push into irrational (self-absorbed), negative thinking.

How can I think of the future when there is so much uncertainty around Buzzbee’s emotional and educational wellbeing?

School have made it very clear that they don’t want him there anymore but they have caused so much damage over the past couple of years that everyone is at a loss as to where he could go and what the solution that is best for him is.

• Do we remove him from school completely and home-educate him? But in doing so how can I be sure that I can provide him with the stimulation he will need.

It breaks my heart to think about the damage that has been caused.

Yes, he is no angel and he certainly finds it very difficult to regulate himself but school had all the tools they need and refused to use them and as a result he has gone from a child who loved learning to a child who is so afraid of learning that school cannot even tell me what levels he is on or get him to sit in a classroom for more than 2 minutes without him panicking.

CAMHS are going to start working with him but already Bumble and I are getting the feeling that they believe his problems with school are because of me and nothing to do with his early years history or school’s lack of empathy (too complicated to go into), so I can’t even contemplate how this will turn out.

Then there is Beeswax and my relationship!  So much has gone on between us as a result of his own (and my) trauma that I am afraid we will never have the ‘mother & son’ relationship that I have with Buzz (actually I would settle for micron of the relationship I have with Buzz).  It is the hardest thing, loving someone but being so afraid to show them for fear of their reaction and at the same time finding it very hard to physically like your child because you resent always having you attempts to get closer thrown (quite literally sometimes) in your face.

I hope that there will come a day in the future when he will feel that he can trust me and I will feel that I am good enough for him.

And then just when you think that all your fears are for the future. Something or in this case someone comes along and reminds me that no matter how much I want to look to the future, the boys past is always present in their hearts and minds.

After more than 6 years, Birth mum has decided that now our application has gone to the courts and everything is done and dusted, she is going to now come crashing back into their lives and has finally written to them a very emotional letter including an up to date photograph of her and if repeatedly telling them through the letter that they will always be her children and she can’t wait until they meet again, wasn’t bad enough. She also signed it ‘Mum’.

Ok I am not ashamed to say it stirred up feelings I always believed I wouldn’t have (naïve I know). Signing it off in this way was like a dagger being jabbed through my heart.  It is true she is their biological mother and both boys given the chance would choose her over me, I have no doubt of about that but she isn’t their mum and hasn’t been for a very long time.  But knowing now how I have felt about her coming back into their lives (even if it is only for now a letter) makes me wonder what I will do or feel in the future when the boys announce that they want to see her (and they will).

I really wanted this #WASO post to be a positive and upbeat but instead it has turned into a post filled with sadness and self-absorption. So in an attempt to claw back something positive from this post I will return to Buzz’s excitement about our celebration hearing and share with you a letter/short note he has written for the judge asking her for a favour and sharing his wishes for the future with her (I suspect Beeswax helped with it as it is Buzz’s best handwriting).

 

From Enemies to Friends

This week’s #WASO theme of ‘friends’ couldn’t have come at a more opportune week to share a letter written to an unexpected friend.

For several weeks now my stress levels have been growing, and remaining therapeutic with my boys and the professionals around them has turned from a role that I can easily slip into as and when needed, to now being a daily struggle with myself to remain calm and composed when presented with the simplest task, request or issue.

This week has been one of the most stressful weeks we have experienced in a long time and I cannot see it settling down anytime soon. I have been so overwhelmed and didn’t know who to turn to.  Little did I know this support and compassion would come from such an unexpected source – my old school bully!

Dear Lolly

I know you are leaving tomorrow to move ‘Down Under’ but I didn’t want you to leave without saying “Thank you for being there for me this week”. It has been a very long time since you and I were in each other’s company (let alone seen eye to eye) and if anyone had tried to tell me a couple of weeks ago that the person who had bullied me all through school, would now be the person to come to my aide and do so without judgement or criticism, I would have laughed in their faces. But, you did and I am grateful.

Everything is a complete mess at the moment and I have felt like I am drowning for a long time now.

Last weekend was supposed to be an evening of celebration and reunion and I cannot believe I made such a fool of myself. I allowed my guard to slip just a little more than I care to think about.

Why did it have to happen on that night? I can’t explain. Some would say it was fate stepping in and taking over, but I will not insult you by telling you that I don’t understand why I crumbled and fled. I know exactly why it happened; I just don’t know why it had to happen that night. Having said this, that doesn’t stop me feeling that I need to say that I am ‘sorry’ it had to happen in that way and I never meant for you or anyone else to worry. I certainly did not want to be the reason you missed part of the evening.

We have both changed a lot since our days at school, but some things will never change. At school I was always a very shy and introverted girl and, as much as possible, avoided drawing attention to myself (and I know this made me an easy target for not only you but others too and I forgave you all a long time ago for that), but as a mother of two very traumatised young boys, I have no choice but to put myself out there more now, and, yes, I have to make myself stand out often, but in reality my dislike for drawing attention to myself is still the one thing I have never been able to change about myself.

What professionals and people who surround my family get to see, is not all that in reality they should see.

Over the years I have learnt to protect myself from the pain of abuse, ridicule, accusations, rejection, scrutiny and so much more, to a point that I have found it impossible to be open with others and ask for help.

I have told you things this week that I haven’t been able to say to the people who need to hear it the most and last night I cannot explain the emotion that overpowered me. I am so embarrassed. There you were trying to make me laugh by reminding me of how our old tutor would have responded to this with probably the dodgiest impression you could have done of him but, the words they were spot on and I think it hit a nerve that I have been trying to ignore.

He would have said “Stop being a doormat, grow a spine, give them what for. Tell them how much damage they have caused”.

Maybe it was my own feelings of guilt, embarrassment and shame about the situation and how helpless I am feeling about doing anything about some elements of it. Or, maybe a certain well known tissue company has taken control of my emotions in order to keep themselves in business for the next century.

While I love my boys and wouldn’t change them for the world. I am ashamed to say, this isn’t what I signed up for and there are days when I can’t help thinking that everyone is right –  I am not cut out to be their mother. They need a mum who can fight for what they need and always maintain her composure. They need a mum that is always going to know how to fix their problems and take away their pain. They need a mum who is not afraid to question the decisions of so called ‘professionals’ when they believe they are acting in my children’s best interests over education, etc.

No matter what I do or how everything turns out for my family and I. I want you to know that this week you have given me something more precious than any of the professionals that I work with, our friends, or some members of our own family have been able to give me: Support, understanding, acceptance and validation! You have never told me that I am wrong to feel this way but you have ‘bullied’ me into acknowledging that I need to let up on myself and stop trying to be everything to everyone.

We may not have been friends before but that is in the past and I wish you all the best for your exciting new future.

While I am writing this I am still kind of in shock that of all the people from school that I have known or still know, it is you that has been a source of comfort and support this week and who knew you were only living a couple of towns away from me? (It is amusing how so many of the pupils who were predicted to stay in their home town for the rest of their lives are the pupils that actually moved away).

Honey x

 

” A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future and accepts you just the way you are”