What's your take on this?

[CreativeWoman]

Well, went to sleep at 9pm...up now at 2:10 am. woo hoo! Actually, what else is there to do at 2am? Why not type meaningless BS on the computer! For some reason, "journaling" like this is somewhat therapeutic, even if it's only just to/for me.

When I woke up a little while ago, a Bible verse came to mind about how I'm going to accomplish and tolerate all the crap now going on in my life. I CAN'T do it all myself, and it is a comforting reminder that I'm NOT doing it all myself...I see again that sometimes things need to get SO hard before I remember that at ALL times I need to trust the one who is always actually upholding me. Luke 18:27 says, "Jesus replied, "Things that are impossible with people are possible with God." " That's IT!

Another thing kind-of came to mind: I think I've discovered why I don't study at night when I always mean to...I think it will work better to study first, THEN drink the wine! That will be tried tomorrow.

Goodnight!

[CreativeWoman]

D@MN! I just wrote up a very deep, difficult post about my son's therapist appointment last week, and hit "tab" by accident...and lost the WHOLE thing! ARGH!!!!!! That really makes me feel so mad!

[Shen]

That sucks. I'm sorry. When I post anything longer than a paragraph, I write it in word and then cut and paste. It keeps me from losing it, corrects my spelling, and gets past that scrolling issue that I run into on some sites (when the post is long).

Hope you repost.

[CreativeWoman]

Ok, here goes again...I forgot a lot of the first part, as I left it sitting for a while while I got the kids to bed before, and then got back to it later. Oh well...I'll re-write the stuff I just was writing about.

Last week at my son's trauma therapist appointment, I was floored by what she told me that he said to her. He told her that before the 3 of us moved into my current home, he heard my ex-husband repeatedly say to me, "I want you people OUT of my HOUSE!" I wasn't aware that he knew his father said a lot of things like that to me, or that he was even able to hear...apparently he DID hear, and it upset him a LOT. That must have been scary and upsetting to a 6 year old, hearing the father he adored and was so DESPERATE for approval and love from, be so belligerent and nasty to me about how he wanted me and the kids to move out so he could have the house to himself, without us there. I bet he felt pretty rejected and unwanted, not to mention very insecure.

He also said to her that he is still very angry at ME that I didn't fight Art hard enough to keep the house so the kids could stay living in their own home after the divorce. I had no idea that staying in THAT house meant that much to my son, or that he was so upset about moving to a different home... And I certainly didn't know that he was LIVID at ME--ME!--that his father insisted I (and the kids) move out. He feels that I "lost" the fight, and his father "won" the fight. His dad won and got to keep the house for himself...and I lost, because I didn't fight him hard enough, so that's why we had to move. Of course, he doesn't know the full extent of the ABUSE his father did, and he certainly doesn't know about his father's unfaithfulness...and he WON'T know. He has no idea how much his father threatened, demanded, abused, and nearly destroyed me...instead, he blames ME for not winning the fight for the house. That's really sad.

My son really has no idea how hard I DID fight. He has no idea about how much I sacrificed to get the kids and myself OUT of that toxic, abusive marriage environment...I saved my life by divorcing my ex and getting out of there, and I'm ALIVE now for my kids, because I made the choice to get out and try my hardest to raise my kids in a peaceful, safe home. He doesn't know that, doesn't see that. He sees me as "the loser." Well, I'm not trying to win the approval of my kids...that's not their role. I'm seeking to GIVE approval to my kids, that being MY job, as their mother. I don't need their approval anyway...I know I did the right thing, even though it was extremely difficult, sad, and felt awful at the time. It's still hard, actually. Daily life in my situation now IS hard. But it's better than expending all the strength I could muster in a desperate attempt to simply keep myself alive--to survive--while trying to bring up my kids to be healthy and whole within that toxic environment. At least we don't have to drudge through every day under the oppressive hell of their father's cruel abuse...although the effects of that abuse continue to plague me still these days, by way of my son's behavior and outright disprespect for me.

I desperately hope that my son and daughter can be reached, now, and can heal from the trauma they went through...and can become whole and healthy for their own lifetimes. My son seems to have soaked up and now exudes his father's behavior at times, which breaks my heart. On his current path, he's well on his way to being an abusive man toward his partner as an adult. I'm concerned about my daughter's future, too, but one thing she has going for her is her keen awareness that her father's and her brother's behavior toward her is wrong; I know this because she comes to me and TELLS me that how they treat her is wrong. I hope she can keep strong in that regard, so that she does not accept that kind of treatment from any romantic partner in her future...I would rather die a miserable, horrible, painful death than see my daughter grow up to be an abused/battered wife, or my son become an abusive husband. I will keep praying, keep hoping, and keep my kids in the best therapy I can get for them.

[IleneW]

C.W. -----

My heart is with you in your pain.

[Shen]

CW
They are young... and you are so willing to help them and get them outside help. I believe they will come to realize that you have done the best you could. It is quite common to blame the "good" parent at some point, during therapy, from what I understand. I've only started to go through that, recently. My therapist tells me that you can't get to that point - the point where you allow yourself to see the fault in the "good" parent - until you feel safe enough and have worked through some of the anger at the abusive parent.

It isn't that I love my mother less. It isn't that I blame her. It's only that the little child I was didn't get what I needed, and a little child thinks a mother is supposed to be able to do anything.

But, it's okay for children to know that you aren't perfect. It's okay for them to know you can't do everything. My children certainly know that about me.... I've told them! I believe they will come to understand that you did everything you thought you should do, at the time, and always had them in your heart as you were living in this difficult situation.

Do you have a therapist?
If you do, or if you can talk to theirs alone, maybe you could ask what you could say to the kids. Like, if you told them that you were sorry how things went, but that you had no way of knowing it would be as bad as it was... or if you told them that you just didn't know what to do at the time... or something like that.

It's just a thought. I'm not telling you how to live your life. I hear your pain and wish I could help. I know, if it was me, I would talk to my therapist and she generally has pretty sound advice about communication with my family.

love and peace...

[CreativeWoman]

Thank you, Ilene and Shen, for your comments and support.

I feel really blue today...blah, blue, down, un-energetic. I feel sad.

Then I feel guilty for not wanting to do anything. Well, I want to do things, and I want to want to do things. I just don't feel any motivation whatsoever to even TRY anymore.

As hard as I try, my house will never be uncluttered the way I want it to be. The laundry will never be finished. The dishes will never be finished. It just keeps going on and on and on. My son will be rude and disrespectful to me again when I pick him up from school today, just like this morning. All of his privileges are totally gone again for today....and he'll be a difficult handful to manage again today, just like yesterday, just like this morning. It doesnt EVER get BETTER.

I'll still be stressed out about the Boards I have to take. It's just looming over my head, reminding me of all that I've lost...all the losses I've taken, all the sacrifices I've made. Being a full-time mother to my kids, without worrying about providing an income for my family by myself as well, has been hard enough. Now, doing the parenting alone--with the other parent, whether consciously or unconsciously--making things more difficult with my parenting work...it's just so much harder. I don't FEEL like studying, I don't WANT to have to put a JOB first before my family-life, anyway! It's just going to stretch me too thin in both of those aspects of my life...how is that going to be DONE? How can I add MORE to all this?!!!!!!!!

My son's trauma therapist just called a minute ago, to cancel our appointment for today--their office is still working at moving to a different building, and kids can't be around as a safety issue. But at least we talked on the phone for a few minutes. She is really good, she's great for my son and me. She's going to talk to the director there and they're going to write a letter to my insurance company, stating that his therapy there is a medical necessity for my son...hopefully the insurance may cover the therapy that way. It's worth a try. She also said she and I need to figure out a way--for my SON's sake--to bring his father into working WITH us, to help my son. This boy has concluded in his mind that in order to be ok with his father and hopefully obtain the love and approval he's so desperate for from Daddy, he needs to behave as perfectly as possible with/for his father when he's with him....but the rest of his life (home with mom and sister, school, friends, etc) suffers immensely. It's ultimately HURTING my son, in all the other aspects of his life, and that's so unhealthy for him. Somehow, hopefully, we can get my ex to understand that although HE doesn't take the brunt of our son's cruel and difficult behavior, our son is behaving very cruelly and disrespectfully toward me, toward his sister, and toward his teacher at school.

With Art being so concerned only with his own desires and convenience, I suspect he won't really care at all, though. I think he's probably glad that HE gets off easy on this--at least right NOW, in the short term. I'm fairly sure my ex doesn't really care much at all about planning for the future of his relationship with our son, or how this kind of dynamic going on right now is very negatively impacting our son and his potential for a good healthy future. If he has never really seemed to care in the past, EVER, why would he START to care NOW????

It's worth a try though.

Hopefully my ex won't get more of his narcissistic needs met by knowing HE's the "special one" who gets our son's best behavior. Why would he care, in that case, that he's only getting the "good" behavior from our son because it's purely a harmful and dysfunctional way our son has learned in order to deal with his father safely? Why would he care that it's hurting the child, if it makes HIS life a bit easier?

[CreativeWoman]

I'm tired of getting physically injured by my son. He's seven! I often have at least one bruise from him, and other people are mentioning more and more about how physically assaulting he is toward me.

I've known he can get rough and aggressive...that's no surprise, by any means. I just didn't realize how bad it has gotten as I suppose I've grown accustomed to it over time.

Friends have been commenting at times lately, about how worried they are about me as he is getting older and getting bigger. It has been tremendously upsetting to me, emotionally, for a long time...I never really consciously worried much about my physical safety around him.

I've always seen my son as a sweet, lovable, loving, great kid. A lot of the time he is! But increasingly over time, overshadowing that sweet kid that I know is in there, is a temper-tantruming monster-child who will pitch a potentially violent fit and strike out at anyone and anything within his range when his temper flares. When he was a toddler, it was just an annoying temper tantrum. When he was a preschooler, it was an annoying temper tantrum that he would hopefully outgrow soon as he matured a bit. Now as a 7-year-old...not only are the tantrums still there, but they are getting increasingly more physically aggressive and emotionally cruel. That's pretty scary, when I think about it!

His school is in the process of making up a specialized plan for helping him the best way that they can. They have apparently put together a formal behavior program, and will be sending me the information next week for scheduling a big meeting to put it all in place. I'll be there, doing everything I can to facilitate it!

Even my son's trauma psychologist has pointed out several times lately that his behavior is often quite cruel and aggressive toward me, and that she can't even imagine the emotional pain I must feel every day being treated that way by him. She also pointed out that even now that I'm not in the abusive marriage anymore...I'm still being abused, now by my son. You know what? She's right. I realize that she's right. She also has high hopes for him being reached, however, and I do too.

One of my friends said to me tonight, "I worry about what he might do to you as he gets bigger and stronger. He's actually physically abusive to you, already--I've SEEN it myself, a few times already." I thought about it, and she's right.

I hope that he can be reached, and can learn and respond in more appropriate ways when he is upset about something. I hope quite strongly that with time/age, he will mature in judgment and become more able to control his impulses, without hurting me, himself, or anyone else.

This evening I was able to speak with him alone, and I asked him about some of his behavior earlier in the evening. I asked him about how he feels about the way he acted, and he told me it makes him want to die. He said he feels deep shame, and wants to die. He told me he doesn't want to act that way...but he can't make himself stop, he can't NOT do it. I recognize a lot of ADHD-related problems in him, and I see that it's actually becoming more and more difficult for him to control himself at times.

I remember myself, as a kid, finding it IMPOSSIBLE to "be good," no matter HOW INCREDIBLY HARD I tried...I just couldn't "be good" like I so desperately wanted to be. I was ALWAYS getting in trouble for something. It wasn't that I wanted to be mean or do bad things...I just couldn't make myself NOT DO something that I felt the impulse to do. It frustrated the heck out of me, as a kid! I gradually developed appropriate techniques for controlling the impulsivity as I grew in maturity, and became better able to keep my behavior in check. I actually "turned out" pretty normal as an adult, and I might even say I grew into a wonderful person! But there's still the ADD in me, that makes life VERY DIFFICULT for me to manage, at times. I still have some natural personality traits that annoy the heck out of me at times...and apparently annoyed the heck out of my ex-husband too. He never passed up an opportunity to give me hell for any ADD-related imperfection or blunder throughout our marriage...(ex: very poor time-management, chronic lateness, organizational difficulty, inability to multi-task, etc) As hard as it is for ME, as an adult, to come to grips with these ADD traits and the challenges they bring to me, how difficult it must be for my 7-year-old son who also struggles with ADHD...and has also witnessed/experienced domestic abuse for nearly all of his entire life! I suppose it's really no wonder why he expresses a deep sense of shame and has expressed a desire to die. He's frustrated as hell!!!!!!

I pointed out to my friend that most of his difficult, aggressive, and disruptive behaviors are ADHD-type things (ADHD does not CAUSE aggressiveness; it is simply the reason for the lack of self-regulation, which would normally be in place in a person to prevent him/her from ACTING OUT the impulse of aggressive behavior). She agreed, but thinks it's also something else in addition to the ADHD....I agree--I think the many years of witnessing and experiencing domestic violence has had QUITE a destructive impact on him.

Both of these factors are not going to go away if I simply ignore them! My ex has stated that he thinks my son is way too "over-therapized," and that if he had his way my son would not be doing any therapy at all. I, on the other hand, believe that my best parenting and adequate therapy is CRUCIAL to help my son identify and overcome these issues that he struggles with. Isn't my job as a parent to love my child unconditionally, and to give him the best preparation for living his own life in the real world one day?

[IleneW]

CW -----

This is so hard.

I'm glad you have a team of professionals helping you and even given that, you're in an incredibly difficult place.

Given that you already have people who are so much better grounded in this then I am, the only thing I feel able to add is to be sure to ------ however you're able ----- practice self-care.

I'll be talking about self-care again soon, maybe this weekend, because it's a huge topic and it's fundamental.

Please take radically good care of yourself.

[Shen]

He is attacking you as part of his appeal for his father's love. He sees that as what his father wants... he wants to do everything "right" to win his father's love... so he will continue to hurt you.

Part of the reason he feels he can do this is because he knows you love him, unconditionally. That is a very positive thing. He feels safe enough to act out in whatever way he needs to with you because he knows you will always love him.

I know this. I understand your sons motives really well.

It could be forty years or never before your son realizes that he will never NEVER get what he needs from his father. It is very hard for a child to accept this. I also know this, all too well.

He will blame you because he is safe to blame you.

I don't know what your approach to his hurting you is... but I'm wondering if a complete reversal of your reaction wouldn't help? I don't think a behavioral approach will work because your son does not see that he has a choice but to behave in the way he is.

I'm wondering if it would work to say something like "I understand why you hurt me the way you do. I understand that you are doing everything you can to get your father to accept you. I know how hard that is for you and I want to do everything I can to give you all the things you need, but hurting me is making that really hard. When you hurt me I can't be there for you the way I want to."

I don't know, I am not a psychologist, I can only tell you what I would have wanted to hear. I did not physically abuse my mother (I think that boys are more physical than girls, in general - my feeling is that it is genetic.) but I was mean to her - even vicious - verbally. I did not understand why I was behaving the way I was. If someone had told me, then, I might have been able to understand it and get closer to my mother - let her in.

I don't think saying something like that once would do it. It is something that will have to be brought up every time he hurts you. He may not even know how much he is hurting you. Something like that - hurting your own mother - is easy to block from your consciousness. Pointing it out each time - not with threats or accusations, but with a solid foundation of "I want to help you but I can't if you hurt me" might make him see what he's doing and how it is hurting him.

I would even go so far as to say to him "hurting me is not going to make your father love you" but I don't know if that is right.

I really feel like I"m somewhere close, on this one. Maybe you could ask the therapist what she thinks? I would not stick my nose in here if I didn't feel so sure that I am meant to say this. This rings so true to me....

take what you want and leave the rest.

love and peace