Tuesday, December 15, 2015

beaten down today

I would love to curl up and hide in a little blue corner of my blog and not come out for a while.

What a shitty, shitty day.

I've been sucked into the vortex of the suicidal student. It's affecting me a lot. I'm being told I shouldn't be taken advantage of and it's not my responsibility. I am stunned at all these people who could cheerfully walk away.

I have no idea how to do that, no matter how much I might have wanted to.

I've got her into a psychiatric ward for assessment and overnight watch. And now she'll have a team of people looking after her better. I felt I needed to sort that before washing my hands of her.

If she did die, and I had sat by and denied her help, I feel sure that would be worse for me than getting dragged into her miserable drama has been.

But it's caused ructions that are being blamed on me. I asked Axl to get his mother to babysit so I could bring said student to the psych hospital, because there is no other fucking person to do it (and while people are great at telling me not to put myself out,  they're also great at not putting themselves out, because people like me take up the slack). He ... didn't. And then ...ach, I don't even fucking know, a clusterfuck of misunderstanding ensued I don't even understand and the kids were left alone. It's too stupid and complex to go into.

My mother in law gave me an angry, emotive lecture about how family comes first and I'm neglecting my beautiful children. She's threatened to report me for neglect. She blames me for not fixing my daughter and resents that I looked after someone else instead. This all motivated by Axl ringing her to go up to them in a rage from work when he discovered I wasn't yet home three hours later. Her poor poor son and grandchildren! Their faithless, feckless mother who doesn't care about them! He does this all the time, doesn't listen to me and then fucks up and goes off on a rant, not recognising his own part in it. And then comes home all, 'Alright?'

I don't get it.

The worst thing about all this is how horrible ... I hate to use the word 'triggering' but it's what it feels like. Having this pathetic, nervous mess of misery clinging to me like a lost baby baby so she can extract a bit of comfort from me and then messaging me to say she's planning to pretend everything's ok then kill herself when she's brave enough has been really fucking hard. Dealing with all the suicide stuff and the unwanted responsibility has been really hard and I feel like I've been tipped back over a cliff I've just climbed.

The killer is - while I have moaned a lot about my menstrual miseries and my daughter's situation on my blog, I don't exactly go to people demanding the hugs I so desperately yearn for, or ask for their company on lonely nights, or demand they listen to me talking about my depression. I mostly sit home on facebook or stay in bed on weekends and watch tv and eat stuff and indulge my horrible procrastination problem to an extreme degree.

I completely agree that we should be open about depression, but the shitty truth is, no one can handle it, or should really have to, and yes, it is horrible when someone dumps all the reality of their misery on you. Having just been the dumpee, I agree - it's too much to handle. It's not fair. Unless you're a best friend, or a partner, then I feel like I've been right in keeping things in as much as I can. No one can fix it for you. They can drive you to the hospital, but at the end of the day, the work is up to yourself.

I think.

I don't know. What I'm learning now, is that most people believe that, anyway. The stuff about talking to people really means, someone else but me.

The thing is - in my life I had a sympathetic mother, a silver spoon, compared to many, and from an early age I shared rent and bills with a man who was far more adult about earning money than I have ever been. I've never had to cope on my own. This woman has an unsympathetic family, a background of sexual abuse, and massive, uncontrollable depression. She came to Ireland on a whim, trying to escape her life, and she has no-one here, and no money. She's lying to her parents and telling them it's all ok, and she doesn't want to deal with the fallout of a reveal. The truth is, she's fucked - I don't see it getting any better, and going home is no more of a fix.

Sure, I could say it's not my problem. I agree, I should have protected myself more and set better boundaries. I was too nice and encouraging, obviously. But the hypocrisy of it. No wonder no one wants to talk about mental health in this country.



6 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Or any country. I can't tell you the number of hours I have spent in my life tending to people who suffered from mental illness. Did any of it help? Well, most of them are still alive.
Do I ask for help from anyone?
Not generally.
Is that good?
No.
Your MIL needs to shut the fuck up. That's my opinion.

Jo said...

She got it into her deaf, drama loving head that it was my daughter who was suicidal. She so loves a terrible awful bad thing to be upset about. Of course, I had no idea, I just thought she was being nice. Ha! What a fucking mess.

I don't know. I'm sure she's right, on many levels, just not about the instances she's talking about.

Joanne said...

I love you for what you did. You cared when no one else did. That's a big deal.. Please don't be hard on yourself. You are such a compassionate human being. The world needs more people like you. While many of us don't go to others when we feel bad, I think we know what it's like to feel really bad and you saved a life today. You saved a life. I'd hug you if I could.

Jennifer said...

You're doing the best you can to be a decent human being, and you're not getting the support you deserve.

I agree with Ms Moon, your MIL needs to STFU. As far as her opinion about putting family first, she should think about how she would want her children and grandchildren treated if they were alone in a foreign country and in crisis. She could only hope that some kind person would try to help them live to see another day.

Thank you for what you've tried to do for that poor girl. The world needs more people like you. Hugs.

Mwa said...

You did the right thing. It's so hard to feel it, but your children really are half their father's responsibility. I do the same - when something goes wrong with the children, I feel like it is 100% my fault (as it always was my mother's, and never my father's) but that's simply not true. And men have it easy and never expect to have to do anything because every other time we've been there.

As for the situation you describe, I wouldn't be able to walk away either. If someone needs you, they need you, and if you happen to be the one in the firing line then that's just the way it is. I don't mean you wouldn't have been perfectly allowed to walk away, but I have a feeling that that would have been physically impossible for you, as it would be for me.

I do think you should talk to people about depression. It doesn't even always have to be depressing for them. I find I feel a lot better now I am honest about it. Sure, sometimes I moan a little, but I set it off with humour and other topics - and I find it never scares the right people off at all. If anything, they add their own stories and we have a laugh together.

Sending you another big hug, electronically.

Jo said...

Thanks so much everyone. Especially for the therapeutic cursing!

Mwa, those talks are fun, but they don't make me feel better.

I need to sob in someone's arms for an hour or an evening, and that's not something I'd ask of anyone. Or that I have anyone I could ask it of. But so be it.