ugh

Went to get Olivia from day at friends. She started into her hate-attacks the minute we were coming up the laneway. Not even in the house yet. I couldn't face going in. Sat in the car like a fool, not being able to make myself. Freaking out Bodhi. She came and shouted and threatened because I hadn't let her in. Got back in the car to shout at me and kick the seats. I ended up slapping her (see last post on the sort of brilliant mother I am not) and let her into the house, wailing. I drove away but I've nowhere to go so I sat at end of the lane for a few minutes wondering what to do and freaking out my son some more. I wish my mother was here. I wish there was someone whose house I could go sit in and be given tea and told it was all going to be ok.  Went back, had a vodka and lemonade. Made dinner his stomach wasn't up to eating. She ate cornflakes when she came back down an hour later.

Then I put Bodhi to bed and thanks to the vodka and general exhaustion, fell asleep til 10.40. If the camera was working I might have posted a picture of my pasty, red eyed, zombie visage. My teeth hurt and I've chipped a filling from grinding without my mouthguard in. Though, I think it might have improved said filling, it feels smoother... Now my vision is finally clearing enough to plan my class and write my test.

Bodhi's drawn all over the walls, which is a fairly gentle form of protest. They've been drawn all over before and hopefully this will help us give them the fresh coat of paint they're desperately in need of. He's stressed and angry though. I don't know why Olivia has got so bad recently but it's slowly doing us all in. I don't know if we'll bounce back from all this.

Luckily, support services seem surprisingly clear at the moment, and I have an assessment for her booked for mid September. The initial assessment form I filled in suggests some degree of Asberger's. It took someone else saying it to me for me to finally start the assessment process in motion - I could have done this a year, two years ago. I feel precious talking about how I feel about this - there are so many parents blogging out there who have seriously affected kids, Olivia is fine in many ways - though not in others. I feel like I'm betraying her, blogging about it before she even knows, but it's nothing to be ashamed of, I need to shake myself out of that idea before it takes hold.

Though, hey, now I'm blogging about slapping a kid on the Spectrum, so of course there is much to be ashamed of.

How do I find the inner resources that all the parents of kids with special needs seem to have? The saintliness? I always was sure I didn't have it, that I would never cope, but now I have no choice but to find it somewhere, whether I've got it or not. I have no idea how. I'm failing both of them, I'm full of dread at the thought of coming home to it at the moment, it's so relentless. Where does the strength come from that I need to find? 

one of those ones that should stay in Drafts

It's raining biblically. Animals two by two to be seen boarding a big fuck off wooden boat any minute. Floods are starting already, and I am so grateful I live where I do, we never seem to get them.

The darkness and wetness is wearing on me a bit, it's been something of a difficult week, hormonally, emotionally. Dark and wet is the order of the day, alright. The weepy kind of wet, not the good kind.

But I saw my homeopath briefly today, to get receipts, and she told me to take an Ignatia, the grief remedy that saved me a lot after my mother died. It stopped that crazy, out of control feeling of being unable to cope that felt like it would never end. And it's done the same again today, I'm happ(ier) to say.

deletedeletedelte. Ack. I can't say what I want to say, but I don't even know what the point in saying it would be anyway. So. Deletedeletedelete.

Do you all have people you can cry with? Someone you can go to? I was looking through my contacts in my phone last night, as I sat in a wet carpark in the gloom trying to find somewhere I could go for a couple hours. In the end I went to the sea in Greystones(and given the wind and the grey and the waves and rain, I'm not sure that it was any less pathetic than crying in a deserted car park, sadly, but what can you do?), and my friend came and met me and we sat in the car and wondered what to do about our respective lots. She gave me a hug and she was warm and soft and wooly and nice smelling but sympathy undoes me, and you can't get snot and tears all over your friends, can you? Can you? I don't know. It doesn't seem right for me to do that. We watched two teenage girls in leggings and little hoodies and nothing much more walk by, in the pouring rain and wind and dark, and remembered how it was to need to get out of the house that much that you'd rather go out unprotected into the storm than stay in. And there we were, in exactly the same place, just with cars now. Thank god for small mercies.