Looking Forward

Making a better life for me and my kids

Archive for the category “adhd”

01 Apr 2015
8 Comments

Struggling

Our trip to Florida was nice. the weather was fantastic, which is just what I needed. The kids were the same as usual, and i would have been just has happy to have left them at home, honestly. husband had this idea that putting the effort and money into bringing them along would somehow elicit a bit of gratefulness from two teenage boys. I’m not sure what he was thinking.

Husbands mom has Alzheimer’s disease. The brother and sister live 15 minutes away from the parents, yet see them about once every six months. Husbands mom seemed alright for the family dinner on Sunday, but not as good when we stopped by on Monday. No one talks about it. Its just sad.

Upon our return home everyone was cranky. We came back to snow and cold. A ran to his gf’s house, D ran to the computer. Husband and I tried to readjust to normal.

Back to work, same old shit, different day. I really hate that place. It’s making everything in my life suck a whole lot more than it should. A stays over at the gf’s house for days and days. He stops by to pick up clothes or shoes or xbox games. We dont see him much. The gf is younger and her parents are newly divorced. Her mom is terrified of making her daughter mad, so ‘Sure! Your boyfriend can sleep over!’

The gf’s mom called me to say that she thought the kids were spending too much time together. I told her that she should send A home. She said the kids told her that I had kicked A out and he had no place to live. I told her that was bullshit. “It’s your house and your daughter. If you don’t want him there, send him home.”  I found myself losing patience very quickly with her, droning on about how the kids are both from divorced homes, how its soooo hard for the kids, and she told me that her husband now has a 24 year old girlfriend. She kept saying “please don’t tell the kids I called. Please don’t mention that we spoke. Please don’t tell them  I called.” She probably said that 20 times. She didn’t want her daughter to be angry with her. Sigh.

A no longer wants to go to college. He has gotten a second job. He has no idea what he’s doing. It kills me. GF’s mom was upset to hear this news about A, and said she’d ‘have a talk with him about it, because college is important!’ Yeah. You do that.

D is diving still. The season is over, but we’re paying for him to go to the Y 3 times a week to keep practicing. It’s good for him to keep busy. Meanwhile, he’s lazy about school and grades. We’re not sure if we need to adjust his ADHD meds or if he’s just really being lazy. It’s hard to really want to do too much with meds with the school year coming to a close.

Bill collectors looking for Dummy call me 2 or 3 times a week now. He’s changed his number, no one can get in touch with him. He’s still attempting to sell the house. He’s dropped the price 35k in the last 6 months. I wish it’d sell so I can get out from under the HELOC  and get my money owed for arrears. I’m not holding my breath though.

I feel like I’m struggling a lot more than I should be lately. I’m not sure what that’s about. We were hopeful that A would go to college, move out, be on his own. the idea of him just hanging on in his crappy little town with no real direction is worry-some…almost equally worry-some is that he’ll want to keep living at home.  D is being lazy, or maybe he’s not. I don’t know. Husband and D are at each other all the damn time lately. School work is taking all of my time and I’m sick of it. I’m so far from finished, I feel like the accounting profession will be replaced entirely with robots by the time I’m done and there won’t be any jobs for me.

My birthday is next week. Maybe this is my midlife crisis or something. I just feel….blah. I know the weather doesn’t help, and we are talking about moving just as soon as D is done with high school. But that’s still 3 years away!

I’d just like to not feel like I’m struggling all the time. How do I accomplish that?

Posted in adhd, Divorce, growing up, kids, parenting, worry and tagged , , ,
04 Aug 2014
8 Comments

Trash

There has been no contact between Asshat and I since the email exchange where he gave me dates for his trip to Europe. So, imagine my surprise when I got this email (from his old email address that he told me not to use anymore) this evening, with the subject line being “Trash”.

Trash

From: Asshat

To: Me

Today at 7:05 PM

You are some kind of piece of trailer park trash to tell A your going to give him only 125 for school clothes.   Maybe you should get your priorities straight and use some of the money you mooch off of me each week and put your child ahead of your own personal interests.   I know this is not the same thing as drugging up your own child cause you two can’t handle kids without a drink,  so please feel free this one time to pretend to be a responsible parent.  PS try letting him shop somewhere other than target or Wal-Mart too as I think he would prefer that. 

 

I’m not sure the projection could be any more evident if he labeled each sentence “this is projection”.

Not that it really matters, but I’ll just point out a few things:

  1. While it’s a rental, I live in a huge and beautiful house, not a trailer. Not in a trailer park. Also, unlike Asshat, we do have cold AND hot running water here.
  2. I budgeted $500.00 for each kid for back to school shopping. I only gave A $125.00 over the weekend so he could do a little shopping on his own while he is in Boston with his friend.
  3. ADHD meds are not “drugging up your kid” when they are serving the intended purpose of treating the ADHD symptoms so that your kid can actually function effectively.
  4. I only ever drank to deal with my abusive asshole husband, never to deal with my kids. Needless to say, I don’t drink anymore. Not even a little.
  5. The only time the kids buy clothes at Walmart is when they need an orange sweatshirt for tomorrow, or a dress shirt and a tie for the concert tonight. Walmart is awful and as a general rule, we avoid it at all costs. I do love Target though.
  6. I have not had any ‘personal interests’ that have come before my children’s interests for the last 17 years. A texted me tonight to say “dad doesn’t have any money to pitch in for school clothes”. So, if I wanted to know what it was like to put my own interests first, I could ask the asshole that just got back from a month in Europe and now has no money to buy any clothes for the kids.
Posted in abuse, adhd, bullying, child support, co-parenting, crazy making, Divorce, kids, medication, narcissism, parenting, school and tagged , , , ,
14 Mar 2013
3 Comments

There is no end

X was spouting some crazy stuff…as usual. He brought up my friend and told me that if I were more like her, then our divorce would be like her and her ex’s.
Her and her ex communicate. They share the kids. He pays support. They have a very amazing working relationship, as it is solely based on what is best for their kids. Its the kind of divorce I used to think was possible for me and X. I know better now. 

I emailed her telling her about the crazy, how he brought her up in the conversation. She reiterated that she and her ex work well together because they aren’t thinking about themselves. They are both active participants in their kids lives. I agreed with her. Then she said “I can’t wait for you to not have to deal with this any more.” 

I find it frustrating when people say things like that to me. There won’t be a time when I won’t have to deal with this. Because we have kids, as long as my kids are on this earth, he will be in my life in some capacity. Its unfortunate. Its aggravating. It makes me want to scream. There is no escape from this. He will always be lingering. 

I wish people understood it. But they don’t. They are still of the mindset that he has some kind of “normal” in his thinking. That perhaps, eventually, he’ll realize that if he hates me so much, he should just leave me alone. Rather than constantly trying to cause trouble, he could just have a life of his very own, without me in it. But his brain isn’t working like that. He is caught up with revenge. With winning. With being right. With being victorious. With the world knowing what a whore I am. What a terrible mom I am. How I ruined his whole life. Until I feel as badly about myself as he does about himself, he won’t quit. But unless you are in a position to have to deal with someone with a disorder like this, you can’t really fathom just how crazy and persistent they are. 

The trouble is, the kids lose in all this. They don’t get two, equally committed parents to their best interests. They have one who’s entire life is devoted to helping them become fine young men. The other is hell bent on making the kids realize how the other parent is failing them, and to point out all the other parent’s flaws and shortcomings. If there isn’t enough to make a stink, he’ll just make some up, saying that its in the kids’ best interest that they know what kind of person their mother is. He doesn’t need facts or reality. He is so sure I do this on my end as well. The reality is, I don’t talk about the kids’ dad. Perhaps in passing “Did you talk to your dad today?” Otherwise there is no discussion about him. We have no reason to. He doesn’t communicate with me about anything regarding the kids, so I never have anything to share with them about him. He tells the kids how much he hates me. How he can’t deal with me. It makes them feel awkward.

There is no end to this. There may be relief when A leaves for college, as he doesn’t seem to have much use for D. There will hopefully be more relief when D heads to college. My fingers are crossed, but I’m not holding my breath. 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in abuse, adhd, child support, co-parenting, crazy making, Divorce, parenting, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , ,
26 Nov 2012
8 Comments

Feeling overwhelmed.

I’m very frustrated. I’m feeling very overwhelmed. I wish I was better at managing it.

We drove 4 hours, stayed in a hotel with a pool, the boys swam and had a lovely time. The next day we drove an hour to my parents house for thanksgiving. It was great to see them. My mom really misses living closer to the boys…and it showed. She spoiled them rotten for the 24 hours we were there.

We got home on Friday, returned the rental car, picked up the dogs, etc…things were quiet and ok. It was really nice.

Saturday night one of the dogs bit D in the face. D was in his space. We have talked to him about this a MILLION times. I don’t know if its  his ADHD, but for some reason he just can’t seem to understand that dog isn’t like our other dog. You can’t get in his face. You can’t play rough with him. He’s still a puppy, he has a lot to still learn. Anyway, D is fine, no stitches required, thankfully. But, after having this dog for 8 months and having NO change in how D interacts with him, and seeing the dog actually getting WORSE when he deals with the kids, and not better…we need to give him a new home. I called an old friend to see if he’d be interested, he said he’d think about it. We’ll see.

I gathered all my court papers today to take to file, only to find out that A. the money I’d set aside for filing these papers has magically been eaten up by Christmas shopping and traveling. And B. The sheriff in SD sent me back the COPY of my motion to modify, not the notarized original. The notarized original was given to the ex.
I emailed them to find out what on earth I can do now, and of course, as you’d guess, I have to redo it. I have to redo it, get it notarized again, and send it again, to South Dakota. I have to hope that they can find him before his classes end and he ends up who knows where.  Seriously. This is just so frustrating.

And finally, I still haven’t gotten a report from the place I took D to be evaluated. The place that did all sorts of testing and told me that he has ADHD. The place that takes 3 months to write a damn report. Without that report, I can’t ask for a meeting with the school to figure out how to best help D. The work I’m doing with him at home to get all his work done, is just not sustainable. Its exhausting. I need the school’s help. But I can’t get it without that report. His first appointment was in August. His second appointment was at the beginning of  September. Its almost December. I called them again today to find out how much longer and was told “someone will get back to you.”

I am so frustrated. I feel like crying. Seriously. When does this get easier?

 

 

Posted in adhd, court forms, parenting, school, Uncategorized, worry and tagged ,
26 Sep 2012
2 Comments

The kids are all right

I have no idea how these ADHD meds are supposed to work, but after his first day yesterday, I’m breathing a sigh of relief.

  • He brought homework home.
  • He, unprompted, did that homework.
  • He brought the homework to me to see, and he actually DID the homework!
  • He took notes in math class and decided that math is actually not hard, but boring.
  • He turned in his late work for social studies.

If he’d done any ONE of these things, I’d have been thrilled. I hope this is the beginning of an amazing year of school for him!

 

Meanwhile, my other son has pissed some kids off with his drinking antics, and is paying the price. They’d like to beat him up. Of course. Isn’t that how we’d all like to deal with the people who make us mad? However, it seems that my son is more of an adult than I’d realized. He came to me last night and said he needed my help. He wanted to get to school extra early to be able to talk to the assistant principal about this mess. He refuses to fight (which is a change from last year!) and is looking for adult support. Yay! Also, I saw on his facebook, that he’s tried to talk to this kid, apologizing for his behavior, refusing to fight, suggesting they just move on, etc.  Yay! I feel so proud of him for trying to be diplomatic about this. For admitting his wrongs, for apologizing and for trying to make it right.

Granted, his poor choices got him in this mess to begin with, but Im very proud of how he’s handling himself.

Maybe I’m doing ok with this parenting gig after all…knock on wood.

Posted in adhd, growing up, kids, medication, parenting, school, teen drinking and tagged , , ,
25 Sep 2012
1 Comment

Powerless

I’ve been having a hard time handling life lately. There’s been so much time that I’ve felt so powerless lately. It was making me crazy. The addition of D’s diagnosis, waiting on reports, waiting on appointments, waiting to find out what the best course of action will be…I can’t speed this up, it seemed all I could do was worry, and we all know how helpful ex was with it all. After the doctor appointment yesterday, I felt very relieved to have a script in my hand, and a plan for D.

Turns out I can really only handle feeling powerless about 3 situations at any given time. Four sends me over the edge and makes me cranky and irritable and not sleep very well. Now that we have a plan in action for D, I feel a lot better about the world. The three things I’m continually frustrated with due to my inability to control are….

The ex, his inappropriate conversations with the older boy, the short, sporadic and bizarre conversations he has with the younger boy. Worrying if he’ll be back to try to see the kids, if he’ll just vanish all together. Worrying about enforcing the order, modifying the order, asking for support, demanding a parenting class for him…It is so frustrating to know that nothing I do will have an impact on his behavior. He won’t change. He’ll stay angry and crazy. There isn’t anything I can do to make that situation any different than it already is. Luckily, we have a lawyer appointment next week – I’m hopeful that she can point us in the right direction.

The house…good god we hate living there. its cold and dirty and and in need of repair. It reeks of memories of a past life that I am so glad to be free of. Its difficult to hear the kids ask “when will we be moving?” or say things like “in our NEW house, I want my room to be blue”. I desperately want to give them a new place to start over in. Dragging it out like I’m being forced to do is just the worst. Granted, we have a roof over our heads, but some days, I think we’d all be happier living in the car.

Work. I’m good at my job, but in all honesty, I’m fairly certain anyone could do it. I’m tired of the monotony. I’m tired of the stupid workplace drama that comes with working with all women. I’m tired of a boss that is likely bipolar and terrible at delegating. I’m tired of no accountability. We really don’t want to take on any more debt right now while we scrimp and save to buy a house in the spring, so no school loans just yet….I have to stick it out a bit longer and then maybe we can get me working on an accounting degree or something to get me out of here…until then, there’s not much I can do.

So, as long as nothing else pops up, life should be manageable for a while!

Posted in abuse, adhd, co-parenting, crazy making, Divorce, kids, medication, Uncategorized, worry
24 Sep 2012
4 Comments

My current life in a nutshell

I found out my oldest son lied to me, took the 10 dollars I gave him for admission to the dance and decided to hang out with some friends and get drunk this weekend. He then proceeded to tell me that I’m being obsessive and I’m stalking his life. He is 15.

Later today I go the Dr. with D to talk about ADHD meds.

I’ve been sick for the last three days with a cold of some kind that produces absurd amounts of snot. I’m at work today, coughing and tired…but payroll has to be done – so, here I am.

My husband informed me last week that I’ve been in a bad mood and wanting to ‘give up’ (yes, sometimes I say I want to give up – who doesn’t?) for over a month now. My life is overwhelming a lot of the time. I try to talk to him, but he just says we have to stay positive. things will be ok. etc. Honestly, I’m tired of hearing that. I’m more interested in solutions. Ideas. Suggestions for change. He asked all my FB friends to tell me they love me, that I seem to be having a hard time lately. I was uncomfortable when he told me this. Then he got defensive. Ugh.

My ex has been talking to A about his new girlfriend. She, apparently, thinks the 11 year age difference between him and her (shes 26, he’s 37) might be a problem for my son, so she wanted him to ask A about it to, ‘make sure he’s ok with it.’ Anyone else guessing she doesn’t have kids of her own? And weird, shes middle school guidance counselor. One would think she’d know better than to bring a teenager into his fathers relationships? Guess not. She lives in Maine. He’s still in South Dakota. I’m guessing its a Match.com thing and they’ve never actually met. I’ll give it a few more weeks when he’ll tell A that he had to break up with her because “she’s not long term material.” At least thats how its gone with the last 3 we’ve heard about.

Booooo! Ok, so upside?
I’m relatively healthy. D is going to hopefully start getting medicine to help him do better in school. A is going to be punished, but good god, lets keep our fingers crossed this can be something he learns from???
I am married to a wonderful and patient man who loves me no matter what. Life is really ok. I just wish it didn’t have to be so damn difficult so much of the time.

Posted in abuse, adhd, co-parenting, crazy making, Divorce, kids, long distance parenting, medication, teen drinking, worry
19 Sep 2012
5 Comments

I do not consent!

For YEARS I kept asking my X if there was something wrong with D, the way he was in school, not doing his work, not able to focus, not able to follow through, etc. My X was a teacher, he dealt with kids every day. He was constantly telling me “NO! D is FINE! He’ll grow out of it. its not a big deal.” His teachers seemed to like him, liked his sense of humor, enjoyed him in class, etc.

Fast forward to middle school – NO communication with the teachers, D is failing, not doing his work, its becoming a nightmare. At home he wants to play computer, he wants to watch tv, he can’t follow through on simple tasks like taking the dog out to pee, or cleaning up his room, without direct one on one support. So, I decide that he should see a behavioral specialist.

The specialist recommends that it would benefit D to be evaluated at the early intervention place to see what they can come up with to try to help him do better in school and help us all at home.

We met with the evaluator last week and his test results indicate that he has ADHD. I get this is fairly common, but it was still difficult to hear. She said that medication and therapy were the best bets for him. I tried not to be too pissy at his father for convincing me D was fine, or the school for not realizing there was an issue, or myself for not listening to my gut when I was so sure there was something not quite right. It is what it is…and we’ll need to deal with it. Blame and anger aren’t going to be useful.

We made another appointment for more tests to determine the severity, and an appointment with his primary dr. to discuss treatment options.

I talked to D myself about his tests indicating ADHD the idea of taking medicine every day and continuing to see his behavior dude. He was worried he’d be put in the slow class. I told him absolutely not! that this was all just a way to try to help him do better in school, to remember things better, to hear things better….he was like “I can take medicine that would help me with that?! YES!”

Then I realized I was going to need to let his father know, as we are supposed to share in medical decision making. I knew that he’d have a fit when he realized that D had an actual diagnosis. He’s the type that if his kid has some kind of defect, blame will need to be assigned – and it would be all about him and not at all about his son. And I was right.

From: Me
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 1:56 PM
To: X
Subject: D

D has been assessed by Dr. (evaluator lady) at the (early intervention place). Her test results indicate that he has ADHD. We are meeting with his primary physician, Dr. (so and so)  at (his dr’s office) on 9/24/12 to discuss treatment options.

And his response:
From: X
To: Me
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 3:49 PM
Subject: RE: D

I do not consent to him being medicated, what I do consent to is having him placed back in counseling for what he has been through.  But there are many things in that boys life that I do not, nor will ever consent to.  Medicating that little boy is an absolute shame and something that he will never forget for the rest of his life – hope you keep that in mind.

As much as I wanted to respond with all the logic about adhd not having anything to do with counseling (which he has been discharged from by the counselor because of the progress he made) or “what he’s been through” Whatever the hell that even means – that behavior modification therapy and meds will likely be the options – or that he’s not a “little boy” in 8 short months he’ll be a teenager!
Also, I’ve done research and talked to doctors and moms who have to medicate their kids, and adults who have been medicated since they were kids….I plan on making an INFORMED decision!
I didn’t respond. There would be no point. However, I did let A know about his brother, and asked him to stop making ADHD jokes and to try to be a little more patient. I also told him that his dad thinks medicine is a bad idea. A said “What?! thats dumb! Whatever we gotta do to keep D from busting windows, we need to just do it.” I also mentioned to D last night that I had to tell his dad about all this stuff and that dad wasn’t on board with medicine and D said “Why not!? What if the dr says that’s what is going to be best for me?!” I told him, “then that is what we’ll do”.
Then! after all that…the X called the house to talk to D. Asked him “who told you that you needed to go to the dr?” D’s response was “IDK” and he asked “what kind of troubles are you having?” D just said “i’m not having any troubles.” then the conversation when to D talking about his life is good, super, you know, epic….that made me laugh. The conversation ended right after that. X doesn’t like to hear when his kids are doing well.
Also interesting that he called when he found out D had ADHD, but not when he went to the ER. And by interesting, I mean really really stupid.
Posted in abuse, adhd, co-parenting, crazy making, Divorce, kids, long distance parenting, medication, reality, worry

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