A mental breakdown

I am tired of holding it together, y’all. I am tired of keeping the faith and being strong. I don’t feel like I can do it anymore. 

I feel so alone. I don’t have anyone I can talk to about this who truly understands. All I get is judgement and disparagement. Doesn’t anyone care about how *I* feel or what *I* am going through?! My kid is “broken” and I can’t fix it. There’s something wrong with my baby and I don’t know what it is and I can’t get the answers I need. Not only am I fighting the school system and doctors and insurance but I have to also fight the dirty looks and mean comments from everyone else thinking they know what’s going on and that I just don’t know how to handle or raise my kid. “Why can’t he just sit and color?” “You need to medicate him.” “Get your child under control.” “Nice parenting.” This is what I get day in and day out. 

Teachers don’t understand because he holds it together at school. No one believes me when I explain some of the things that go on behind our closed doors at home. No one else sees the worst of it. The stuff in public is only a glimpse of what I deal with every day. And I don’t ever get a break. Yes, he’s the smartest kid I know (seriously, not just saying that) but he’s got no handle on his emotional health. 

My community doesn’t understand because they don’t care to realize that my son has special needs. All they see is a “wild child” or a “delinquent” or a “bad kid” with a “bad mom” who doesn’t know what she’s doing. 

Not even my family understands. They, too, only see glimpses and pieces. Some of them are even in denial that there’s anything wrong with him and it must be my fault because I messed him up somehow. How am I supposed to live with that? Pretty much every parenting choice is questioned and I constantly feel like I’m under scrutiny. 

My friends are helpful but even they don’t fully understand. They sympathize with me and offer what advice and happy thoughts they can but in the end, it doesn’t change anything other than maybe I got an extra couple of smiles out of it. Even my friends who also have children with special needs don’t get it, and that’s because we’re all on our different journey. What helped their kids won’t necessarily help mine, and believe me, I’ve tried just about everything. 

I can’t do it anymore y’all. I truly can’t. I dread getting up in the morning knowing I have to do it all over again today. I am starting to have anxiety going to sleep because I know that after sleep comes the morning. 

And I have another kid to think about too. So often he gets lumped in with everything else and swept up in all of the drama going on around him and I can’t give him the attention of the mama he needs. Talk about mom guilt. So now I’ve failed both my kids... 

I don’t know what to do. I feel so bad for my son who is the one actually going through all of this. He’s actually on the runaway Rollercoaster... I’m just the one watching it all happen and trying to slow it down and stop it. 

Isn’t that enough?! Why do I have to put up with all this other judgement and crap? Why can’t they offer help or a kind word instead so I don’t feel like I need to watch my back for CPS to come or something? And then when I do ever say anything about his special needs, all I get is an “oh, I didn’t know...” like that’s supposed to make it all better. I didn’t know you were a judgmental jerk but I didn’t go out of my way to ruin your day. 

It’s not as easy as “getting him on meds.” It’s complicated. He’s so young and there’s soooo many different types of psychotropic prescriptions out there than can help in some way shape or form. Some can make it worse... hence the hesitation. There’s no magic pill that will make it go away. 

Is he going to be like this his whole life?! Will he ever grow out of it? Will he ever be able to make a living for himself? Will he even MAKE it to adulthood? It’s hard enough being a mom with the everyday worries and anxiety about your kids growing up. Throw some sort of weird special mental needs thing in there and it’s too much. It’s too much to handle. 

Then there’s my house. My messy, dirty, cluttered house. I don’t care about putting laundry away anymore. My kids wear clean clothes that fit them. I’ve got nothing left at the end of the day (or during the day) to fold any laundry or put dishes away or do anything like that. There’s cobwebs in the corners of my house and a layer of dust everywhere. I’m judged for that too. Because I’m a stay/work from home mom, I must have all this free time so the house should be spotless and I should be able to cook 3 meals a day for my family, all with a smile on my face. This dumb blog that I run gets me just enough to do a little something fun once in awhile, like a trip to McDonald’s or a new box of playdoh. And I have to work my butt off for it. I only get out what I put into it, so I work for 10-12 hours a day, at home, trying to make a little money to help support my family. And that’s not the only business I have either. I’m running multiple... Just to keep my foot in the door of the working world because heaven forbid a woman want to concentrate on her family instead of a career. Judge me for that, too. Then there’s all the volunteering. School, church, community... it never ends. All for my kids. All for their future. But no, someone glares at me from across the school cafeteria because my son is having yet another meltdown over something only HE understands. Someone mutters under your breath to just let him have the bag of candy or whatever it is he thinks he needs. Someone else says I’m ruining my boys by allowing them to express themselves by what they wear or choose to put on their fingernails. 

I don’t want recognition. I don’t want a pat on the back. This is my life. This is my family. This is my choice. I just want someone to talk to who actually understands what I’m going through. I just want an end to the judgement and negativity, even from people close to me. I just want my son “fixed”. I can’t do it alone and I feel like I can’t keep doing it forever. I feel so alone, just me, my son, and his special needs, and that’s the most depressing thought of all.