Lived Experience Forum

[Former-Member]

My lil boy is not well and it's times like this that I realise how alone we are. If I have to take him into the er I need to get my little girl up as well and try to manage one sleepy child and one sick child. Then the hospital gets grumpy because you can't have another child there but they can't make me leave because my lil boy has special needs and wouldn't let me go without him anyway . It's so hard to know what to do and how to manage everything on my own. And then there is so much else happening I don't feel safe to open the door and go out in the dark. This kind of living and hiding is so unfair on the kids. When is it ever going to get easier?!?

[Mazarita]

I'm so sorry you have to go through this @Former-Member. How frustrating that you get flack from the hospital staff when you have no other option than to take both children with you. Recently I had a phone conversation with my mum (a retired nurse's aid) about this assumption by hospitals that everyone will have a support network to back them up with the various real-life demands of illness. She and I both know people who don't have this backup and who have suffered from this assumption. I feel lucky to have my partner but I don't have that much of a support network aside from that either. Almost everyone I know really well is in Victoria even after 13 years in Queensland. Hope your boy is feeling a bit better. I know you can't talk about why are not feeling safe. Very sorry to hear you are being bothered again. Sending you hugs. 

[Appleblossom]

Hope you get the help you and your lil boy needs at the ER.

It is unbelievable how people can be so unwitting and add stress to an already stressful situation.

Hugs.

[Former-Member]

Yes, exactly! I have the same trouble when ever I have to fill in forms for the children anywhere and they want a second emergency contact. There is always this sense of shock, or disbelief that there isnt anyone to put down. Then i just feel like a freak and a failure and a thousand negative things come into my head. If i didnt have the children i really wouldnt leave the house, but i think as @Appleblossom said somewhere else, having kids forces you to have to be 'out there' in a different way than your truest self if that makes any sense. But i so wish i could give my kids more, that they could be 'safer and more supported'. I wish there was a village to raise them instead of this half broken, half empty shell.

My little boy's paediatrician wrote a very strongly worded letter to be considered by the powers that be regarding care of the children and thats thrown everything up in the air. I thought it was wonderful because he's finally going to get the right support for him and i struggle so much to know how to deal with some of the behaviours that he has... but its caused other problems too

I'm struggling to try and make my thoughts stop trending to the negative. My psychologist says i see only the things i dont do well at and dismiss all the good but I think that is because I kind of see it like a set of scales and i imagine that the weight of the negative to be 10x as heavy as anything good and so the scales are always tipped to the negative and i cant ever catch up to make it balance or make the good stuff tip the balance.

I started the gratitude thread to try and work on that aspect but i just find it so hard when stuff goes wrong not to just turn inwards and find all the reasons to shame, blame and burn myself from the inside out about it! but it doesnt end up solving the problem, or helping anyone, least of all the kids! How do we focus better on the stuff we do right?! or the problem itself rather than the causes.

LJ

[Mazarita]

@Former-Member Let's hope the iceblock starts to do the trick for him, little fella. Fingers crossed...

I think I understand what you are saying about having children forcing you to do things you wouldn't do if it was just you. I seriously doubt I could ever have had your strength though, or that of @Appleblossom. Or the strength I witnessed in my mother under very difficult circumstances. 

[Mazarita]

@Former-Member A good GP I once saw in Melbourne gave me an exercise to do for easing up on the shame, blame and burn. It was simple and similar to the gratitude thread: write three things you like about yourself every day. Here's three things I like about you:

intelligence

empathy

resilience

[Appleblossom]

Glad he is a bit more settled and you can rest a bit.

The 365 thread is great and we wont let it go .. it is a credit to you that you even took the initiative to start it given your current circumstances ...but I was also looking at discussion on the Great Good Science Centre .... discussing gratitude ... dont force it ... let it be natural ..

No-one is perfect .... perfection is a mugs game ... it cannot be sincere ... regardless of all the images we see in the media ... its like the teenage girls think they need to compete with models ... and we parents need to compete with the best of whatever is on display in the movies and ads etc.

Remember Winnicott's ... a Good Enough Mother

[Former-Member]

Thank you both, i will get back to you tomorrow 🙂

[Former-Member]

Hi my lil boy is on the mend but covered in a rash - probably viral sigh. I have a migraine and not coping well. Just over tired after a few nights of almost no sleep.
:face_with_rolling_eyes:

[Mazarita]

Hi lj,

So glad your boy is on the mend. Did you need to go to Emergency? Hope you have a an easy going Sunday that is not too taxing and can get a good sleep tonight.