It’s all feeling a bit much.
Eleanor is in the middle of her exams – her GCSE’s. They started last week – when she was at her dad’s.
Her dad has a full revision schedule planned out for her and she’s going to his house on several days after either a lesson or an exam to revise there because I don’t have much luck in getting her to revise. She just gets grumpy with me. It doesn’t matter whether I am firm, cheerful, supportive, encouraging. I’ve tried every tactic possible. I’ve tried being bossy like him and annoying her until she gets on with it but it mostly just ends in her having a meltdown or getting really angry at me.
If I leave her to it and then she doesn’t do it, I’m criticised for not being “bossy like dad”. If I am “bossy like dad” I’m just annoying and she doesn’t do it anyway. Or, if she eventually does do it, I’m so mentally exhausted from the constant battles that I am on the verge of meltdown myself.
I’ve given up feeling guilty about it. I’m too tired. I’m just counting the days until it’s all over.
Another thing that has started again out of nowhere is the taunts and jibes. Before I got a job last August, Eleanor was constantly criticising me and teasing me for not having a job and relying on benefits. So I got a job. But it was too much – managing all the admin for her, ferrying her back and forth for her lessons and appointments. Particularly on the weeks the kids were here, I had zero time to myself and felt so overwhelmed most of the time. However, it did stop her jibing at me for not having a job. That, at least, was a blessing.
So now we’re back to that.
It’s wearing me down.
It’s hard to give and give and give when nothing you do is ever good enough in your child’s eyes.
I keep trying to remember how far she’s come and how amazing it is that she’s doing GCSE’s at all given where she was 2 years ago.
This time 2 years ago, she had just started being able to write again. She had started to be able to say a few words but her ability to speak or be understood really fluctuated. So we used a whiteboard to communicate a lot of the time. She hadn’t had her second operation yet so there was still a big dent in her head where her skull cap was missing.
It’s amazing she’s come as far as she’s come but that doesn’t mean that a lot of days aren’t still hard.
And some days I just want to cry and give up.
I know I won’t, but it doesn’t stop me wanting to sometimes.
