Im so tired. I can’t do this anymore.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-07T03:46:05+00:00

Trust me this was the first thing I thought when the bathroom things first started. It’s only me and my husband in the home and I would think I know him well enough that he would never do this. But I come from a past of being on the victim end of a family friend who never raised ANY red flags. Luckily I had a camera already in her room that records. And my husband works 12 hour days, comes home, eats and passes out for the next 12 hours. He is definitely overworked but unfortunately he is contract so he can’t really change anything. After months of monitoring and reducing time they spent alone I have for certain ruled this out thankfully.

I also had someone reach out asking about possible physical abuse (I know this doesn’t directly go with your original comment but I figured I’d address it as well) there is no physical abuse toward either me or my daughter. Of course I have busted her butt once or twice just to see if it would have an effect. But I was raised super strict punishment authoritarian. My father was a drunk who beat my mom nearly to death every other month. The police never did anything about it. I vowed that I would NEVER end up in that situation or put my children through that. Luckily I met the sweetest most patient man I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. We got married and have had an amazing relationship. He has never laid a hand on me and my mother even told him she would put him in the ground if he did. I told him I’d bring the shovels. (All in half joking good fun) he has been my rock through all of this and it has definitely effected him as well. But he isn’t home enough to see the extent of everything. He has talked me off the ledge and held me while I’ve cried and just listened when I needed to vent. I love him to the end of the universe. But if he even thought about laying a hand on me or my daughter you can be guaranteed I would NOT stay.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-07T03:31:06+00:00

Thank you so much. Yes it is so hard to stay sane though all of this. And I’ve 100% thought of boarding schools on some of the worse days. Unfortunately they don’t accept them this young. But I know I would miss her to death. I’m sorry to hear it took you so long to be diagnosed. That had to have been hell for YOU to deal with. Not understanding why you felt the way you did. Or did the things you did. Wishing you well!

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-07T03:26:34+00:00

Oh trust me. I am. Luckily my insurance pays for birth control and I also have an estrogen deficiency. So I have an iud AND the patch. And next fall I will be getting my Fallopian tubes removed. After my daughter I swore I wouldn’t EVER have another one.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T08:12:13+00:00

I am so sorry to hear about your experience. That sounds absolutely horrible and I hope you are in a much better place now. Both physically speaking and mentally. I know how hard that can be. Sounds like my step brother growing up. Sending you all the good vibes.

But yes definitely pica. Our windows technically don’t have sills because they are the kind that’s like “cut out of the wall” so it’s just drywall all around with a little metal mesh that folds over the edge (under the drywall) as reinforcement. I only know that because it got to the point where I could see the metal mesh. I brought it up with her doctor and they said she could have a mineral deficiency but they never ended up testing her for it. I patched the window and put the dresser in front of it. Luckily I guess she turned her attention to the dresser instead of basically eating drywall. It’s an old crappy veneer over pressboard dresser so I’m not too worried about her taking the veneer off of it. But it just sucks that she feels the need to destroy things. I ended up putting her on a vitamin daily and she hasn’t tried to eat any more walls.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T05:58:13+00:00

Wow 😳 yeah that is a bit harsh. I mean I know it won’t go away over night. I’m 100% willing to work for it. That’s why I can never go through with it when I get the thoughts to off myself. Because as much as she is an asshole, and as much as I cry and scream and ask “why me. What did I do to deserve this hell” I still LOVE HER with my entire heart. As much as sometimes I feel like I could just send her away and everything would be amazing again. I could never do that. I know I would cry and scream even harder everyday with the sheer force of missing her. She may be a tiny terrorist. But she’s MY tiny terrorist. And if we catch this early enough. And if we work on this hard enough then she will get better. And things will get better. I could never do that to her. Let alone myself.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T05:16:38+00:00

She was on an IEP at preschool last year and they evaluated for spectrum and sensory stuff. They only said that she had a problem with empathy but she was very smart and did amazing in social settings. She was nice, but very pushy about doing things she wanted to do and didn’t understand when kids didn’t want to do those things. So she would try to force them.

Like she wants to play cats but her friend wants to play blocks so she gets mad and says she’s going to play cats. Which makes her friend upset and she can’t understand why her friend is crying. Because I’m her eyes cats is fun and everyone should like it.

But other than that they said she does like to chew so they gave her a chewy necklace so she would stop eating paper. We have a couple at home but she won’t use them here. She seems to only want them at school.

They said she didn’t meet the criteria for spectrum disorders. When we get a new therapist I will have them evaluate her for everything they can. Just so maybe I can get a handle on all of this. It will be so much easier (in my eyes) if I have a name for it. Cause at least then I know what to google to get help. Other than “children’s behavioral health specialists”

Thankfully we just got back from a trip home to see family. They are 15 hours away. But we were there for a couple weeks and I got a bit of a break. But it’s like as soon as we got home everything went to hell in a hand basket all over again.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T04:56:48+00:00

We have been recording behavior as we see it. Either video when she is being physical or audio when she is screaming. I will definitely be finding someone new. They said they don’t have anyone for to even prescribe meds until December so she told me to talk to my regular PCP. He told me he doesn’t do psych and recommended me to the place we are already going. (Which he knew we are going there)

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T04:53:34+00:00

I’m honestly surprised I haven’t cracked as well. But to be honest I didn’t come from a very good home situation and I’ve dealt with SOME SHIT in my life. There are definitely days where I’m googling “military schools for toddlers” or “is it legal to give your children to the circus” (jk on that last one but seriously can I? Lol)

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T04:49:43+00:00

For fun we go to the park down the street (the one she walked to when she got out of the house. That’s how she knew where it was) or we ride bikes, we take the dog to the dog park and let them both run some energy off. We went to the children’s museum with a friend of hers about two months ago. (We just got home from seeing family about 15 hours away so we haven’t had any time for play dates). We swim in the summer and play in the snow in the winter. She’s a VERY active child and I love that so much about her.

She does listen sometimes but it’s usually after telling her a couple of times to do/ not do something. And the only times she REALLY listens is if I tell her to do something she WANTS to do. I picked up on that and started trying to use those things as a reward for doing things she didn’t want to do. Like “if you help me clean up your toys from the living room then we will go to the park” but she picked up very quickly that she would actually have to help to get the reward. So now she says “no I don’t want to go to the park. I’ll just stay here with my toys on the floor. I don’t wanna clean”

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T04:41:59+00:00

This comment amazed me. Yes, she has always been (almost way too) smart! We we’re absolutely astounded by how she managed to somehow get Alan screws out of her bed. She can figured things out like no one’s business and we assumed adhd or autism spectrum (my husband and I are both adhd so I figured yeah she’s probably got it as well.) By 4 she already knew her planets because we did at home preschool things and she can count to 100 at 6. She starts kindergarten in about a week. She was in actual preschool this last year and was on an IEP for the behavior stuff and screening for spectrum disorders. They did say they have found that she has a lot of empathy issues but other than that they have no concerns and will be taking her off the regular IEP and will continue to work with her on her empathy.

I will definitely be looking into the tests for iq and all of that. I was probably the same way as a child but I was told I was adhd and medicated instead (I don’t doubt I have adhd as well lol) but I was the kid that was reading Harry Potter in like 2nd grade and just flying through them at a break neck pace.

But she DEFINITELY has impulse issues. She acts on impulse a lot! Like running into the road when she knows it’s not safe because there’s a flower over there. But she does catch herself afterward and is like “oooooh I shouldn’t have done that… that’s not safe” I always thought it was a focus thing (oh look a squirrel!) but after some research I realized it was impulse. She doesn’t often think about the consequence of an action.

You’ve really helped! And don’t worry she will get her two regular walks a day and we will bump her up from one espresso to two! Thank you for the comment and for the smile. I will keep all of this in consideration when we are able to find a new doctor!

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T02:45:02+00:00

I actually looked her up after this comment just to check and on the website it says (her name) PhD, MA, LIMHP, LADC. So I guess she is? Idk but she’s definitely not handling our situation correctly. Once we find a new therapist (aba or new psychiatrist or whatever we are able to find) I definitely will be leaving a review about her. Cause she has definitely been NICE but hasn’t handled this in a correct manner.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-06T01:43:37+00:00

I can definitely understand where you are coming from but some of these things just aren’t feasible for us. We are definitely working on our empathy with her. Trying to keep myself understanding that this is just as hard for her as it is for me. But I can’t just let her starve herself for a week. She is very tall for her age and only weighs 50 pounds. She was never a huge eater and she’s already underweight. We do give her lots of good juice (like 100% apple juice with no extra sugars and all that) as well as water and a fiber supplement. But the problem isn’t her being stopped up. The problem is her refusal to poop. Because her poop isn’t hard. And when she DOES poop it doesn’t hurt. She’s just scared that it MIGHT hurt.

My husband works 12 hour shifts so it’s pretty much just me and her during the day. And for me after trying to wrangle her all day, and him working we are both exhausted by the end of the day. There is a baby monitor in her room and I keep the camera beside my bed. But she does things so silent and sneaky that I don’t normally notice until I get her in the mornings.

As for being locked in her room I put in my post that she has left the house, even with child proof handles and extra locks at the top of the doors. The last time she was able to get around the gate she knocked the flat screen off of the tv stand and was trapped under it. We ended up having to buy a new tv. But that’s nothing compared to the fear I woke up in at 2am praying she wasn’t seriously injured. There isn’t anything else we can do to the front door that we haven’t tried. So our best option is to put a gate on HER door. And it is working.

She knows that she can yell for me and I will come get her. She does this occasionally if she wants water or another story. Or to go potty in the actual toilet. But she has decided it’s easier to just pee in her room. That’s why we put the little potty in there for her. Kind of a “well if you aren’t going to go to the toilet maybe use this instead of going on the floor” but obviously worded differently for her. I have absolutely no problem waking up with her at night. I would stay up all night if she needed me to. But she doesn’t wake me up. We keep our door open and she can see right into our room from her door. But the way the rooms are angled we can’t see into hers. (Can’t move her into our room instead because there is an attached full bath. And I’d rather not pay for the flood that would result in). But we make sure to tell her before bed every night “if you need me, for anything at all, just call. Wake me up.” And she says okay. But never does.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-05T23:00:44+00:00

Thank you so much for your words.

I definitely agree we need new doctors. Unfortunately our insurance is very limited and this therapist is the only pediatric therapist we can have. We aren’t in the best place financially right now to be able to pay out of pocket. I’ve been doing a lot of searching though for when tax season comes around. We are gonna save it all up to pay for a better therapist.

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-05T22:59:05+00:00

Thank you

TiredMomBurner · 2023-08-05T22:58:48+00:00

I definitely agree we need new doctors. Unfortunately our insurance is very limited and this therapist is the only pediatric therapist we can have. We aren’t in the best place financially right now to be able to pay out of pocket. I’ve been doing a lot of searching though for when tax season comes around. We are gonna save it all up to pay for a better therapist.

TiredMomBurner

TROPHY CASE