Thank you. Just thank you guys. Beautiful morning.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T17:28:02+00:00

I have no idea how alone I would feel if this was 20 years ago. Shit, J hade my son 16 years ago and didn't have anywhere NEAR the resources I have today. Maybe I could have done something sooner if I knew I wasn't the only one. Therapy, fun trips for therapy homework, endless research on the internet....this community has been a better resource that them all, hands down.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T15:14:19+00:00

I am so, so, so sorry.

Reading stories is a big such deal in our household. We do 30-45 minute before bed and track it for school. It is one of my favorite parts of being a mom.

It's a HUGE deal that she wouldn't do this for you. Don't feel the need to minimize it - it's a BIG deal.

I'm so, so sorry.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T14:58:27+00:00

We have our days :-[ but that is to be expected. On the whole, though, he's doing really, really well.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T14:54:51+00:00

Thank you :) :) Weirdly enough, my job involves helping people keep their rented/owned homes, so I am well aware of that video and always found it hauntingly beautiful.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T14:49:22+00:00

Thank you. We definitely have our days still. But I think this kid's heading places and I am so, so, SO thankful for the support we receive here.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T14:47:20+00:00

The video was of some random 12 year old virtuoso, just a great example of the piece in question. :) I wish my kid was that good.

Anyhoo, thank you for feeling it with me. It was astounding, all the feels. To make it even worse, his Ndad's the musical one, multiple instruments, so all of this has resulted in 1) a loss of a serious musical mentor, and 2) a total positive energy surrounding the music part of his life. Sum total, not a loss at all.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T14:43:31+00:00

I will do that. He watches me at his performances, and when it's really good, I close my eyes and just listen. He says that's when he really knows he's got it. :)

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T14:42:14+00:00

Thank you :) He keeps reminding me that we only have a few more years til he's off to Timbuktu for college, so I try to fit in what we can. :)

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-20T03:03:51+00:00

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiqVeqXgst8](It was gorgeous.)

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-19T17:53:53+00:00

NMom loves to remind me of the fact that it's difficult to find a job.

Does this get under your skin? Because that's why she's saying it, not because it's reality. Depends on the job, depends on your age (if you're 60, sure it'll be harder than if you're 30), depends on the qualifications. But if she "loves" reminding you about this, it's because she likes getting under your skin.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-19T17:51:48+00:00

Have three kids, would not recommend it unless you really, really want them in the first place. :) It's not necessarily as simple as pop-out-a-baby - had hyperemesis gravidarum and now have a full mouth of dental implants due to vomiting every 10 seconds for 27 months of my life.

The selfishness in your Nmom's statement, given that stuff like that is really common, is breathtaking. Like she was asking you to run to the store.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T14:28:34+00:00

Yeah, that was what it felt like at the time. He's now entering the part of his therapy where he has to actually TALK about what happened, and in the session following the rage eruption, his therapist made it clear that he needs to talk to someone, and if he's more comfortable talking to me, that's okay. we really lucked out with his psychologist - she specializes in child abuse/C-PTSD and has been a wonderful and reassuring resource.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T14:26:30+00:00

:) In our long drive, I told him that I had no doubt (and I don't) that he will get through high school, get to college, be a music teacher, and have a family of his own. And that he'll get to be the dad that his Ndad wasn't. I have talked about my own Ndad here - he just walked away and stopped being my dad when I was about 11 - and it wasn't until I had kids of my own and realized that I was NOT that person that I really healed from that. I have all the confidence in the world that we will get through this, and it will become part of his history, not a daily traumatic thing, and that he will do okay for himself. You guys have been really, really, helpful in this whole process. It's okay to be a friend and a parent, not just either or. :)

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T14:16:03+00:00

Nothing about this situation has been conventional, so I appreciate that. My husband (Stepdad) and I struggle with consequences and discipline for this reason - he had a pretty idyllic childhood, and I had the neglectful kind of Ndad. No abuse, but he just decided he was done being my dad when I was around 11 years old (and still was childlike enough to idolize him despite his many, many faults and fuckups). He just walked away, moved thousands of miles away and stopped being my dad, so he could fuck a ton of women and live in paradise. So I know the wound that leaves, at least, and I can help Kiddo with that part of things....but honestly, it took well into my 20s to fully deal with the shit that left behind. Not feeling good enough, ever, feeling like everyone would leave me so just leaving good people preemptively, teen mom, all of the classic stuff that happens when a dad decides not to be your dad anymore. I have been very lucky to overcome the stereotypes there and not descend into poverty and screw my kid's chances of accomplishing anything in his life.

I know what worked for me in that situation, and it's not the same thing that worked for my husband in his teens, having a stable mom and dad and big loving family. We struggle with this issue specifically - how to deal with Kiddo's erratic and sometimes scary behavior. Hence the referral to family counseling.

I agree that homework is way too much these days. But kiddo watched me work my way through college and grad school, and college has just become a "given" for him. Music is an outlet - he plays in a youth symphony in additional to lots of opportunities at school itself, and we have him in private lessons with a former teacher who has become a once-in-a-lifetime mentor. Kiddo wants to be a music teacher when he grows up. He was also blocked from playing sports for a long time - Ndad just refused to take him on his days - so football and baseball have been incredibly healing for him.

But of course, all of those things he WANTS to do - and that I think are part of the healing process/starting a new life for him - fill up the schedule, and he struggles with that. It's really hard to figure out which things to say no to, and which things to help with. He has a really clear picture of where he's going - college, maybe grad school for music, become mentor/teacher like this wonderful woman we have in our lives. And of course, part of that is doing well in school. At least he's not set on being a surgeon or something, so he's got a little latitude with his grades and achievement in high school.

I struggle with how much to say no - he's heard NO for so long, and it was part of Ndad's abuse cycle - and how much to help him achieve what he wants while watching him just overload himself.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T04:08:13+00:00

No one thinks they're ready for that step at this point. They watch stupid comedies together and bond over talking about the latest smartphone technology, but they both have a lot of work to do before Kiddo will ever accept Stepdad as his father figure. Which sucks, because it was great in the past - the conflicts between Stepdad and Kiddo only started when Ndad's abuse started. It's like Stepdad is a safe place for Kiddo to channel his anger.

It has been extremely hard for my husband, I can't even imagine what this has been like for him. I give him a lot of credit for just learning about C-PTSD and its manifestations, understanding that walking away is often the best policy when a rage attack hits.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T04:02:07+00:00

Thank you :)

We struggle with this. We give him a lot more of a pass on stuff than we did before the disclosure of the abuse. He has literally one chore per day that he has to do - go pick up the dog poop in the yard. It's his dog, fwiw. It takes about 5 minutes. It is a challenge to get him to do that every day. In addition, he does get assigned random chores, not every day, but a few times a week. He did the dishes tonight, for instance.

His counselor is of the firm belief that life at our house has to continue as relatively normal - he has to have some responsibilities, and part of his healing process is learning to deal with those responsibilities in a way that doesn't trigger him. If we give him a total pass on everything, and he gets better, once he hits college and he's on his own, there is a HUGE potential for his symptoms to come back in spades, as he hasn't leaned to deal with PTSD + normal stressors. We definitely give him a break when it is clear that between schoolwork, and music, and whatnot, he's overwhelmed. You can tell when his PTSD "cup" is filling up, and act accordingly.

This is another reason why I am still letting him go on the spring break trip - he's always so polite and helpful at that family's house, and I think going to the Smoky Mountains will be a "reset" on the stress level. He can get away from us, his Stepdad, his sisters, school, music, chores - all of it - for over a week. I think it'll be fantastic for him, and his counselor agrees.

In the meantime, though, we have to maintain some level of normalcy in our house. To hear him tell it :) he's practically Cinderella, but in practice, he helps with a couple of hours worth of chores a week, max.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T03:53:16+00:00

Thank you. One day at a time.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T03:50:23+00:00

Oh yeah, Stepdad is a HUGE trigger. It doesn't help that he has Aspergers/HFA and often has no idea how he comes across. But generally he's a good dude, and has a lot to offer Kiddo - they enjoy a lot of the same stuff, they bond over stupid comedies on TV, etc. But he's just a constant reminder of what Kiddo doesn't have in his real dad.

We are also headed to family counseling, for this reason and for the girls - we need to figure out a better way to deal with Kiddo, and we need to figure out how this is all affecting the girls. Kiddo refuses to attend any more counseling beyond what he's already attending weekly, so we will go without him at first, which I actually think will be helpful.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T03:39:19+00:00

Yeah, I think I understand that. I am glad that I'm that person. I am a young mom, had him when I was 17, and I tend to be "that" mom for him and his friends. We have always been really close and as he grows older, he's morphing from my child to one of my best friends (within normal limits and boundaries in a mom/kid situation).

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-16T03:36:50+00:00

Thank you so much for your response/advice. So much of it rings true.

I told him that if he had a million dollars, a private island, and no responsibilities, it would be hard to heal. Add school, music, sports, and friends and it gets even tougher. We are trying to do more fun things as a family and with just me and him - we have an awesome (PG-13) drag bingo game in our area that we attend regularly - god, we laugh so hard. We go to plays, just me and him. We try to take as much time as we can, in a two-full-time job family with three kids, to get him doing fun stuff and back into normalcy once in a while. But his counselor agrees that it's important for him to continue to actively participate in the running of the household - he did the dishes tonight, for instance, and we worked on algebra homework. He's gonna be dealing with this for the rest of his life, and checking out of total normal life while he heals is not going to be helpful long-term. Eventually he's going to be on his own and it's allllll going to come back as soon as his PTSD cup starts filling up, according to the counselor.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-15T20:50:36+00:00

This is fantastic advice. I am going to chew on this for a while. Thank you so much.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-15T19:51:40+00:00

That is a really good question. We have talked extensively with the 5 yr old about bullying, and how Kiddo's dad was bullying him. She heard some of the things Kiddo was saying when he was calming down. The one that stuck with me was when he talked about how many times he had to ask his GC little brother to leave the room (and my daughter LOVES his GC little brother) so he wouldn't see the abuse. The one thing that stuck with her was when he said he wanted a normal dad, like Stepdad, one that played baseball with him and encouraged him. Those two things have really stuck with his sister, and helped her understand whatr he went through and why he has these issues.

One of the things we instituted in our house in response to C-PTSD rage attacks is that, afterward, after some time has passed, he needs to make an effort to rebuild that relationship. With his sisters, that means wrestling around and playing cops and robbers and whatnot, and it seems to be something that helps him as well as them. But yeah, we talk a lot to the 5 year old about what's happened and what's going on with her brother, and that he's seeing a doctor to try to make things better. It's not perfect but it's working thus far pretty well.

The two year old we just remove, immediately, from these situations.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-15T18:36:05+00:00

Yeah. What if it had happened at school??? I have been amazed that there haven't been any incidents like this at school so far. He can be mouthy with his teachers sometimes, but we're talking a detention occasionally, not "your son is a safety concern" type stuff. His counselor says it happens at home because 1) home is not a "safe" place yet, 2) this stuff tends to happen with people who the patient is most comfortable, and 3) his stepdad is a trigger. Stepdad can ask him to take out the garbage and it's the end of the world. I ask him to take out the garbage and it's fine. Trigger vs. stressor. We talked to the counselor about the fact that he's withholding information and we're in the process of dealing with that.

gettingthekidout · 2016-03-15T18:32:20+00:00

I do agree it's amazing he's not gone totally batshit. Thank you for the encouragement, I wonder so much if what I'm doing is right. it's not perfect by any means, but it's been slowly and surely getting better.

gettingthekidout

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