Life

I barely know where to start. My head is a muddle and so is my life. So many things are worrying or unsatisfactory at the moment and I can't begin to make sense of it all.

I am very worried about Jade. When going through (and chucking out) some old papers earlier on I came across a list of characteristics of self-rejection, and all the ones that aren't adult-centred are relevant to her, namely inferiority, insecurity, self-consciousness, shyness, critical, envious, jealous, unable to respond to others, over-sensitivity and touchiness. That describes her so well. She hates her younger sister and never has anything positive to say about her. They do play together but never have any close, caring, sharing moments. She is jealous, envious and critical particularly of Shannon but also of other friends. She will not share ANY of her toys with Shannon, snatches them, and yet thinks she ought to be able to play with anything of Shannon's without restriction. She can't/won't talk about feelings, she pushes everything down, won't let herself cry if she can possibly avoid it, is extremely moody, very often has a really sulky, grumpy scowl on her face. I am so worried about what her life will become if we cannot shift her out of this place within herself somehow. And how the hell did this happen anyway? I absolutely bent over backwards to meet all her baby needs, I was a calm, patient, loving and adoring mother in those days and followed continuum concept/attachment parenting principles because I loved to do so and because she was such a thrill and a joy to have. It was supposed to give her a completely secure base from which to move out and explore the world. And something, whether it's biology or maternal anxiety while she was in the womb or just something we have failed to do when she was much littler, or a combination of them all, has left us with this anxious and frankly often rather unpleasant child.

Both girls just want me all the time. They want me to bring them downstairs in the morning, me to do bedtime stories, and just about everything else inbetween. Daddy won't do - they complain if it's his turn (despite him being much nicer than me a lot of the time). Shannon demands carries or piggy-backs several times a day (not often agreed to, but the demands are wearing nonetheless) and Jade leaps on me at any opportunity trying to ride me like a horse. And this is despite my absolute rage at her continuing to do it and making it extremely clear that it drives me mad.

I was away at a conference at the weekend with work, and had an absolutely lovely time. I had forgotten how energised I am by ideas, and interesting conversation, and feeling like what I do has a purpose and is successful and respected. I was so fed up when I got home. I didn't want to be here at all, didn't want to go back to screaming, whining children and mess and ungratefulness and repeating the same phrases over and over and over again until I yell and shout and say things I regret.

Yet there is no way I can work any more at the moment. Jade is completely unable to function in the outside world without either me or DH with her at all times. She is so, so far away from being able to be in school in a normal way that at the moment I can't imagine it ever happening. I don't know what she's feeling about school at the moment. She missed most of last week because she had a tummy bug, and has missed most of this week because they are doing tests and we've been advised not to bring her in in the mornings (and I can't do afternoons because of Shannon, except on Wednesdays). I kind of don't want to ask her whether she wants to continue going, because in one way (see above) I want her to, so that I can eventually get some of my own space. On the other hand trying to gradually integrate her into school is so stressful and shows up in stark contrast just how different she is from every other child and I frequently want to just chuck it all in and stick to HE. But then I'd have no respite on the horizon at all, and we'd still have to go through some sort of similar process with other groups or social activities anyway.

There is so much of my own that I want to do. I want to study nutrition more, and maybe become a nutritional therapist or something similar. I want to sort out all the bloody mess and clutter in this house and live like decent normal people with a nice house. I want to get on with scrapbooking, reading, thinking, exercising, organising and other things that require concentration and attention. I just can't bring myself to start anything because I know I'm going to be interrupted every 30 seconds and it utterly does my head in and renders me incapable of coherent thought. I'm crap in the evenings because bedtime routine takes from 7pm to 9pm and after that I'm too tired and resentful to start anything. And neither do I plan or organise any interesting HE stuff, nor do my children come up with anything that looks nearly as educational as other children seem to do, nor can I take Jade to groups or anything interactive, so I'm doing a completely crap job of HE too.

And there is no uplifting ending to this post. I just hope someone somewhere will tell me where I can get a personality transplant for Jade.