New Year, New Life (19 months)

[adinva]

Thanks guys. On day 1 of having a diagnosis yesterday I was feeling a little weird, disjointed, and upset in general about ADD, at least about whether it's real or an excuse to point more blame outside my control for what happened to my marriage. I think I'm just going to go on faith that it's real, work on it, and see what happens to my life going forward. Your brain only has so much to do with your problems, you still have free will and a functional body, and if you didn't seek help that's on you too. Or on me, I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad but myself. And I only try to make myself feel bad because glossing over and pasting self-esteem on top of the surface of everything got me here and doesn't serve me now. I'm strong and tough and I can feel bad and work through and grow and feel better.

My day2 concern is that I use this as a tool to be "perfect" now. I thought I was perfect before, because my imperfections I could rationalize and explain away and blame on someone else's neurosis/ocd/pettiness. Now I don't like what I see in my own behavior and I want to fix it so I can be....perfect?

I've been trying to get off the Perfect Train. My parents put me on it, and I have wavered between expecting and insisting on it in myself - and the opposite, telling my critics where they can stuff their criticism. Two sides of a coin. The important thing was always, am I perfect? Do I still have a flaw? Can anyone see it? Who else can I demonstrate how perfect I am to? Am I ok if I'm not perfect?

I worked so hard to teach s12 and s14, "good enough is good enough" because I had hangups about perfection myself and saw how it hindered them. I didn't work on it enough with myself.

So I'm wrestling with this new life event to see where the difference is between improving myself, for myself, to better my life and relationships...and fixing and perfecting myself. One is good, one is bad, and the line is fuzzy.

So, H just left with S12 to go to grandma's. He's like fingernails on a chalkboard. First of all, as the people I post to know, I was up till 2:30 last night, so I woke up tired and with a pounding headache. No breakfast, no coffee, already time, almost late, to get S12 to his psych followup appointment. H walks in (just the lock beeps this time, so he's following my request, thank goodness) but he immediately starts HOLLERING. In MY quiet house where people are sleeping, S12 just waking up, me trying to have a peaceful Saturday morning, and a bunch of teens sleeping in the basement. He stands where he is and hollers questions upstairs at me and S12 so I said "Would you please not holler? People are sleeping." He hollers "WHAT?" So I come closer, PLEASE. PLEASE stop yelling. You're being loud and people are sleeping. "WHO'S SLEEPING?" so I get a more irritated tone in my voice. I tell him the kids in the basement are but regardless I just would like it if he would keep his voice down and not yell from room to room, come closer to the person he's talking to.

Last time it was the doorbell.

I need to control myself better. I was tired, head hurt, in a rush to get to an appointment, stress of mom's surgery yesterday, and all the regular issues I'm dealing with, and I'd just like for my house to be as I want it. H comes in like a whirlwind, complaining about socks, riling up the dogs, yelling all over the place. And I KNOW I'm not acting as if, I just don't feel like I have the inner resources to do it at the moment. I did explain in the car that I was tired, hungry, no coffee, in the context that he had begun badgering me about something and I was having a hard time not passively expressing my frustration with my tone of voice. I just wanted a break from it.

So, we made it through the appointment, and H got to hear right from S12 that he felt good about his improvement on the medication and wanted to try increasing his dose for a week. H agreed to that. The doctor asked if we had read all the CHADD articles he told us to read and had a decision about the COGMED therapy, and we hemmed and hedged, and I embarassedly admitted I was behind on my reading. We did get the bloodwork and sleep study done but I had not even started looking at the articles he suggested. So we'll just have to defer that decision to next time, no big deal. But better than acting like we knew what he was talking about when we clearly did not. It is not easy to fit special needs of a child into an already overflowing plate, so I have to hand it to those of you with greater needs. Wow. You feel like if you don't drop a bunch of other things and get right to it and make it top priority then you're a bad parent, and you're not, you're just busy, confused, overwhelmed. Just gotta put one foot in front of the other and get back on track.

So back to H. I just feel disappointed in myself that he comes over, irritates me, and gets feedback; rinse repeat. Can't I just let the irritations drop and take the good? That he's showing up to be there for S's appointment, that he's trying to follow our new rules? By the way, and I didn't even go there (yet) but he also messes up the house while he's over. He messed up the guestroom bed and left the bed unmade that was made, and left some of his stuff on the floor in there. Last time he washed the dogs, using my good bath towels, and left dog hair and mud all over my clean bathtub which I use nightly. So I don't catch and criticize everything.

I think it's just so relatively new thinking of this space as mine, and H as an outsider not someone intimate who I might lovingly negotiate things with, but not so much an outsider that he feels social mores to not yell, mess up or otherwise spoil the environment in someone else's house. If he were a guest, he'd be working toward being an UNWELCOME one, but he's not a guest, but not a husband, but what. We're still inventing what.

So I found out last night at 10pm that the boys have lax practice today 11-12:30. I told H and he used a tone and asked me to repeat in such a way that I interpreted it as his blaming me for not knowing before and for scheduling this lunch at the same time. I really didn't know... I checked later and found the email from coach 1/8 that I hadn't opened yet because I've been working my way through 150 new emails and about 700 opened ones requiring handling. It's my busy time at work and things sometimes fall by the wayside in January. With my new medication I might find myself coping better with January. But anyway, H was miffed.

I suggested they go later and he didn't like that idea, so the decision was made that S14 doesn't go see Grandma, just H and S12. After dropping S14 off at lax I was thinking, gee, maybe grandma might want to have a say, maybe she wouldn't mind eating lunch and seeing the guys later if it works for H that way. So, when I got home I asked H, what do you think about that, about leaving at 1 instead? He got mad and yelled "I have things to DO. You said LUNCH. I have PLANS." I was like Ok, ok, I was just asking. S14 can stay home, go on ahead.

But it boiled down to...s14 ducked out on Christmas 12/25, and he ducked out on Christmas on 12/30, and he isn't going today because he's 1/2 hour off schedule so that seemed arbitrary and worth questioning. Questioned, answered, dropped.

Whatevs, as they say in Canada.

But I'm glad I'm NOT heading over there with them to have lunch and can just sit at my kitchen table and have a cup of coffee in my quiet clean house, and do what I like to do which is journal and contribute on people's sitches here for a bit. And then I'll get to work and get lots done while my eggs boil on the stove.

Hey SB, sorry I messed up my email but did finally see and respond. We're closer than I thought.