Before

[herebedragons]

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?

I will feel better at least in the imediate.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?

it may snap me out of this depression a bit

it will be something I have to hide from people and espessially my husband which I don't like.

how do i want to feel about this in the long run? is hurting myself likely to get me closer to or farther from feeling that way?

I want to feel that. I'm not sure I'm not good with feelings right now.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?

Until the wound heals over fairly well. Or maybe only until tomorow. It's been a while so it's hard to predict how long the relief will last. It is a temporary fix, I understand that.

what is something i could do now instead of hurting myself?

fill this out
start a new journal
read

but I'm having trouble concentrating so I need something that requires little concentration, reading is really no good. Sew some beanbags for the beanbag game for my son's party perhaps, or add another layer to his pinata.

how will it change the situation i'm in? how long will that change last, and what will i do then?

Well working on things for his party would be good from a practical standpoint. Though the change in me and my mood are not likely to last much past the point where I am actively doing them.

how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?

Not sure, again having trouble with feelings right now- predicting them, naming them etc

what do i really want to do right now?

I want to be a completely different person. Well not a completely different person, a completely different version of myself.

how can i best honor the self-protective instinct that has me wanting to self-injure right now?

I don't know.

Why do I feel I need to hurt myself?

I'm depressed, I'm hating myself, I want to feel something.

What has brought me to this point?

Nothing in particular that I can tell. Just depressed.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?

Yep.
cut. didn't cut. burned, didn't. attempted suicide. Didn't. etc.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?

listened to music, showered, got out of the house, did fun stuff with my husband, washed dishes (yes that is actually a comforting activity for me ) read to my son, played with my kids, planted a small herb garden with my kids, visited with my SIL and BIL and our neighbors, tried to take a nap.

I could sleep if it was quiet and if my kiddos were asleep.

How do I feel right now?

numb, depressed

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?

better

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?

feel, feel, feel. I haven't got a clue.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?

no, yes. (then again I could probably deal with it worse too.)

Do I need to hurt myself?

not sure.

[Jomomma]

Making a pinata?
Very cool

Ok
This is gonna sound really really far out but i did this once(only once cause it made quite the mess) and it helped quite a bit.

I am gonna assume you are doing a paper mache type thing with the pinata?

Wrap yourself.
Maybe not your whole self cause you would need lots of help to get undone but your arms or legs.
I did my arms cause that was the place I wanted to si.
I got them wraped up really good and all gooey and such.
It was very uncomfortable.
This helped a bit too.
After a while when it starts getting crusty start to peal it off,
It makes weird noises and such and when you get to the last layer it sticks to the hairs on the arm and can be quite painful.
If you are really daring and your kids want something to do you can cover more of your body.
The kids will get a huge kick out of being able to unwrap mommy and the mess is just an added plus for kids

[namaste]

Hello
What's a pinata?

I like the idea of covering yourself in paper mache. I've also thought about a temporary tattoo on the place you want to si. some sort of acknowledgement. I understand how you feel (or don't feel) about having no feelings, being numb. It's really hard. Could you stick a plaster on the place you want to hurt? Feeling more - I'm not sure. Randpom thought - could you make a spidergram (mind map) of times when you have elt happy, content etc and then this might help to remember other feelings.

Stick at it. I know it's hard.

Jane

[herebedragons]

What's a pinata?

Well I spelled it wrong, I can't remember how to make the little sqiggly thing over the "n". It's a hollow papermache thing that is filled with candy and small, generally really crappy, toys. You blindfold children and spill them around then hand them a stick and they attempt to beat the stuffing out of the pinata...literally..Wait come back it's a really fun thing...I swear! Once the pinata is broken and the candy and toys spill out all the children in attendance scramble to grab as much of hte loot as possible. It's a greedfest that makes trick-or-treating look quaint by comparison so naturally I've never met a child who doesn't adore them.

[herebedragons]

Things got really really bad last night and culminated with me crying and feeling like the worst mother ever and explaining to my husband exactly why I was the worst mother ever. He disagreed and felt there were many worse mothers out there which....Dear men, I know that SEEMS like the right thing to say but seriously...find another way to say it because 'You aren't THE WORST blah blah ever' is not so much..comforting
Anyhoo after I agreed that I wasn't as bad as mother's who drive their children into lakes or whatever...well anyway I ended up crying nearly hysterically and flirting with the idea of su a bit which oddly, was a step up from not feeling anything and eventually I decided that maybe I had over reacted a mite and went to sleep and I still want to si this morning but not overwelmingly so.

The situation last night was this- after putting my son to bed and listening to him go on about how much he misses his old school and why does he have to be in his new school and when does school start he misses his new school for like an hour I finally dragged myself to bed, having gotten all of four very bad hours of sleep the night before (which cuminated in a nightmare at four am which lead to me waking up and having an anxiety attack so..fun way to start the day.) Anywhoo after all that I'm in bed trying to get to sleep and it's after midnight and my daughter shows up all angry and upset saying signing "Lunch" over and over. First I check to make sure she's not hurt then talk to her about how she HAD lunch and what she had and stuff tell her to go to bed. She comes back a few minutes later and flips on the light startling my husband awake and keeps signing lunch and getting quite angry with me. I took her to the kitchen and find her a snack, the first few she dismisses out of hand then she settles on some fruit leather and seems ok. I go back to bed and just get to sleep when she comes in and flips on the light again at which point I leap from bed and yell at her (in sign) to get to bed and stop bothering us etc. I basically chase her back to her room and go back to bed. Now it's about 1am and I'm wide awake and start thinking and realize that one of her friends at school has a namesign close to "lunch". I get out of bed and go to her (She's now in the living room kicking the tv stand) I ask her if she means her friend or lunch and she starts signing like mad. Signs her friends name, her aide's name and then slays me by signing "lonely". I hug her and show her on the calander when school ended (She wasn't there because she was suspended) and when it starts again and when our son's birthday is and when we go camping and stuff. Then hugged her again and she seemed to feel better and she went back to bed and then I went back to bed and commenced the whole- hysterical crying+explaining why I suck+thinking perhaps I should kill myself so that my husband could find a nice Deaf mother for the kids who would never confuse "lunch" with a name sign.



Oh and PEOPLE who names there kid "lunch"? HUH?

Anyhooo...very bad night. not so tired today. Tired is very very bad.

On the upside I didn't explain my whole theory of why I should die and be replaced with a more suitable mother so at least..you know..my husband didn't have to commit me or anything.

[herebedragons]

I've got to say, in all seriousness, that if I had known how much it would hurt to see my children hurting I don't think I would have had them. It just tears your heart out and stomps on it like nothing else. Once my daughter knew that I understood she went from defiant and pissed as hell to melted and miserable in half a second. Oy, I didn't even know that she knew the sign for "lonely". Just tears ya in half.

[Jomomma]

How is it we can see the average Joe blow on the street and see how miserable they are and not give it a second thought but a child that we birthed, who give us enormous ammounts of grief, feels pain of some sort and all we want to do is fix it?

The wonders of biology




I hear ya
Big time
Communication, or inability to communicate, makes for quite the challenge.
My daughter had serious speach issues and I would go insane trying to figure out what she meant.
Add to the being tired and it being the middle of the night and it's no wonder you were so spent.

I hope you are feeling a bit better now


Jo

[NobodyToYou]

Maybe it is just me, but you actually sound like a very good mother. You were very responsive to your kids...both of them. You talked to your son and let him complain to you (be careful that he doesn't do that regularly just to extend his bedtime...I was recently a child and we are devious that way ). Then when your daughter woke you up, you tried to give her what she needed. You tried to respond to the request (thinking it was lunch) and gave her food. After the third interruption (especially when sleep deprived) most parents would be grouchy. In fact, any parent that wasn't needs to start sharing the secret of how to be that patient. And even after you sent her to bed, you kept thinking about what she might need. And you got up and went back to her! Sign is a difficult language and mistakes are common. Imagine what it must mean to her that you got back up and tried again to understand her! She probably thinks you are a fabulous mom. Many parent wouldn't have done as much if they had clearly understood the first time. So please don't beat yourself up so much. You dont' have to be perfect to be a good parent. Isn't that nice for all us imperfect people?
I hope you are feeling better now...and can realize that you are doing what you can for these kids, and you are doing a good job. Not perfect, but good. And that is good enough.

[herebedragons]

You were very responsive to your kids...both of them.

Thank you, part of my guilt was in the fact that I had essentually the same situation with each child and I was able to respond the right way for my son the first time and with my daughter I flubbed it up repeatedly and she ended up getting much more upset than she was to begin with. Also with her being autistic it's a really big deal for her to be able to come to me and express that she is upset about something, espessially missing a person or people and again- flubbed it up repeatedly. It is really really important that we respond correctly to her signing because of her issues with communication. I'm afraid if I don't understand her she will just give up on signing altogether. (She has regressive autism so I've already had the experience of having her go from signing all the time to rarely signing at all. I don't want to chance having her lose her language AGAIN, though I understand that is not likely it's still a fear of mine.)

With regular kids if you are a good enough parent that's good enough but there's just so much to lose if I screw up with my daughter.

[herebedragons]

Also my dad would always get angry with us if we were anything but pleasant and I, of course, swore I would never get angry at a child for being upset. And here I was yelling at her for waking us up when she was just feeling lonely.

I know, intellectually that there is a difference between a misunderstanding and having a basically standing rule that no one is allowed to be upset. But still it's a very touchy issue with me.

[NobodyToYou]

I think it is good that you recognize the issues.
Yes, communication with your daughter is a lot harder and a lot more important because of the autism. But that makes the breakthrough a lot more important also...YOU UNDERSTOOD HER! And she knew it! That is a huge breakthrough.
With the issue with your dad, knowing why you react so strongly is a good thing. I don't know if this would be helpful for you or not, but maybe you would want to think through what it will look like for you to be a good parent. You know what you don't want...you saw that as a kid. But the opposite may not be appropriate either...if you never show any disapproval or limits, kids don't know what is right and wrong. What would you like your parenting style to be like, in a perfect world?
Once you have a good picture of that (if you don't, go back and get one), what is one thing that you could do differently now that would look more like the "you" that you want to be? I would start with something small. Not "I am going to be more commpassionate" but "I will talk to each child for at least 2 minutes after they get home from school." Small things that are possible to do...Start with one change, and see if you and the kids and your husband like the change. If it works, keep it. If not, try a different change. That way you can feel you are making progress without trying to be perfect all at once. That is too hard for any of us.
I don't know...that might not be helpful to you. But I think it might be for me. Maybe I should try my own project...

[herebedragons]

if you never show any disapproval or limits, kids don't know what is right and wrong.

I may be more permissive on some issues than I might otherwise be but so far that hasn't caused problems. (Specifically I don't get upset if things get accidentally broken and they don't get punished for accidentally breaking things this was another huge issue for me as a child and I just can't punish them for it. Accidents happen. But this has not lead to my children being careless and breaking things, they just don't freak out when they do break things. They deal with it and move on.) We are a bit free and loose with bedtime too because our daughter has a sleep disorder and her nuero told us that forcing her to go to bed and just lay there for hours awake was no good (something we had already decided ourselves, just seemed cruel) As a side effect we are probably not as strict with our son as we should be about getting to sleep. This has had good and bad effects. The good ones- our kids don't dread bedtime like lots of kids do. They seem to enjoy sleep and not see it as something to fight against which is nice. And the bad- our son should get to sleep earlier than he does most nights.

Other than those two issues I think we are pretty average as far as disapline goes. We're fairly easy going as parents, we try not to freak out about things but we don't let our kids get away with as much as many kids we see. It's hard to strike a ballance sometimes. And it's something I have a lot of self doubt about (having been hassled by people both for being too strict and not strict enough and sometimes both from the same person. )

I know, from a logical unemotional standpoint, that I am not a bad mom. I do ok. I don't abuse my kids, they're well fed and clothed and generally happy. But it is so vitally important to me to be a good mom that it is the area where I probably have the most self doubt. And then, as you mention, I know that I have a strike against me not having much of a model to go by as far as good parenting goes. Though my mom was a good parent and my godmother who was a huge presence in my life when I was growing up is also a good mother. Unfortunately my mom died when I was six and the rest of my experiences with parents were with parents who probably should have bipassed the whole "having kids" thing.

[Jomomma]

As a child who was raised with less than ideal parentage and non existant adult influence, I vowed to be exactly opposite of everything that was shown to me.
As a result I have been less strict about some things that some might think but I feel that my daughter definitely has a lot more than I did.
I have learned to choose my battles
I don't always fight the tooth brushing but homewrok is important
So her bed room isn't always neat but as long as I can get to her bedside and kiss her god night so be it.
So she can't make a perfect bed but at least she tries.
She gets dirty
So what. She washes.
You are right about the balance thing.
Give a little and take a little.

It sounds like you are doing an awesome job.
I have minimal patience but I think my daughter has taught me quite a bit about that.
You have to expend quite a bit more energy into your parenting than the average parent and as far as I can tell you have done very well.

[plantt]

*nods* when you're feeling really like an awful person... it's not always helpful to simply be told 'no you're not'
i'm wondering if you tried really explaining that those were the thoughts you were having & it'd help more to have it acknowledged that they were disturbing thoughts & had reasons behind them & etcetc... rather than leaving it at 'i'm an awful mom'?

one of the good things my parents did imo... was not get really upset (usually) when clothes got dirty. there were exasperated looks quite often. but no huge upsettedness or punishment for that.
i think it's great that you allow your kids to be kids... to make mistakes... & to accept them as such

[herebedragons]

I'm wondering if you tried really explaining that those were the thoughts you were having

Actually I did somewhat (my poor husband, it was like 1:30 in the morning after all) I talked to him about how I was afraid I had made the wrong choice in not sending her to summer school and such and he pointed out that if she was going to summer school it's likely she would be up until 4 am every night like last year and sleep through summer school thereby negating any social bennefit of summer school. Couldn't argue with that bit and it wasn't too long after that I stopped crying and went to sleep.

I couldn't tell him that I felt like a worthless mom to her because I'm not Deaf and can't communicate as effortlessly as I'd like and that I felt like killing myself because that would upset him and then there'd be two of us not being able to sleep and he has depression and that's really a lot to put on anyone much less someone who is clinically depressed. That's why I'm doing therapy.

[herebedragons]

I have minimal patience but I think my daughter has taught me quite a bit about that.

Yep, kiddos are good for that.

[Jomomma]

So summer school is out.
I know the social benefits would be good but I think some kids really need the break. Your daughter and my daughter would definitely fall in that group.
What about a half day summer day camp or something?
Are there resources for that kind of thing where you live?
I know around here there are several summer camps, day and sleep over, especially for special needs of all sorts.
Do you think you might al benefit form something like that?

[herebedragons]

Well actually summer school is out because of her sleep disorder (she has a circadian rythm disorder) anything that messes with her schedule tends to throw her sleep for a loop and summer is always bad because she gets screwed up because school is out..then because summer school starts..then because it finishes..then by the time she's over that it's time for school to start and natch..that throws her as well. Since she slept through summer school last year and summer school for this year was cut down to two hours four days a week we went "Meh. Screw it" on the advise of her nuero who said "I want you to really think hard about wether summer school is worth it for her". I'm guessing anything else would have a simalar result and her combo of issues is kind of hard to accomidate. (If she were JUST Deaf or JUST Autistic it would be easy but it's a rare and rather inconvient combo.)

I am making sure we get out of the house and around other kids and the neighbor girls are over all the time to play it's just none of them are Deaf. It's really hard to get together with the other Deaf kids as they are spread all over hell and back plus playdates with my daughter generally involve her completely ignoring whoever came to play with her thus not too fun for the other kiddo. I'm going to get ahold of her aide and see if she will come over a couple times during the summer to visit as our daughter is extremely attached to her.

[Jomomma]

Is there a rec center close by that may have a day or two afternoon program thing?

I can only imagine how hard things are with the sleep and communication and what all.
One is hard but all lumped together can be insane.

I think geting her aorund other kids is most important
As great as structure and such is, socialization of any kind is better

[herebedragons]

There isn't anything available that is set up to deal with her needs. There are very few options where people can sign and none of them are set up for children who are both Deaf and have other special needs. When she was younger there were tons of resources and we used the heck out of them. At one point we were involved in three different playgroups and went to playgroup four days a week. But as children get older these resources dwindle as it is expected that all of those needs are covered by school. Sometimes I feel like they are purposely trying to discourage the kids from going to summer school because the schedule gets more ridiculous with each passing year. Last year their day was three hours long four days a week which isn't so bad but it started at 7! Cause you know every kid wants to have to get on a school bus at 6:30 in the morning.