It’s Still Hard

I’m finally 97.8% over the extended drama with my holiday shingles. Somehow, and stupidly, I worked thru the worst of it. I took time off for medical appointments and worked from home.

And you know what? Now that I’m recovered, I’m completely burned out. I’m just tired.

Some key office changes made me want to plug away, grinning and bearing it, but that was a mistake.

Home life has been, well, hard. Hard for me, that is.

From the outside looking in, Hope’s home life is peachy. I’m sure that’s not her perspective, but that’s what it feels like,

There is no momentum. There’s no propulsion. No forward anything. And it is hard for me to be around this kind of energy. It feels stagnant.

I’m aware, intellectually, that it could just be that it feels stable, but emotionally it feels stagnant.

There is no desire to clean up after herself–it’s no longer an issue purely of executive function. There’s no desire to move forward in anything. She enrolled in school only because I said either she enrolled or contributed to her 529 account for later, but it’s time she contributed to her future. I’m not going to pay for more school forever.

The resentment.

She gaslights me on memory issues frequently. She recently swore that she hasn’t eaten a plum since at least 2 years prior to being placed with me. It’s more like she stopped eating plums about 3-4 years ago because she developed a sensitivity/allergy. Yesterday, I asked about the bathroom squeegee that I bought her from Ikea a long time ago. I last saw it in her bathroom a year ago. Looking at me as though I was a complete moron: “I have never owned a squeegee.”

I am not crazy. These are not things I’m mistaken about–these moments are real. What’s up with HER memory?

There was a fight about picking up her unmentionables from her bathroom floor. Hope raged: “You only happen to see it; it’s never really like that.” It’s always like that. I could actually post pictures from every day of the last week where I *happened* to see clothing on the floor.

We’ve talked about these expectations, and we continue to hang out in the land of no motivation.

I also know that Hope continues to struggle somewhat socially. The friend circle is small, and honestly, she’s probably the most stable of them all. I appreciate how she has come to appreciate the years of therapy in terms of managing the problematic people in her life, but the problems are still…there.

We are about to go into the 3rd year without therapy and probably the 2nd year without medication. Stable? Yes. Healthy? No.

I know that this is all tied together. I know that. I also know that now that we’ve hit the young adult stage and we’re past the time when she would’ve finished undergrad, and I have no idea what to expect and/or plan for. And apparently, neither does Hope.

I’m hoping to retire in a few years, and this is starting to weigh on me.

I have a lot of doubts? I worked hard to instill a work ethic, a sense of personal pride and motivation, and a desire for knowledge. These days it feels like I failed. And, if I failed, then I failed Hope, and I failed ME.

I love my daughter so much. I still want the world for her, but I want her to want it for herself. I feel like her world is shrinking instead of expanding. She mostly stays in her room in her bed.

In general she’s ok, I guess. And besides being perpetually exhausted, I’m ok too. It’s just really hard figuring things out in this chapter.