You should never feel that your child is ruining your life. Having a child should be a joyous occasion, their life should fill your days with warmth, making you proud as they grow into the amazing person you mould them into. As a mother I love all of my children, at times I also hate them. They anger they pry out of you is like nothing you could imagine before them. You know that your are doing everything you can for them and the disappointment from their lack of appreciation and appallingly bad behaviour can shame you into hatred. The hatred never lasts while the shame and disappointment may linger longer than you'd imagined it would. It makes you doubt everything about yourself. Is it your weakness that has caused them to behave in such a manner? Your parenting? Maybe it boils down to breeding? Was it just the genetic combination of your partner and your own DNA that created this tantrum, disrespect or lack of understanding in your offspring? You just don't know but you would do anything in your power to ensure it were something correctable. Could it just boil down to need of better discipline? Could it be as simple as a trip to the naughty step or as worrying as good spank?
I often look at Melody and know that most of our disputes stem from us being too much alike. Her headstrong, opinionated, bad tempered bossy nature was most definitely inherited and the fortune of wanting for nothing but a big sister she could look up to and play with as oppose to one she will forever have to look after and love despite the hurt she brings with her lack of understanding. Melody was so pleased when Evaluisa was born. She finally had her own little sister and got the right to call herself a big sister by sibling sequence when in truth she was born into the role herself because of Ginny's diagnosis.
People always ask me how I manage on my own with three children of my girls respective ages with Ginny so profoundly affected by her condition and I tend to say I just do. When you have no other choice you just get on with it. Ginny makes me able to deal with her disability but to be honest the reason I manage is Melody. Melody is not yet 4 1/2 but she is my rock. She is my extra set of eyes and ears, responsible for making sure Ginny doesn't do anything she shouldn't whenever I have to cook, clean or get on with any of the additional perks of home life. Home life that wouldn't be possible without Melody.
Your usual four year old has to worry about what shoe goes on what foot or the words to their favourite song but my Mels never knows whether her putting a toy down to run to the loo means coming back to find it in pieces. If only the pieces were just things but to a little girl of four years old those favourite books, puzzles and dolls are so much more and it's pieces of a broken heart find myself trying to mend. Today Melody spent most of the day out with her grandparents. Having lost my eyes and ears for the day there were various casualties and many of those casualties were brand new, most belonging to Melody.
On days like today I feel like my wanting to give Ginny the best quality of life, keeping her home instead of sending her into residential care, means ours quickly depreciates. The pressure of James and his family wanting me to send her away creeps in. Picking up the broken pieces of Melody's precious things is worse then losing any of my own. Any frustration or anger I may feel about Ginny reeking havoc on my household and possessions flails in comparison to what I feel for the actions she takes against her sisters who do nothing but love her. Evaluisa at just a year will quickly have follow in Melody's footsteps, lightening her burden but taking on a weight she should never have to carry but one she has been born to. Our entire way of life is shaped by the elephant that sits upon our shoulders. It's a greedy thing that never ceases to want more from us than we have to give and never fills no matter how well it feasts on our misery growing fatter by the second.
Hate is a very strong word. It is a deep and emotional extreme dislike and in this instance and quite often in our case it's directed at our unwated lodger. Mr Elephant couldn't care less and I am often convinced that my hatred fuels his power over our household. The more we suffer the more oblivious it leaves my Ginny and the fear and suffering in her eyes when she is reprimanded for the actions the invisible hands upon her own force her to take part in leave me feeling like the villain of our story. I can't help but wonder if in some way I am, if somehow I brought this all on my family, if something I did brought the lodger in to prey on my children.
We all fear predators and are cautious of who we allow around our loved ones but our Elephant we call autism was stealthy, we never saw him coming but he slipped past us snuck into our home trying his hardest to tear us all apart and ruin us. Everyday he smirks when I lose my temper and relishes in tears shed and cries of frustration. He creeps up on us when all is still in quiet and destroys what he can when he can and my hate for him only grows. He steps between my husband and I and puts irrational fear in the eyes of my little girl as she screams through the nightmares i cant seem to wake from. No matter how safe I try to make my home we can never seem to make it fully autism proof and our lodger find his way in past the locks and safety measures. Today my hate for him is at its peak and I can only hope that tomorrow he'll share in my exhaustion and stay in bed but we'll have to see.
