Just how jaded are you becoming?????

[timer lady]

There was an earlier thread here on respite. I commented on how much I love respite - it's a healthy time for my family.

My initial thought was to reply that I'd hand my kid to a total stranger on the street to get respite! :rofl: Most of you know me better than that, yet there are days I feel that way. And kt has only been home from Residential Treatment Center (RTC) a little over a month.

I've made a few off remarks to husband on parenting the tweedles. husband, while cracking up, told me I really need to watch myself. The wrong person is going to hear me & stick me in jail. RESPITE! :rofl: (Get the feeling I really love respite & will get it any way I can. :smile:)

The teams who work with me & my children know me well enough to understand that my jaded remarks (while cutting, humorous) are a release for me & never repeated in front of tweedles dee & dum.

So just how jaded are you getting? How far have your "little wonders" driven you? Are you able to maintain a sense of humor with it? (My sense of humor, in the right place & time, is the only thing that keeps me sane.)

Wondering minds want to know. :wink:

 

[wakeupcall]

I don't know if it's jaded or not, but I'm certainly not the person I used to be. I'm much more pessimistic, despite my own drugs to help with depression. I wish I could find something, anything, humorous. I might cope better if I did. difficult child makes life very, very difficult for us and himself on a daily (hourly) basis.

 

[crazymama30]

A few weekends ago I had a girl's weekend at the coast (can you say respite?) difficult child got in a fight on the bus the day before that resulted in him being taken back to school. husband had been having more pain and sleep issues, and was sleeping from 9 am to 3 or 4 pm. I was unsure if difficult child was going to be suspended, and knew if he was the school would call mid morning, husband would not answer the phone, I would be gone, chaos would occur. I called the school and asked them if difficult child would be suspended as I was going out of town and wanted to deal with this before I left. The secretary was rather taken aback, but found out he was not going to be suspended, and an elated difficult child went to school. :bravo:

I did not care what I had to do, I was not missing my weekend. I do not know if the elementary school has ever had anyone call to find out if the child was going to be suspended. I wasn't even too upset. :rofl:

 

[Sunlight]

I would call it more educated. less involved less rolled in a ball helpless and quivering under the covers. ant has taught me time and again to back waay off.

jaded? I know I make more sarcastic comments. I still love him, and do not say those things to him. If I didnt say it here now and then, I would blow my top.

 

[crazymama30]

Ant's mom, when some people ask me how Cody is doing, sometimes I answer, He is Cody. To those that know, that says it all. Sometimes I do not want to go into details.

 

[wakeupcall]

Hey, I answer "Fine". He's never going to change much and I'm trying so hard to accept it. I have smart alec remarks, too, but I'd never say anything in front of him. I love him, dearly, and he knows it.

 

[timer lady]

I wonder if it isn't my somewhat skewed way of dealing with the reality of our situation. The tweedles have humbled me in a way that nothing else could. While I accept that...I cannot remain on my knees all the time. Living with difficult children who are mentally/emotionally ill, with very little closure is disabling to your spirit if you allow it.

Hence the jaded sense of humor. I need positives (piano, golf, respite, etc.) in my life & will create them as necessary.

 

[hearthope]

I do have a source for humor.

Yesterday when I was grasping to be able to control something, I went out and bought slip covers for the furniture and new rugs.

I live with standard poodles and my "always treated as a baby jack-rat mix" They are accustomed to being on the furniture not the floor

Throughout the process of changing the furniture they would each jump up on it and be told quickly to get off.

Well, this blew there minds. What on earth did they do so wrong that they couldn't lie on the couch.

It was hysterical to witness them trying to tell me they were sorry for what ever it was but get over it I am getting on the couch! only to be told no again.

My youngest standard, the pup we kept from the last litter, finally decided that I purchased the rugs just for him and he stretched out on the largest one and declared to the others that this was his.

They are always giving me something to laugh about, I couldn't imagine life without them

 

[On_Call]

I know that I have become somewhat jaded over the years with difficult child. I also attempt to find humor in everything. And I mean everything. I am sure that some people find it a bit unorthodox, but hey, I'm the one living it 24/7, right?

When someone asks me about difficult child on a bad day, my stock answer is "we're all a work in progress, right". Seems to set the person off track just enough to change the subject.

 

[DammitJanet]

I have always had a sarcastic wit. I sometimes wonder if I didnt miss my calling as a stand up comic. There are people who have compared me to a combo of the Blue Collar comedy tour and Roseanne Barr. LMAO.

I can find the humor in just about any situation. For instance, when I went to visit Cory in jail the first time I told him he was lucky that he was a fall and that orange was one of his colors...lmao. Orange simply would look horrid with my coloring!

I have been known to say that I would sell my kids to the highest bidder, that if they were kidnapped that instead of a ransom I would be paid to take them back, and that if they truly want to win the war on terror- send Cory over, he will drive al quida nuts in just a few days!

 

[skeeter]

I've always been one of those that "laugh at themselves". I think that's why I find things like "Blue Collar Comedy" so funny, because I know SO many people that that is true of (my family included!).
Not just with kids, but with us adults we are this way. When husband was going through repeated colonoscopies, we started to refer to them as his "photo opportunites", especially after his doctor shared the photos (including the one where he tattooed the inside of husband's colon) with me! And husband will tell people he has a tattoo, but he only shows it to those he REALLY knows well!!! Keep in mind that both husband's mother and my father died of colon cancer, so we really do understand the seriousness of the situation.


If you can't laugh, you'll cry, and it's so much better to laugh.

 

[DazedandConfused]

Humor is how I cope most of the time. I've had my crying moments, but most of the time I laugh.

When one of my "darlings" is doing something really annoying I'll comment wryly to them, "I'm gonna tie ya to the car and drag ya!" (line stolen from the movie American Graffiti)

Or, I threaten to "kick them to the curb" with a sign stating "Take my kids, I'll pay you!"

Jaded? Maybe. I don't care, anymore. I'm a good mother that's hanging on the best she can. My kids are well cared for and loved and I owe nobody any explaination.

Humor helped me survive a difficult childhood and it helps me survive a difficult parenthood.

 

[sweepymom]

I think every mom or primary care taker says stuff like that. I do my mom does she has an 11 year old with diagnosis of adhd,odd,bipolar and so on. In my personal opinion as long as we don't say it in front of the children or any of the wrong people it's ok. Sometimes we need to vent no matter what it is we need to say.

 

[WhereIsTheLight]

When you show up to a family wedding and hadn't seen the Southern side in several years, and one daughter is on a tether and the other is missing her two front teeth (you're supposed to catch the softball, Dear, not eat it!) and your truck has had it's back window smashed out by your ex-husband and held together by plastic, a little humor is necessary. I told everyone at the wedding that I wanted to show up pregnant and barefoot and it would have completed the scene quite nicely.

Just before difficult child resolved her violent tendencies, she had one of those glow sticks. The three of us sat around one nice Sunday morning, just having a conversation and suddenly whacked easy child on the back with it for absolutely no reason. It was the last time she touched either of us, as I made it absolutely clear if she had ever touched us again, she would be removed from the house permanently. easy child had a 6" x 2" welt on her back.

Later that day, easy child was asked how her day was going, and she said very matter-of-factly, "Not bad considering I was flogged this morning". Glad she found humor in it. I did not.

difficult child also had a lot of fun shaving her head when she was acute. So she got a barber kit for Christmas one year. Her uncles would call her "Cueball" or "Sinead" or "Kojak". She could laugh. When she kept her hair short but left the sides to grow out and curl up as her hair does, she was called, "Rabbi" or "Tevye". She could laugh at that, too.

So, yes, humor has been a very important part of this process. And many people have commented that it was refreshing to see that we could laugh in spite of our difficulties.

 

[tiredmommy]

I prefer to think of myself as unflappable. :smile:

 

[TerryJ2]

Ditto. Jaded doesn't begin to describe it.
I try my hardest to find humor in gen'l, and in my difficult child in particular. He can be very funny. The other day (actually, for a whole wk!), a cousin came to visit and she brought along a huge, life-sized golden retriever stuffed animal. (Quite the conversation starter on the flt!) We were having dinner, trying to come up with-a name, and both kids decided it was a female. I asked, "Why?"
difficult child jumped up from the table, grabbed the stuffed animal, and lifted her up so we could see her belly and rear legs.
"See?"
We laughed so hard!
Still, he drags me down so much that, well... you all know how to finish the rest of that sentence.

 

[TerryJ2]

Appropos of the subject, I just changed my avatar because it's so funny and so crazy it was perfect for this bb.
We took a trip to Belgium last summer. husband and I hadn't been alone at all, and he made a reservation at a really nice restaurant. I was wary of leaving the kids alone, to wander the streets (at this point we were in Holland and you can smoke pot there so the passersby were interesting but you don't want the kids out there). We told the kids they had to stay in the hotel room no matter what. The only exception was if there was a fire. The other problem was that in Europe the TV shows and commercials are very risque'... way beyond what we have in the U.S., so we left easy child in charge of the remote.
We had a wonderful dinner, the kids were fine.
Two wks later when I got the film back from Target, I found an entire roll of film filled with-pics of the kids in midair in all positions, jumping on the bed. Some photos only had feet (shot from an angle from the flr to the ceiling), some had only hands, and some had faces and torsos in midair. I died laughing. THAT's what they did the whole time we were out to dinner!

:rofl:

 

[SearchingForRainbows]

Great post!!! Two of my favorite survival mechanisms are sarcasm (By now you KNOW I can't spell!!!) and humor. I also believe that it is necessary to find the humor in all types of situations in order to remain intact. I think this is a very healthy way of dealing with the constant H-LL our difficult children create.

I think we all need, as you put it, "positives" in our lives in order to remain healthy, functioning human beings. I truly don't believe that our only purpose on this earth is to raise difficult children!!! I believe that each one of us needs to find happiness and a life outside of difficult children. I know, this is much easier said than done!!!

Anyway, I try as best as I can not to let life with difficult children totally destroy the person I am. I know I'm not the same person I was prior to difficult children but I will do everything in my power not to let difficult children destroy my spirit!!! WFEN

 

[TerryJ2]

OMG, great posts. I'm laughing and crying at the same time!

:rofl:
:crying:

 

[flutterbee]

I don't know that I would call it jaded, I just have a wry sense of humor. I've been known to say that I'm putting my kids on the corner wearing a sign that reads, Free to Good Home. When I'm becoming just completely exasperated, humor helps alleviate the tension. When difficult child spouts her favorite line, "Why do you hate me?", I've been telling her that line is really getting old and she needs to find a new one. She doesn't know what to say to that and a lot of times it stops things in its tracks.