DF, this started for me when I was a child, being given Life Lessons from my mother. As I run the film of my life back through the viewer, I wonder if the extreme anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) issues aren't running a lot deeper in the genetic track... oh well...
My mother would tell me, constantly, that when you feel you can't cope, you put the child down on the floor and walk out of the room. The baby can't fall from there and will be safer there, alone, than in the room with you angry or feeling like you can't cope. She gave the example of the first time my oldest sister held a young baby - my sister suddenly began having a panic attack and this was how my mother talked her through it. My sister began to panic that she would drop the baby, so my mother said, "put her on the floor." She did not take the baby back - interesting. But my mother always did try to turn everything into a Life Lesson. My sister years later became a fantastic mother to five kids, including two foster/adoptions.
This principle is then what carries you through. First, make sure the child is (more or less) safe. Then walk out. Close the door. Keep walking as far as you need to, until you get calm again. Do not go back until you are calm. If it's a baby - it's still safer to do this than stay nearby, if you are not coping. If you need to in your walk, call in on someone and ask for help. Use the phone and ask someone to come over and mind the baby.
So now the baby is older? You still need to find ways to walk away, even if it's just in your own head.
However, this is extreme coping. There are intermediate levels, if you are up to it.
Intermediate level with a baby - find out why the baby is crying, and fix it if you can. If the baby is hungry - feed the baby. Tend to the baby's needs before your own if those needs are urgent, because then you can relax more wile you look after yourself. If the baby is still a problem after you've tended to their needs - walk away again.
I know this above bit of advice flies in the face of "first put on your own oxygen mask" but I'm talking about intermediate coping, not crisis coping. In a crisis, tend to yourself, so you can then tend to your family. But at other times - balance it out. Where it's OK, look after the younger ones or the needier ones first. Triage. It begins as simply as plating up the evening meal - you serve everybody else before you serve yourself, because it's very difficult to sit and eat your meal when the kids are still whining for theirs! Breakfast - I would make sure the kids ate first, and then I would have my breakfast after the school bus left. it's a lot easier to eat when the adrenalin has stopped surging through the bloodstream.
Back to intermediate coping - house rules are a way to manage. You need them, you need to follow them yourself, and you need consequences for those who fail to follow the rules.
Examples: shopping list. We keep a running list of everything we use up. You can have the rule how you want it - "use something up, put it on the list" or "open a packet of something, put it on the list". Have the rule workable - don't say, "Open the last packet put it on the list" because tat requires someone to actually look to see if there's any more. The easy approach is to assume there is plenty more packets and not bother with the list. Then when you shop, stick to the list. Never shop when hungry. If you are hungry, go into the supermarket, buy sandwich fixings, buy a drink off the shelf, go outside, buy a bread roll from the baker, make your lunch, then go back in and shop for your groceries.
We met up with difficult child 1 and daughter in law yesterday and had lunch with them. I watched them enjoy a tasty curry or Mexican platter, but go into the store to buy a drink off the shelf at half the price of a cold one form the fridge of the fast food place.
It seems irrelevant to mention this, but it all comes down to working as a team; thinking about longer-term consequences; learning how to plan; working to a budget. And getting into habits.
difficult child 1 said, "I need to look around to work out what I want for Christmas, but I need someone with me to explain it to, I won't remember. Please let me have difficult child 3 with me so I can tell him."
I said, "difficult child 3 won't remember either."
difficult child 1 said, "Fine. Can you give me some paper and a pen then, please?"
OK, he should have been carrying it, but that's OK. I bought a cheap pen and some notepaper ($2 - a worthwhile investment) and left him to it.
Now to how they behave towards you - again, you need to find ways to walk away. Think in terms of that helpless baby you're scared you will hurt, or drop (there have been quite a few times when I was scared I would drop one of my kids - with a hefty blow!). But if you can handle it at intermediate level, then confront and say, "That behaviour/remark is unacceptable." THEN walk away. Deprive them of an audience and a target.
And never forget, you do a lot for your family and you can withdraw services.
In our family, emptying something vital and failing to advise of the need for replacement, is grounds for withdrawal of access to that product. For yourself, find a substitute. If someone is stealing it all for themselves, then there is no point buying it because everyone else is missing out on it anyway. So EVERYBODY goes without. Or you lock it up and only supply on demand, after you choose to.
With drinking chocolate, it's almost certain she's eating it with a spoon anyway. Do you want to dip your clean spoon into a container that has had her dirty spoon double-dipping in it?
A good substitute in an emergency - it's what the best drinking chocolate is made from anyway - get a few squares of good eating chocolate, put them in the blender with some hot milk and switch it on. That's it. I keep good chocolate in the freezer. Here in summer, it has to be kept in the fridge at least, because otherwise it melts or separates. We get a cocoa-butter bloom on the chocolate, in the cupboard. It is possible to have a stash of a block of chocolate for your emergency supply. It takes up less volume than the powder (so it's easier to hide).
If other innocent household members whine about lack of drinking chocolate, tell them that until they ALL learn to use a list appropriately and also learn to not secretly raid it and think nobody will notice, then they will continue to miss out. If they are innocent, they still need to be more vigilant and help police the misuse.
As things stand, right now it's only the mother, as a rule, who is really trying to solve these seemingly petty issues. But stand your ground, an d suddenly it becomes everybody's issue. Innocent? Good. Still no chocolate, not until the problem is resolved. Because what's the point? It would still get nicked and the innocent would still miss out. So let's solve the problem first, then we will buy more chocolate.
Engage the others. Don't carry the load alone. This works with food, it works with respect, it works with attitude. And when you're not coping - this difficult child is a baby who needs to be left alone while you cool down.
Marg
