Posted by headachequeen on November 16, 2004, at 10:49:40
In reply to Re: Topamax and depression » headachequeen, posted by stresser on November 16, 2004, at 8:55:27
> I am really impressed with your parenting skills. Your are the parent I have always wanted to be, but didn't know how. I feel ecredibly guilty, so much so that it's creating a new depression. I know that I don't hug my children enough, and because of it they aren't affectionate people. I was never showed much affection as a child, and should have known better, but I guess I didn't. Some things are hard to change, and some people are hard to change. What I would give to do it all over again.....I think of Bridgey with her little one's and envy her because she hasn't had much of a chance to screw up yet. You will have to excuse my pity party today. It's raining outside....and that seems to put me in a ratty mood. The bottome of the pit seems really deep today, and I don't have a clue as to why. Tomorrow could be a total turn around, who knows. Wierd huh? We will keep plugging away on the medication as always. Keep going everyone! -L
My parenting skills so-called were learned from mistakes and from the lack of parenting I received... my mother was Aberdeen granite and did not believe in displays of emotion... I never received a hug or any demonstration of affection in my entire childhood or teens ...
but I had this grandfather... oh what a treasure...
he was not a hugging person but he was a loving person and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents...and a hug is not always a 'hug' ...
a touch that is gentle and loving.. brushing the hair back from the eyes... a pat on the arm...
a quick arm around the shoulders...
any contact that is gentle, loving, and physical...
and meant to convey the message that you care...parenting is a learn as you go process and we tried to fix our mistakes as we went... we learned to say I'm sorry, I was wrong, can we start again
a lot..one time we had a girl who hated getting out of bed... when she slept she escaped...
so one Sunday rather than make her get up and go to church with the rest of us, she always went with me in the evening anyway and I don't think the hour of the day really matters, we tied her door with toilet paper ribbons and bows and made her a gift of the morning..
She was so happy when she got up...
well once she got past the irritation of the gift-wrapped bedroom door... she didn't see it the way the rest of us did at first.. and it lasted all day..
a first for her..
she had a lot to get past...
her mom used to trade her for rent money from the time she was eleven...
she tried to kill herself a couple of times by overdosing on her mother's valium. The third time they brought her here right from the psych ward at her local hospital...
I was terrified that she would try again; we had never had a child under our roof who had tried to kill herself so immediately...
I was afraid to go to sleep or to turn my back on her for even a second... eventually I relaxed and she relaxed..
she used to mark the bottles in the liquor cabinet.. all three or four of them, and the first thing she would do when she came home from school was check the marks she had put on them...
she was not quite thirteen and had lived through so much I had never imagined...
The agency decided to send her home when she was fifteen...
I couldn't believe it...
how could they do that to her after all that had happened to her...
three months later, her sixteenth birthday, when they can no longer exert control if she chooses to leave, there was a knock on the door and there she was, wondering if she could stay for a few days...
how long? oh, till I finish college...
She is now legally ours... and an incredibly gifted and understanding social worker dealing with add and adhd children as well as a new program she has developed for teens in trouble with the law...
her agency lends her all over the country to teach others how to implement her programme for add and adhd...
and everytime she calls to tell me where she is winging off to next I am in absolute awe that this wondrous creature was able to survive the incredible abuse and torture she endured...my dear L, your parenting skills are not at all in question... you are working from love and care and concern....
you feel that they are not up to par because your daughter is going through one of the teen crises that is so agonising and you feel as all parents do that it must be your fault..
after all, mothers are supposed to be able to fix it all with a kiss...
well, it ain't so.. that is another of the television script-writers' myths...
mothers are not super-creatures...
they are human and doing the best they can to work with the available resources to make life easier for the children they love...
that is what parenting skills really are...
love and using the available resources...
a little resilience is helpful too....the people like my darling Susie's mother, for lack of a better term, are the ones without parenting skills... she didn't even want any...
her child was a useful commodity...
that is lack of parenting skills... lack of caring, lack of love, total self-absorption...you don't even come close to having poor parenting skills...
oh, ma chere amie, you aren't even on the richter scale....
sorry if I burst your balloon because you are a darned caring and dedicated mom... it is in every post you write about your daughter...
every single word....kat who has met some of the worst
poster:headachequeen
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041113/msgs/416669.html