Sometimes I could swear that every single thing I do to try to improve my situation or "do the right thing" is met with such opposition from the universe that I might as well give up. I mean really, sometimes, you rise to meet every challenge and get to the finish line and get struck by lightning. I'm sure everyone knows that feeling. Or hears it 10 times a day from the A in their lives, lol. I don't think it's true, but it feels that way at times.

But being an eternal optimist by nature I've always felt very uncomfortable with the idea that the universe just hates me and wants me to fail and usually after a brief period of wallowing or stamping my feet and swearing at the sky or whatever, I start looking for the "reason". I dunno, I was born without any "give up" which is really quite a negative trait when you consider it in the context of trying to resurrect dead relationships or make the most of unbearable living conditions but it also has its positives. Or I am determined that it must and one day I will be glad of it, one way or another!

So anyway I was reading a book last night where the author who a) I have been a fan of for many years and b) am never, ever going to name here because I'll be labelled part of the lunatic fringe and maybe banned forever lol but anyway, that author detailed the struggles they had been through and the incessant "bad luck" and opposition they encountered throughout the first half of their life and how things had been so consistently rotten that they had lost the will to live entirely and I was quite amazed because, I hadn't known that about them. And it surprised me because they are such an energetic and positive person and it was hard to believe they had been so miserable in their earlier life. Anyway they went on to explain very simply that they had needed to learn everything they had learnt ie patience, humility, frustration, unbearable yearning for something better etc.. in order to be who they are today, and when you read it as a back-story like that it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Rising above adversity to achieve great things?

Now when I read back over that it sounds like I'm trying to say that I've had SUCH a hard life and I think I'm SO special lol and that's not what I mean. I've made a million bad choices and it's mostly my own crappy thinking that has made life difficult for me. But thinking that maybe the obstacles and hardships are there to strengthen me towards a greater purpose is better than saying "well this sucks, I give up, what's the point!" so I'm going to stick with it anyway.

I'll offer an example of the sort of situation I keep finding myself in and if there is a huge hole in my thinking then I'm all ears (or eyes) to see where I might see it differently. What I am sharing about is pretty much the most painful period in my life and I still don't know what I could have done to make it better.

When my girl was younger, she had a really embarrassing and stressful medical problem. She had severe allergies that caused her to have accidents all the time, and no-one would believe me that there was a medical cause and insisted that she was doing it on purpose. I KNEW she didn't have any control over it but I couldn't find any help or understanding, anywhere. We made a lot of unsuccessful visits to doctors and there was a lot of shaming of both her and I (it was incorrectly considered to be 'behavioural" although I knew very well that it wasn't). Her first couple of school teachers would call me angrily throughout the day and ask me to go and collect her and I would take a sad sobbing kid home over and over. On foot remember, because I don't drive. They thought I should be ashamed of myself, letting my child "be in that state". What could i do? I just kept trying, I wont go into the details but I tried so hard and followed all of the protocols and the doctors kept telling me to send her to school and the teachers kept calling me and telling me it was shameful.  What a start to her school life.. she was  a sweet and well behaved kid and I couldn't understand how they could think she was doing it on purpose. Eventually they asked me to home school her part time so that she would only be at school for a few hours a day and we did that for years and my heart just broke for her because she wanted to be at school with her friends, and I was miserable because I wanted to get a job and go back to school and try to create some sort of life for us!! We were really poor and I felt so trapped and helpless in a horrible tiny stinky flat. I had started studying natural medicine part time, hoping that somehow I would figure out what was wrong and find a way to help her. Her father and his concubine (and even my own mother) berated me constantly and claimed that her problem was caused by me and that I was 'giving her my mental problems" and made constant threats to take her away from me. What made it so much worse was that when she went for her visits they would tell HER that the problem was all in her head and that "mummy was making her sick" and she wouldn't get better until she went to live with them. They would refuse to give her the medicine prescribed for her and fed her deliberately full of the foods I was trying to cut out of her diet like gluten, cows milk, refined sugar etc. It was horrible; my mother didn't understand and insisted I didn't know how to toilet train my child which was not helpful but her father and his wife used the situation to attack me relentlessly and threaten custody battles and constant nonsense that just hurt and terrified me. They never let up yet wouldn't do anything to help; it seemed they were just enjoying kicking me when I was down and they would scream at her, make her sit on the toilet for hours, punish her etc and it was heartbreaking because she was such a good kid and it was SO FREAKING OBVIOUS that she couldn't control it ad something was seriously physically wrong.

Now in this situation (and it lasted for years and I felt like throwing myself in front of a truck most of the time) I wanted to be at work. I wanted to be studying. I wanted to be improving our lives and instead I was stuck at home cleaning up poo sometimes 20 times a day and washing clothes and crying because I lived in a horrible little hole that smelt like a toilet no matter how much I scrubbed it. I couldn't get a "carer" allowance from the government because she didn't fit enough of the disability criteria; I can't believe that is true but it is. I could not find a single way to improve my life or bring in money. I even started working for an awful company doing "adult" calls and text messages at night but I couldn't stand it; I would have to get drunk to do it and it made me want to die so I stopped after a while. Nothing is worth degrading yourself like that.  ABF came into my life at that time; my self esteem was pretty screwed and I really don't wonder that much why I was so grateful for the attention even if it was really cruel and unhealthy for me. Why did I let him move in and live on my couch rent free? Because I was lonely and trapped and grateful for the company, really. Having another adult was bliss for me; I didn't even notice that he was really just another child.

So my daughter's first few years of school consisted of sadness, shame and exclusion and me being miserable and afraid, constantly washing clothes and cleaning and wishing I could just build a raft and take her to live on an island somewhere. We found a pediatrician at the childrens hospital eventually who finally told me that the problem was definitely medical, but beyond our control and he applauded me for "not demanding a cure" because "there wasn't one" and that she would probably have it for the rest of her life.  He did say that I was the first parent he had met that was able to accept the situation without anger and that I had a fantastic attitude towards my child and that made me feel kind of better. He also wrote an angry letter to her school telling them that they'd better stop excluding my girl and work with me on a plan to have her attend all classes as normal or he would take it further...what a champion. I made her father and my mother both come to see the pediatrician so that he could explain to them that it was a MEDICAL problem and that daughter and I needed support and help, not shame and anger. It didn't have a lot of impact and they all kept screaming at her and shaming her for accidents, feeding her the foods I had identified as triggering, and generally making things a million times worse. But the letters he wrote to the school had an impact and suddenly they were my best friends making strategies and inclusion plans to have her at school. Yay.

I took a job on the weekends and tried to demand that her father take her so that I could work. He refused on the basis that he needed to work saturdays as he got a bonus for doing so and he wanted to buy a house. Well good for him, now he owns a house. I got 6 years to watch our child grow and help her overcome adversity so I win. 

Anyway as I saw it, and still see it, there was nothing I could do. I didn't have a single option except for to be poor as crap, live in a horrible little hole and clean up poo all day long. I cried so much. I joined support groups and so many of the parents had kids with the same problem that was persisting throughout their teenage years and they were all so depressed and miserable! I resigned myself to it. Then, not even 2 years ago, I somehow came upon an article discussing a particular chemical that caused bowel problems in children and we cut out that chemical completely and within a matter of days she was cured; no more medicine, no more problems, a completely healthy kid within DAYS. 2 years now, and not a single problem. Just like that. One chemical. Unbelievable.

Now firstly, I just had to weather that situation. I had no choice. And it was the main focus of my life and stopped me from doing pretty much anything other than on-line study and poo-cleaning for more than 6 years. At the time I just wanted to die. There were times I felt so bad I contemplated putting her into an institution (but only ever for a moment) and then cried all night because seriously, my bright beautiful sweet baby? I loved her so much but how could my life just be cleaning poo forever. It was just unbearable and i didn't know which way to turn.

But now, 2 years removed from it, I see my girl absolutely thriving. All of that missed school- years of half days and she never stayed back a grade and will start high school next year having earned a place in a "smart kid" programme that only accepts 25 kids a year! Socially she is a little butterfly and has friends that adore her and she has an amazing way of handling herself around unkind kids. Her art-work astounds me and her ambitions make my heart glow. You see, all of those years that she was stuck at home with me I was trying to study; she would just sit next to me and ask questions and understand- oftentimes she would attend classes with me when I did on-campus subjects (I had some great lecturers who would turn a blind eye to a little girl with her colouring books sitting beside me or better yet, make a big deal of welcoming her to the class) and she would often join in. She understood that kind of science, she heard me talking about it all day long, and now she wants to become a vet that specialises in natural medicine for animals. I, on the other hand, got to trial and error my way through so many potential cures, allergies and "radical" ideas that I fancy I have a pretty special knowledge of digestive disorders and I never would have taken an interest in natural medicine at all if she hadn't had this problem. But more than that; even when it was awful I stood strong beside my girl and believed that no matter what, it was the most important thing in the world to love her and ENJOY being her mother. We were together all the time and now it's no secret that we are very close and I cherish that. It wasn't awful, it strengthened us both and gave us directions to travel in. And there were so many laughs and fun times in between the stress.

So what's my point? Those years were awful, just awful and I cried my way through so much of it but in the long run we gained plenty. It wasn't for nothing and it wasn't just pointless cruelty on the universe's behalf. 

So whatever comes up, and however impossible things seem I'm just going to keep doing the best I can, putting one foot in front of the other and assume that there's something good to come from it even if it seems horrible in the right now.

Anyway I made a list earlier of "things that sucked but actually made my life better" and for some reason I felt like I needed to share that one.

I don't know what I'm meant to be learning right now, but the way the obstacles keep leaping in front of me, I figure it has to be something and I'm going to take it as an encouraging sign rather than something negative.

Lol, that probably sounds completely mental.

-- Edited by missmeliss on Monday 9th of June 2014 06:48:31 AM