Just a bit of venting I guess.

Because we have so many children, there is always room for improvement, AND, to be quite honest, we need the help, my husband and I are taking parenting classes. So we decided to take the county up on it's free "Love and Logic" classes. So far we have enjoyed them and found lots of information valid and useful.

We have some of the most amazing children, truly, but they present us with the most challenging situations.

Being a blended family with a step dad in the home, our children are easily in almost as much power as a parent. In our society, a step father or a mother's boyfriend has shown statistically to increase the danger to a child by over 52 percent. Meaning, a child is more likely to be abused by a boyfriend of the mother or a step father than the child's biological father by 52 percent. Due to this the child protective services is very leery of step parents and is quick to jump to conclusions. We've been counseled by social workers at our local DCFS to be extra careful because all a youth has to do is say someone got in their space and social workers will be at the door. WELL. Enter mental illness...with it's delusions and rages.

We need tools and protection. So, not only do we attend Love and Logic classes, we are also attending NAMI classes. NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness. These classes are to teach us more about the conditions affecting our children. Why they do the things they do and how to work through these things. They teach us about the resources, medications, hotlines, and a whole host of things we are, as of yet, still unaware. We're hoping for more light and hope for us all.

Here we are, as parents we must control the environment to protect our children and provide fertile ground for learning social etiquette, morals, ethics, work, life skills, and the staples that a school provides. There must be motivation and inspiration for this as well as consequences to every choice made. What we need is more training in how to shape an experience into the best potential for positive learning for future long term happiness...and safety.

Unfortunately, we have children with anger issues related to their mental disorders. We have children who do not fully vet what they are being told or asked before they become defensive, angry, and aggressive nor what they say and do in response. We have one in particular who become so enraged that she is unaware of herself, unaware of how forceful physically she may become, and how she can multiply the events around her by 100 fold. She's oblivious to her own participation and escalation to any situation, but, she has a huge sense of equality when it comes to YOU feelings as bad as she does. If she's attacking you, she doesn't consider the strength of her blows or her flailing, she only remembers her anger at you and the sensation of your touch as you try to defend yourself, she interprets your own self defense as an attack onto her...and even, believes, your reactions are completely unprovoked and unreasonable. She lives in a hell I will never quite understand, but I do get to feel some of the ramifications as she unleashes portions of it out into the world...and, so does my husband. Her attacks are not limited to physical discharge toward a person, in fact, more often, she uses her word or punishes doors and "things" around her. She has a particular talent to shred a person into bits and pieces of human dross when she is angry, a gift unlike anything I have the power to describe.

Because we are given the mantle of parenthood and teacher and protector and provider, etc..., we must have rules, and require contributions from everyone at home to create a workable, livable, place to reside. There are curfews, calls for homework to be done, dinner to be eaten, clothes to be laundered, dishes to be washed, showers to be taken, respect to be given...we have rules that would be normal in any other home. Enforcing them is the trouble. Enforcing them is the danger...depending on how the wind blows...

As a step father, my husband has a HUGE bulls eye on his back and we're in the height of hunting season.(or so it often feels) All it takes is a slight exaggeration, an angry spew of words that relieve pressure but paint an ugly picture and off he is to be interviewed. To say it is like walking through a mind field, is frustrating, stressful, and full of pain is really a huge understatement.

So...we take classes, we make stupid rules of conduct that almost no other human being has to maneuver to protect him, to protect our whole family from being destroyed due enraged venom, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings.  And really, to protect her from the realization of consequences for our family that she didn't actually wish, pain to him she ultimately doesn't desire but was just soooo caught up in the outbursts of incredible energy, racing thoughts, and rage.

Because of the climate within our home, we have to have locks on every bedroom door to ensure everyone can change clothing without anyone opening the door to prevent allegations, we have to make sure my husband is never alone with certain members of the family to prevent allegations, and now, due to someone else, we can no longer even allow children to sit with their legs toughing anyone else, we can no longer allow anyone to lean toward another because to some it may look weird. We can no longer even have THAT bit of normalcy, in order to protect our family unit. Due to the climate our family, even the slightest question of another--which would normally cause others to simply roll their eyes and continue their way of living--we have to rearrange our entire family and how we interact with each other. IT SUCKS.

I'm frustrated. I'm tired.

It hurts. It's sad. It's scary.

But... It is how things are. It is our reality.

The Trouble with Blogging.

You know what the trouble with blogging is? (back off grammar police) Blogging is public journaling.  If you aren't good at keeping a written journal the old fashioned way, chances are you're also not awesome at keeping one online. The difference. No one really knows if you're keeping a journal in a book but EVERYONE who's interested is crystal clear that you're not keeping up with your blog when they check for an update but weeks and months go by without a new entry.

Keeping a journal has never been my strong suit. Though I know without a shadow of a doubt, that journaling is just about essential. Why? There are several reasons. It's fun to later look back and remember the fun things, the discovering, the lessons, the challenges overcome, the friends, the loves, the thoughts, the opinions that have changed, the opinions that have stayed the same, and more.

Paramount to my need is a sentiment a successful therapist told me. He said, "A ten cent notebook is the most effective therapist around". You know why? Partly because you cannot argue with what you, yourself, have written. You can't say: I didn't mean that, I didn't SAY that, I didn't DO that, because, you KNOW what it all meant, it's there internally and undeniably. You can see for yourself the steps you've taken or not taken. You know the emotions, feelings, and circumstances around all those words you published in your journal. You are safe with yourself and share it all right there for your eyes to see and your heart to feel. When you go back later, you are still connected to the feelings and memories of it all, but have the fresh perspective of having seen it through and are able to see where your faith was, what things you did that worked well, what things you discovered serve only as road blocks, witness to yourself things that you did/said to increase the problem, acknowledge to yourself those things you did quite capably and with awesome flair, people who were a blessing to you, and there is no doubt what is meant when you have a thought or impression about that journey because it all comes from you.

I wish I had been better at keeping a journal when I was a teenager, when I was a young adult, and up to now. I would give so much if I could just lay in the hands of my daughters a record of the struggles, and triumphs, the frustrations, the convictions, the silliness, the ME of that time. If they could just read with their own eyes the thoughts and feelings I had at their ages or in similar circumstances, written in my own hand, perhaps they could understand I was a person back then, that I had real feelings, and the stories I tell them are not fiction. Perhaps they could accept "that" person when they refuse this one. Maybe, they could have a glimmer of understanding that while I do comprehend their feelings about something I also see that it may not be wise to allow it to rule future actions...or visa versa... 

What gets in my way is how easily distracted I get with my life. How tired I get at night. And...I'm embarrassed to say, how I get carried away in numbing my mind with trips to social media, watching a show of some sort, or just about any OTHER thing than writing or typing my thoughts and feelings.

What's so hard about blogging? I worry. I have so many challenges--thus the title of my blog--and I have feelings and thoughts and frustrations and situations that, I don't know if others can really understand. I mean, it's not like anyone is here in the moment with all this chaos and intensity. And I am not super articulate when it comes to describing and painting a picture of what is or has happened...or the context of it all.

I admit, fear, does get in the way. Fear? Yes. I know anyone who reads this is someone I love, yet, the chances of someone else coming along with no perspective to my family and our trials who could misinterpret my words is a real concern for me. ESPECIALLY since we have a family with more than one child with a mental illness who can, at times, completely and utterly misunderstand and misinform others of just about anything depending on what stage of their cycles they may be.

I live on a teeter totter covered with egg shells and I have to run back and forth blindfolded 100 times a day without falling and without stepping on a single shell or ALL. HELL. Breaks. loose...

Why'd I even think to start this blog? Well, I thought it would be helpful for me, for others. Others who are blending families. Others who are parents (or any other family member or friend) of someone with a mental illness. Yet, the whirlwind, the blender, the uncertain stress of mental illness keeps me highly strung and I often just want to numb my brain.

I would promise I'll do better, that a I'll be more consistent, but it's a promise I can't make. I want to, but, I'd rather be honest. I'll post. I'll share. I just know it won't be updated daily...or even weekly necessarily. There will be times it's updated a whole lot and then times when a sure and certain drought will hit. That's just my life. It's the way it is. It's what I can handle.