Sometimes We Just Aren't Enough

As mother's we all feel inadequate at times. It's no surprise. After all, no child comes into this world with a manual specific to them. There's no chapter to read each week to help you through the moments your finding difficult to navigate. It doesn't matter how much you prepare before their birth, or how much you don't. If you have no children or 10, each child makes you feel inadequate at some point.

I can't navigate the waters with my Little Miss Psychopath. Every day it's a new problem, a new fight, a new bad experience. It's like living in a hell sometimes. I desperately want life to be more enjoyable for her. I want her to just once, have a good experience and feel like it was a good experience afterward. But it just can't happen.

I'm slowly coming to the realization of how severe her disability is. Just the same as I was with my first disabled child, you'd think I'd have learned something from my experiences with him. But it all just seemed to be shoved into me and then buried deep within somewhere. Somewhere I'll never find and be able to use it. I think I can do it, I think I can be sick and parent my two disabled children while also parenting my typical child and keeping up with my responsibilities. But, in actuality, I cannot. It's most likely impossible for just one mother to do all this, or maybe just impossible for this mother. Every day I feel myself slipping further and further into my dreamland. Into that place that is definitely not reality. That place where I just don't pay attention to what's missing because then I won't feel anything about it. I don't want to face it, I don't want to feel it. So it goes to the place no one can find and is buried somewhere deep within me, useless to anyone and everyone.

My Heart Breaks

I see her tear stained cheeks and the terror and pain in her eyes every single day. Yet, I am helpless to change it. I cannot take her pain away and my embrace only goes so far. I simply am inadequate. This makes me feel like an unfit mother to this poor girl. Her terror for new experiences and her frustration over not understanding consumes her. It becomes all that she is in those moments. It makes it so hard to see her day after day, month after month. All I focused on for so long was her progress that I didn't notice her failures anymore. Until those failures became so pronounced you couldn't ignore them.

I hoped I would be different by now, that by now I knew and expected with progress comes great failures. That no one can achieve progress without failing. But, I just keep setting myself up for the same feelings. I feel like I am the one failing right along with her. If only I could progress as a special needs mother. Yes, I've progressed, just not to the standard I've held to myself. It just feels as though I am not enough.
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freeinthought (64) 7 years ago

I can't pretend to know what it's like to be in your situation.

I am a father however and can say for certain that you are the best thing going for your daughter, mom. No one loves her or cares for her more than you. I know you know this; I'm just reminding you.

See, you have something to be proud of. You may have your shortcomings (we all do and one in your situation can hardly be blamed). You are the best thing that's happening to your daughter, despite all the challenges facing her.

I hope you find some peace in this casual observer's comment in passing. I hope only the best for you. Lots of peace and love.... :)