Parental Ambivalence

This is where I am with Hope- parental ambivalence. I feel pulled in so many directions that I think even Gumby would break instead of stretching. There has been so much progress made. The constant, raw terror is gone. Hope has words that she can and sometimes does use to make her needs known. Dinner is not a battle every night. She is sleeping most nights and managing most school days without any psychotropic medication.


And yet... I live in a battle field. Hope lives for the fight. If I won't engage, GB will. GB isn't capable, at this point, of recognizing what problems belong to Hope and leaving them with Hope. Hope misses no opportunity to poke. Her bad feelings are like an oil spill- when she can't contain them, they cover everybody around her and are extraordinarily difficult to clean up. You can never completely undo them.


I am committed to this child. I have break through moments when I feel real love for her. They are fleeting and then the battle field is back. She is still hitting, kicking, and throwing things at me. She is screaming no before I finish my request. She spends all most of her waking hours trying to play The Dad against me.


Hope will be moving into the little room as soon as I find somebody to redo D's room, which is where the office will go. That will give her a place to rage where the only things she can destroy belong to her and it can be made safe enough that a monitor can replace us. GB will get her own space back and her possessions will once again be safe.


Ambivalence... my mom used to say "damned if you do, damned if you don't". Maybe that was just another way of saying the same thing.