stress relief???

Avatar for chambersrachael
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Registered: 05-24-2003
stress relief???
19
Fri, 12-05-2003 - 7:44am
I was just reading the posts under "does anybody else feel this way" and I can definitely relate although a lot of me stress isn't due to the holidays. Now I just feel the need to vent.

My ds is 17 and he's been dating this girl for about 6 months. I think she and her mother are psycho. It's been one problem after another since they've started dating. I think a lot is due to my son's hormones and his willingness to please this girl by doing anything. He's been grounded so much that I feel like I'M in prison. We've went through everything from him stealing my car, to being just outright defiant about everything, he's become very disrespectful, and now he wants to drop out of high school. He's skipped school so much that we've received a letter stating that if he misses one more day, he has to appear in front of a truant judge. Well, he's missed at least 3 days since then that he's admitted to. He and my husband fight continously and it's gotten to the point that I've told them if they raise their voice again, I'm going to work and not coming back until someone moves out. I'm overwhelmed by all of this and I feel like I've lost sight of how this whole situation need to be handled. It seems like everything we've tried hasn't even affected him.

I also have another son who is 10 who I spent all day at the dr with yesterday. He has pneumonia, so there's been very little sleep in this picture also. I work as an office manager/administrative assitant and I've had to take off work to deal with both sons, therefore I'm having to bring work home with me just to keep from sinking. There are a lot of changes going on in our office which is creating a lot more work than just my normal duties. I feel like I add 10 tasks to my list for everyone that I complete.

I never really realized how much everything affecting me until my oldest daughter made a comment at my mom's house one day. My mom had me read a cute little story-can't even remember what it was about and my daughter's comment was that's the first time I've seen you smile in a long time.

I try to stick to my diet and exercise routine. I do pretty good with my diet and so-so with my exercise(finding the time for exercise is difficult), but my bs is out of control again. I made special attempts to stick to my diet on Thanksgiving because I knew everything would be so tempting. I did great (I thought)-had smoke salmon, steamed veggies, & no dessert. When I went to bed that night, my bs was 481. I'm still on 20U of humalog/day and 6U of lantus X 3/day. This was working pretty good for a while, but I think all of the stress and my body is starting to run down is getting the best of me.

As for Christmas shopping, well I haven't even put a dent in it. My daughters are trying to help me by shopping the internet for ideas. I think I'm going to do all of my shopping via internet and have everything shipped directly.

My dr. keeps telling me to eliminate some stress from my life, but short of moving out of my own home, I can't figure out how to do it. If anyone has any suggestions, please share!

Thanks for listening.

Rachael

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Avatar for coldfingers
Community Leader
Registered: 04-30-2000
Fri, 12-05-2003 - 9:48am

First off Rachel, I will send you some cyber hugs!!!! Hug

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Fri, 12-05-2003 - 10:40am
Rachael...BIG HUGS to you....you WILL get thru this!

Are you able to find at least 15 minutes a day just for yourself for prayer or meditation? Or even a bubble bath? You need a space that's just for you where you can cry, breath, reflect, or just let you mind go blank and stop all those thoughts racing around your head...yes...I'm there with a very defiant 15 year old, so I can relate to a point about our children causing stress in our lives.

Feel free to vent here anytime. The support on this board is AMAZING!!!

Lovingly,

Diane

Avatar for mommanoons
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2003
Fri, 12-05-2003 - 3:35pm
I don't have any words of wisdom for you, as I'm 28 and I have no children. But, I do hope that things get better for you and your family. I think it's a wonderful idea to sit down with your family and just lay it for them. We diabetics value consistency and routine in such a way that when we're thrown for a loop, we may be able to cope in order to fix a problem and solve an issue, but our bloodsugars let us know otherwise. There is such wonderful support here on this board. Please feel free to vent. Whenever I'm at work and have a spare moment, I always check in. I hope the suggestions here help you. Please keep us posted on your progress.

Best wishes,

Erika

Avatar for 2sweet02
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Registered: 03-29-2003
Fri, 12-05-2003 - 4:21pm
First of all, I will tell you I have no children of my own, but I did take one of my nieces into our home when she was 16. (I was out of my mind at the time.) She told her parents that she was going to move out of their home, and I knew that she would be on the street in a short time. She is a beautiful girl; she was very attractive to some boys who weren't all that desirable. All I could do was to point out(somewhat slyly) how they might be trying to take advantage of her. I never told her that she could not go out with a particular boy, because I was afraid that would only make him more attractive to her. I don't know how this would work in the reverse (talking to the boy instead of a girl), but maybe this will give you some ideas. Years after she married a very nice man, and had children of her own, she thanked me for everything I had done.

I hope you are feeling better; think through your lists of 'things to do' and start throwing some of them out. I threw out Christmas card lists that included people I see; I only send to people I am afraid I might 'lose'. Try to think of the things that don't really make a difference and discard them from your life.

Vent all you like; we are here, and we understand. 2sweet02

P.S. There was a time, when I spent as much time in the principal's office as anyone alive. She was bad about skipping school too.

2sweet02

Avatar for chambersrachael
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Registered: 05-24-2003
Sat, 12-06-2003 - 9:07am
I just wanted everyone to know how much your support means right now.

I have spent a lot of time praying and crying. I do have a name of someone who does free family counseling. I suggested this to my husband but his reply was " I won't go to any type of counselling with Kent(our troubled teen)" My gut feeling tells me to go ahead with the counselling without involving Kent, but I don't want him to feel like we're pushing him away and don't care about him anymore. Any opinions?

We have had the discussion, several times as a family and countless time individually, about how all of this stress affects my health. I feel like I'm talking to the air around me. I get a lot of nods in agreement and "we'll try harder", but it's always back to square one. I feel so helpless because any decision that I make to try and make things better seems to be drawing a line and making me chose between loving my child or my husband. They are both headed in totally opposite directions as to what can be done to improve the situation.

All I do know for sure is that something needs to be resolved FAST because I'm not sure I have the energy for anything else and I just want to throw my hands up in the air and quit worrying about it.

I will check out the other boards. Boy, I wish someone would have told me a long time ago that parenting could get this difficult!

Thanks to everyone!

Rachael

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Sat, 12-06-2003 - 5:02pm
Rachel -

Some of the best advice Ann Landers ever gave was - even if your spouse won't go to counseling - YOU GO!

Even though maybe you should both go, at least you'll learn some coping skills.

You are in all our prayers!

Diane

Avatar for cl_d_minnick
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Registered: 03-25-2003
Sun, 12-07-2003 - 7:48am

Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, I am so sorry you are going through this all. I know how stress can really bring you down and not to mention have fun with your blood sugars, because I have been dealing with that for a while now and not and not as bad as you have it though. First off take a few deep breathes in and out to get yourself comfy. Now put some music on that you enjoy to listen to. Sit down in a nice comfy place and just close your eyes and think of happy things that make you feel good. This helps me at times when I feel overly stressed and helps me to gather myself back up.


Now as for your son, I can only tell you that it will not make no difference in what you say or do to him, because he is what I call for him in love with the girl and that being said you and your husband can't do anything to stop that at all. The more you try the more he will go towards her and push you both out of the picture. All I can say is just try to stand back from it and let him learn from this one mistake that he is making, because you have to remember that young girls go through boyfriends like they change their clothes. I know all of this based on my experience as a child and with my best friends son who was exactly this way. I also suggest that you allow them to hang out at your house so that you can better keep an eye on them, but don't make it seem as if you really want them to do it and that it is their idea. Try becoming the girlfriends best friend to the point your rebelous son will not want to date her no longer, because most teens don't want a partner that their parenst like with that being so not in the style these days. Invite her to dinners and if you have a VCR or DVD player rent some movies for them to watch.


I am only telling you the above, because i know it worked for my best friend and she soon had the house that all the kids wanted to hang out in, which made it so easy for her to keep her eye on her son and his girlfriend. He stopped getting into to trouble and started to be more civil to his mother. He even started going to school regularly instead of skipping it, which in our state if your child doesn't attend school the parent can be held resposible for this and serve some jail time for it. How ever I usually see the children end up with probation for it and some community service, because it isn't exactly a parents fault if their child doesn't go to school if that is where they are suppose to be going and also parents can't be with their children 24 hours a day 7 days a week if they want to be able to have a roof over their head and food on he table they can't.


I really hope and pray that your situation gets much better for you and that your family gets back together before Christmas comes. Sending you some super strong "" with your son and situation and also some very big right to you. Just know we are here for you if you just need to vent some to get it off your chest, because that is also very good for you to do. Take care of yourself, try very

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Avatar for chambersrachael
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Registered: 05-24-2003
Sun, 12-07-2003 - 10:51am
You know, I've tried this. He doesn't even want his girlfriend to meet our family. The first time that I met his girlfriend was when he stole my car. My cousin's son's girlfriend is my son's girlfriend's best friend-what a mouthful. He found her the night my son stole my car and she met me where my son left my car parked. She seemed to be a really sweet girl and we talked for a couple of hours. She swore that she had not seen him that night and seemed really concerned about where he was at. Well, I found a letter at my house from her to my son telling him how much it meant to her that he would go to such extremes to see her. I can understand her feeling this way, but she lied to my face about seeing him that night. I was trying to keep an open mind about her until this. I will have to say-I think I could have even dealt with this if it wasn't for her mother. She had started calling our house and putting in her 2 cents about how we should discipline our son. (Her daughter was upset because we grounded our son, so she didn't feel he should be grounded) We basically told her to mind her own business and worry about her own child. So, with all this said, I'm not sure how much crap she's been feeding my son. She's even told them that when he quits school that they're going to buy a mobile home & some land so that they can live together while he works and their daughter goes to school. So, you see, I'm not trying to keep my son from seeing his girlfriend. I'm more worried about him seeing her mother. His girlfriend doesn't want to come over here because she thinks we're "mean". My son hasn't always been this way with his girlfriends/friends. With his last girlfriend, he'd even invite us to go on dates with them. Our house has always been the one where all the kids hang out until recently because we have 4 kids of our own. I definitely agree with having the kids hang out here so we can keep an eye on them. I keep trying to pinpoint when all of the changes in my son occurred, but I can't narrow it down to anything except when he started dating this girl. I've tried not to "accuse" him of letting this girl "change" him because I know this will only push him farther away. In the beginning, I thought it was just the typical "I'm growing up and moving toward independence" stage because he wanted to spend every waking moment with her. But when it got to the point that he didn't seem to care how any of his actions affected anyone in our family, I became really concerned.

This is one of the things that popped into my mind. My husband retired from the army recently. When he did, we decided to down scale our lives and move home to be closer to my family. We decided to opt for a less expensive home and move close to the lake because our family is kind of an outdoors family. We moved to a very small community and the school is a lot smaller than the last one that he went to. The last school he went to had an average of 1200 students, who were mainly military kids and then we moved to a school where the average # of students is about 300 and it's in the middle of a farming community. He really has only found a couple of kids that he has anything in common with-which happens to be sports cars & racing(not a good mix, but at least he's interested in something other than drugs & alcohol). I really don't think he's figured out where he fits in here. We lived in Europe 9 years of his life and were at Ft. Campbell, KY for the other years of his life. His girlfriend's parents are retired air force, so I can see where they click because they have a lot of the same experiences to pull from. Does this make sense? I can see this having some affect on him, but I'm not sure if it's the bottom line or not.

He and my husband seem to be running in a vicious circle. My husband doesn't want to provide him with anything, (i.e. car to drive, money to go out on, ect.) because of the way that he's been acting and the fact that he wants to quit school. He's told him that when he quits school that he has to move out, BUT when my son tries to get a job, my husband tells him that he can only get a job working on Saturdays while he's still in school. Well, for the life of me, I can't see how someone can work only on Saturday and be able to make enough $$ for gas money, insurance, car pay. and still be able to save the $$ that he's going to need when my husband boots him out of the house. He wants to quit school now because he knows that we can't legally kick him out of the house until he's 18. He will be 18 in July and he figures that if he can work full time from now until he's 18, he'll be able to have the $$ that he needs to start on his own. I know that my husband is really disappointed that he wants to drop out of school, I am too. But some things you just can't change and have to work with what you've got. When he first wanted to drop out of school, he wanted to take high school courses on the internet to get his diploma. I looked into the program that he wanted to use and it seems to be a very good program. He was even willing to work during the day and take the courses at night so he could pay for them himself. My husband wasn't agreeable to this because he was afraid of getting stuck with the bill and was still telling him that he had to move out if he wanted to drop out. Maybe I'm insane, but this was a better alternative than what we're dealing with now. He's now considering taking his GED eventually, but he has to be 18 before he can take it. I'm not sure if this will work for the simple fact that if he can get out on his own by the age 18, he'll spend so much time working and the rest of the time with his girlfriend, that he'll never get around to it. I'm trying to find ways that I can support my husband's decisions so that our other kids still see that there's a united front and they won't try to play us against each other, but it's becoming rather difficult. And I feel like it's all a pride/ego thing on both their parts. They can both make valid points, but they can't see where each other is coming from. They both feel like they're not being heard-which I guess is true. My biggest fear is that everything is going to graduate to the point that I won't see my son anymore after he moves out because his reasoning behind moving out is to get away from his dad. There are other things that factor into this equation also, such as my husband isn't his biological dad. My son doesn't know this because he was a baby when we got married and he adopted him immediately. I've heard comments from outside the family that my husband treats him differently from the other kids and I've seen this too, but I don't know if it's because of this or if it's just because he's the oldest child. I try to talk to my husband about this, but he just gets defensive, so I just leave it alone now. I'm at my wits end with both of them, so I've tried to stay out of all of their conversations and just let them battle it out. Anytime my son comes to me and ask for permission to do anything, I tell him to go ask his dad(which probably isn't fair), but I've found that my decisions often get over ridden in the long run. I think I will look into counseling for myself though and let my husband and son make the decision about what is best for them.

Sorry this has gotten so long. Just keep me in your prayers. I've always been one to make it through whatever situation and I don't think this time will be any different. Just may take a little longer than normal.

Thanks again for listening.

Rachael

Avatar for cl_d_minnick
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Registered: 03-25-2003
Sun, 12-07-2003 - 6:13pm

Rachel, I really think it isn't you who needs the counseling, but both your son and husband to get them to communicate more like adults with out the argueing that way they both would have to listen to what the other one

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Avatar for chambersrachael
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Registered: 05-24-2003
Mon, 12-08-2003 - 5:47pm
Ok guys, I may very well get the third degree tonight when DH gets home, but I'm trying to work toward a solution and if nobody likes it-TOUGH.

I went today and bought new tires for my son's truck and registered it. He and I sat down and worked out a payment plan for as soon as he starts working. (Yep, he even has to pay the interest on the credit card I used). Now he has transportation to look for a job.

I also went down to the school and withdrew him today. Probably the hardest thing I have ever done as a parent, but I think neccessary. It's already gotten to the point that we would have had to appear in front of a judge and try to explain why we couldn't keep our son in school(Heck, I've dropped him off at school and he skips!) Boy, it was tough fighting back those tears in the office! The principal actually told him that if he had any questions or wanted to re-enroll at any time-come on down. That made me feel a little better.

I sent ds on his merry little way and told him to come home with proof in writing that he's been applying for jobs. Now, it's just a waiting game.

I'll let you know what happens.

Rachael

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