Leaving the therapists office Monday, tears still in my eyes, I was left feeling raw and vulnerable while experiencing an overwhelming amount of mom guilt. Her words crashing through my head on repeat:

“You need to ask his psychologist when enough is enough and he needs committed to the children’s psych ward. It also sounds like it’s time for him to be on medication…”

I feel unprepared to face my reality. The reality that it might be time to consider putting Finn on medication. The reality that after describing the amount of abuse Finn has put me through this week, my own therapist mentioned committing him. Though she wasn’t talking about him being committed today, she did say she noticed that the amount of virtirol and violence towards me was increasing at an alarming rate, so knowing the signs of when a child needs psychiatric intervention is important.

Really though, it feels like the reality is that I’m not enough. That I’ve somehow failed some magic parenting test. I sit in my car and just break down. Huge heaving sobs as the mom guilt cripples me. Oh the mom guilt. Then there is the guilt that I said my deepest fear out loud: “I worry that we’re going to lose Finn like we lost Fredric’s father.”

So I sit in my car, torturing myself. Repeating my fears and self-perceived shortcomings. Allowing the waves of grief and guilt to drown me, before I muster up the courage to call the pediatrician and let them know we need a consult.

I barely hold it together as I describe what I’m calling about. As I hang up, my voice cracking, I muster up the energy to call my best friend Ellie. And I breakdown again. Not even her soothing voice and wise words break all the way through my misery.

I turn to Facebook support groups, but before I can even post, all I see are my fears coming true in others experiences. “I had to call the police on my child and lock myself in my room for safety” “I just had them committed into the children’s psych ward for the 3rd time” and so on. I start sobbing again, terrified that this is my future with Finn. That we are fighting a losing battle, no matter how much therapy and interventions we use.

I know I need more help, so I reach out to a group of local girlfriends to see whose shoulder I can cry on. Amanda invites me over, and I sit on her bed and release all my fears and worries in a torrent of tears and grief. She listens patiently and firmly puts me in my place, telling me everything I need to hear, even though I feel unworthy of the compliments and reassurances.

I leave Amanda’s, eyes swollen and sore, to pick up Finn. He’s in great spirits and I immediately feel better… until we go to the park. At the park, when I tell Finn it’s time to leave he starts berating me and then starts kicking me. I can feel the stares and judgement. I head to yet another girlfriends house, because it’s obvious that I still need support pulling myself out of the black hole of grief that has sucked me in.

She reiterates what both Amanda and Ellie have said, except this time it starts to sink in past my grief. It’s almost as if they talked about me before arriving and decided on a script. I lament “I just thought I had MORE TIME…” Her response is finally what started snapping me out of it:

As a parent we always think we have more time”

It just resonated with me… it was so simple, but so true. Still somewhat doubtful, I decide to let her comforting words be the truth, despite still feeling unworthy of them. I slowly try to let myself heal some, feeling thankful for my tribe.

This. This right here is the struggle of a parent with a child with DMDD. This is what it looks like when we break. I’m slowly picking up the pieces that my emotional rollercoaster left in its wake, but today I feel stronger. I have a plan. I’ve only cried once, when I told his OT that it looked like we were going down the medicinal path. Yet, as I write this, I know I’ll get through it, just like I get through everything else, one day, one hour, one minute at a time.

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“I hate you. I hate everyone. I want you to kill me. Someone needs to kill me. I don’t want to be alive anymore. Kill me now. What does blood taste like. I’m going to drink all my blood. You hate me you hate me you hate me. You don’t love me. Everyone hates me. I want to die”

Finn, Age 4 

Everything written above, was said by Finn, to me, in the span of 5 minutes this morning. This morning is our first back at OT and school since break. He’s been becoming more and more dysregulated through this holiday season. It makes sense, after all, we’ve been off schedule, off therapy, and really just off.

What is dysregulation? It is defined as the following:

“Dysregulation, also known as emotional dysregulation, refers to a poor ability to manage emotional responses or to keep them within an acceptable range of typical emotional reactions. This can refer to a wide range of emotions including sadness, anger, irritability, and frustration.”

The effects of dysregulation can be mild or severe, but in our case, as the holidays have come to a end, and as our normal schedule is supposed to resume, calling it severe is an understatement. In general, emotional dysregulation involves having emotions that are overly intense in comparison to the situation that triggered them. This can mean not being able to calm down, avoiding difficult emotions, or focusing your attention on the negative. Most people with emotional dysregulation also behave in an impulsive manner when their emotions (fear, sadness, or anger) are out of control.

As I sit here and write this, I begin to feel the guilt creep in. I know I handled this mornings outbursts poorly. I feel like I’ve  been stuck in a hurricane of my children’s volatile emotions, and that has slowly chipped at my patience. I struggled this morning, as I’ve been struggling the past 2 weeks. Struggled with screaming at the kids “why don’t you have shoes on yet? I’ve asked 48 times!” “We’ve got to go! We are running late!” “Can you please for the love of all things, just put on your dang coat?!? GUYS WE ARE RUNNING LATE!”

I know this sounds like a typical parents morning, but the majority of them don’t have 2 dysregulated children,  one of whom is taking turns playing dead on the ground with screaming back at you they want to die and hate everyone, while the other tries to hit you and screams “this is the worst day of their life” and slams doors/hits the walls.

I know when the adult is dysregulated, the chances of the kids getting regulated are slim to none. Typically my children rely on me to be their emotional regulator, so when I’m not regulated, utter chaos breaks out. We are all left drained. Empty. Sad. Disappointed.

I know it won’t be long until we are snuggling again, but it definitely takes longer for the pain from these moments to fade. However, I live for the good moments in between. I try to keep the memories of the happy and fun times in my head, as a balm to ease the tougher days.

I’m not sharing this for sympathy, but rather insight. To show those of you who struggle with mood disorders, either with yourself, child, spouse, etc, that you’re not alone. For those of you who don’t have this struggle, but who could use a reminder to give a little extra patience to the woman or kid who is a little short with you today.

The post “I Hate Everyone. Kill Me Now” appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.