Let me just say I am not a single parent. I am blessed that my former wife and I can still work together for the well-being of all our children. Over the past few weeks, I have had the experience of being a single parent. One week (actually 10 days) for the mother of my children to take a much needed vacation and spend some time with her mother. Then a week after she returned she left for a business trip and was away for five days. It was during those times I felt like a single parent and damn it was hard.
I started out my parenting journey as a single parent. I adopted my oldest son when I was single and he was only two years old, that was 19 years ago. Courtney and I were alone together just him and I against the world until he was eight and I married the woman who eventually adopted him as her own. We both had to adjust to life with this woman in our lives. It was an adjustment for all three of us, but we figured it out. Throughout the years of our marriage my former and wife had times where one of us had to be away for a day or two or even longer, leaving the other home alone with The Bunch, however many there were in the family and living at home. We ended up with five kids that we call our own, but we have experienced coming and goings as a result of trauma, drama, mental illness, life changes and milestones met. I explain all that to say being a parent is tough for anyone and has its ups and downs. Any parent who is reading this would agree.
There are nights you fall into bed so exhausted you cannot even get undressed. Then there are nights when you fall into bed with gratitude for the beautiful family you have had the pleasure to spend your day. I have had many nights where I have stood in the doorway of a sleeping child's room in the stillness and watched their chests rise and fall. Seeing their closed eyes in the rays of moonlight that filtered through the windows. Those moments of awe and peace were beautiful and I treasure those moments always. Yet when you are the only parent in the house and especially for many days in a row, there are not many opportunities to count your blessings.
During these days of single parenting, I was privileged to have my parents step in and help with things here and there. Yet in an attempt to protect their roles as grandparents I am careful what I ask of them. Managing meals, back packs, home work, medications and appointments while still trying to work as a single parent is at times overwhelming. Yet there is my single parenting days over the past few weeks where it included a teenager with mental illness on top of it all. One of the reason's my former wife and I have chosen the living arrangement we have is so that we do not have to be a single parent to our kids. I have referred in previous posts of how we tap in and tap out with each other as needed. That is hard to do when you are across town from each other. Believe me when I say this arrangement is not always easy or convenient for this formerly married couple. We have had to forgive and let go of the past hurts and pain and move forward for the sake of our children and our own sanity.
Back to my days of single parenting, they were hard and challenging and in the midst of all that was when I started blogging about life with my daughter with mental illness. Those days brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts that I just needed to get out of my system. Yet it has taken me on a deeply personal internal journey of how I truly feel about this child of mine, the teenager with mental illness. I am going to be very candid and open with my readers now and I hope you will give me grace and understanding as I share what I have to say.
I have a very defined and clear understanding of my love for my daughter. I know that she is my daughter and I cannot imagine her not being in my life. My love for her is a defined fact that will not be disproven. Yet if truth be told, I do not always like her. She can be mean, spiteful, vengeful, hateful, selfish, demanding, whiny, confused, annoying, calculated and many other attributes and names I have attributed to her in my mind during the days when her disease if working in over drive. It is hard to overlook the actions of this daughter of mine and remember it is her illness making her take these actions (though some are hormonal), and just take it all. She has called me a liar, a killer, a thief, a kidnapper, horrible parent, demented, crazy, stupid, ugly and many more names that I care not to repeat including words I would never ever say aloud. She knows every curse word in the book and maybe some that she made up. She can slam doors and throw things and storm out the door and march down the street in anger. She can write me notes and letters telling me what she really thinks of me. I know I am not alone. I know many parents have experienced such moments with their children at one point or another. Yet I do not know many parents who can say they have experienced that for so many days in a row for months and years on end. That can wear on a guy. That can wear a dad out. That can really drain my grace tank. I sometimes run out of grace.
There is no joy in admitting that I have yelled back at her at times. I acknowledge that the vitriolic screams and accusations that she hurls at me do indeed hook me and trigger every bone in my heart and mind at times. I have dreamed about getting up and walking out the door and getting in my car and driving away and never coming back, but I have not. There have been many times when I have thought about just refusing to deal with her anymore and telling her mother that I want nothing more to do with her and she is all her problem now, but I have not. I have gone so far and imagined what our family would like if she were not in it and wonder if it would have been better. Remember I am being painfully honest here people. It hurts me to share these thoughts, but they are real. This is what living life with a teenager with mental illness can do to a person.
It is during those times when I am single parenting that I struggle the most with those feelings and emotions Those are the times when I am her only target that I feel it the most. Many days I can deal with it, but after several days of single parenting with her it gets old and exhausting and frankly I just shut down to it all. It is in those times where I am just doing what I have to do to get through the day while keeping everyone safe and alive. You have to remember I not only have my daughter with mental illness to care for, but my two younger children are in the home as well. I have to attend to their needs as well and honestly they do not always do well when their big sister is demanding all my time and energy while single parenting. It is not unusual when my daughter is struggling that one of the younger ones will be on their own roller coaster and need more support than normal. Therefor my energy becomes more sapped than ever as I try to keep all the plates spinning. We sometimes joke and ask each other, what did we do to end up with such a diverse group of kids that have become ours both in love and law.
Lifting my glass to single parents everywhere, it is a tough job! It is not for the faint of heart. Frankly, I don't recommend it, especially when dealing with a child/teenager with mental illness. It will drain you and take its toll on you. You will feel like you have been physically beat up and mentally fried. Eleven year ago we did not know our daughter had a mental illness when she came to live with us at the age of 6-years. We expected there would be challenges as she was considered a special needs child as she was over the age of five in the foster system and had a lot of memories and feelings associated with her bio mom and their life together before the state separated them. We also knew going into it that she had some developmental delays that we would need to address and we were glad to do what needed to be done. As she has gotten older her life has complicated ours more than we ever thought possible, yet here we are still plugging along one day at a time.
This evening my co-parent returned home after being on a five day business trip and whew am I tired. As she settled into the family routine again I slowly eased my way out and took my leave and went to my domain and started to breathe and decompress, so I could start the recharge process. It is what we do and how it works for us as a unit.
Let me conclude by saying LOUDLY and CLEARLY, I love my daughter just the way she is. I appreciate who she is as a child of God. I recognize her gifts in art, creativity, boldness, curiosity, resolve, honesty, goofiness, and desire to want to be healthy and whole.
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