It fucking sucks.

You think you’re going to fulfill your dreams as a woman and mother, raising this Godly man who will be strong and sensitive and socially aware. You believe you’re going to instill in him a spirit of generosity and hospitality. You hope he will be kind and thoughtful and smart and all the things.

Then he hurts you.

Then he hurts his brother.

Then he says he wishes he didn’t exist.

All your beautiful dreams, your admirable hopes have dissipated. Day after day, month after month, you think maybe now you’ve turned the corner— you’ve crossed the threshold into the promised land. But day after day you are disappointed and wondering how you got here.

You see your friends with these kids who make messes, poke their siblings, lie about stealing an Oreo, and they say, “parenting is hard!” 

And you want to scream.

You want to shake them and tell them, there’s parenting, and then there’s parenting a kid with mental illness.

Your struggle is not my struggle.

If you can’t relate to my experience, that’s ok. But please affirm what I’ve endured instead of trying to offer platitudes of “parenting is hard.” It’s incredibly disheartening.
If you can relate, well, this is for you.

Where are you, mother with the bipolar elementary kid?

Where are you, parent of another suicidal treasure?

This world is messed up and tragic and brutal. I don’t know how to do any of it, but life keeps coming and I keep showing up in messy and weird ways. I am heartbroken at the grief my boys feel, at the adult emotions that fill their childhood. In many way I feel that I’ve failed them… I’ve made so so many mistakes. But I do love them deeply, and I hope to goodness they always remember that.