Well it’s not exactly new year anymore, almost 1/4 of the way through 2024, but nevermind!

I ended up having close to 2 months off work, so January and half of February was spent reading books, watching tv shows and movies, napping, swimming and generally trying to rest and relax as much as possible while the girls were at school. It’s been a little up and down and I still have good days and bad days, but I am generally feeling a lot better overall, I have settled onto the medication and feel a lot more rested and less burnt out than I was in December.

My work have been really good and allowing me to ease back in more gently with a lighter workload, and things at home have improved somewhat.

It is hard to know if things are better with my daughter because I am calmer and less exhausted, or if it’s because she has started therapy at last, or any other combination of things, but who knows. We still have good days and bad days, and last week was a tough one (it was our 2-year anniversary, which although I desperately wanted to celebrate it, also makes her feel wobbly and uncertain and so I kept it very low-key and bought the girls a small present each without making a big thing of it). It was also mother’s day which can be triggering, so I told the girls not to buy me any presents and kept them distracted with playdates and shopping trips to try and keep it light and breezy.

S’s new thing is that when I say “I love you” she angrily shouts “No you don’t!” at me. What she is really saying is “How could you? I’m not lovable” so I’ve been trying to show her I love her by getting her favourite pudding, or buying her treats but obviously that’s not very sustainable financially!

It’s also hard sometimes to separate out my own emotions from my responses to her. For example, in therapuetic parenting it’s important to use empathy, and really try to understand how it feels for them in that moment. For me to really understand her feelings, I have to take at face value how it must feel to be 12 years old and completely unloved, living in a house where no one loves you, and you are all alone and sad.

On the one hand, that is her reality, that is genuinely how she feels a lot of the time, and I cannot simply dismiss those feelings. There is a perfect storm of hormones and trauma and low self-esteem contributing to that, but some days that is her reality.

In order to empathise, I have to imagine how that must feel. And it’s pretty devastating to try and imagine my own daughter feeling so alone and sad and unhappy and unloved.

On the other hand, as her mother, it also hurts, because while I know this isn’t about me, I’ve spent the last 2 years being there consistently, trying to show her how much I love her, trying to comfort her and connect with her, and it hasn’t really worked. It makes me feel so sad knowing no matter how much I love her or how hard I try, I may never be able to make her feel loved. And it also occasionally makes me feel like a failure as a parent, although I know, I know, I’m no such thing and obviously this isn’t actually about ME anyway!

Now of course the hope is that over time this love and affection will drip-feed into her subconscious and that eventually she may start to feel more self-worth and more loved, but she may never shake it off completely, her inner sense of shame and unworthiness, it goes pretty deep…

So there we are, riding the rollercoaster of life as it goes up and down, screaming most of the way!

There have been a few other concerns so far this year, around various injuries, Calpol, hazy definitions of self-harm, and so-on, but I keep our social worker, her therapist and the school firmly in the loop on everything so we can support her from all sides as much as possible.

Friendships are another big issue these days. Many people say that Year 7 is the hardest in terms of kids and friendships as all the kids bounce around their new schools trying to find where they fit in. For S we are now halfway through Year 8 and she still hasn’t really found anywhere she fits, is still dealing with a range of bullies and mean kids, and struggling to form and maintain friendships in a meaningful way. We have started planning her birthday party and I realised with great sadness that she hasn’t been invited to anyone else’s birthday parties for almost 2 years, only once since she started at secondary school. So I am attempting to find more kids to come and have sleepovers (again, she doesn’t get invited to their houses so we just keep trying to invite them here as much as we can).

It’s hard to know how much to intervene as a parent – in some ways kids do have to figure this out for themselves, but with all the trauma history, and the low self-esteem, and the advent of social media and phones and cyber-bullying, there are times when it seems prudent to intervene and help a bit. If I didn’t, I’m not sure she would ever see friends outside of school or have playdates, sleepovers, or birthday parties etc.

Given that we are moving soon she will have to start over fresh at a new school and make new friends, so it doesn’t seem worth trying to fix it here.

I am thrilled we are moving, as lately there have been so many incidents locally – 2 stabbings in nearby suburbs, and several incidents at the school, police dogs sweeping for drugs at the school, various fights and punch-ups between students on the playground and recently 2 teachers were assaulted while trying to intervene. It’s a whole lot of drama I look forward to moving away from!

While we didn’t get the house we had originally wanted we have found a lovely house that is just as nice in the same gorgeous village – the place I grew up!

Our sale seems to be moving ahead well (so far) and we hope to move sometime in May assuming it all goes to plan. I was a bit worried that my current omnishambles of a house might not survive the buyer’s survey as there were all sorts of queries about asbestos and roof leaks and non-existent indemnity insurance for the conservatory, but we seem to have gotten through the worst of that part and are now waiting on the solicitors to send paperwork back and forth…

One of the mums on my school run commented that I seem very calm about the move considering how much there is to do with packing and organising and paperwork and mortgages and school applications, but I think at the moment I am just clinging to my hope that everything will somehow magically get better when we move! I know it won’t, and it will cause all sorts of new stress and behaviour and anxiety and we’ll all be exhausted, but nevermind! I am nevertheless looking forward to moving and settling into the new house and starting fresh somewhere new and small and where hopefully the stabbings and police dogs will be less of a feature in our lives….

As for A, my younger daughter, she continues to take things in her stride, seems to cope with all the yelling and shouting pretty well, keeps to herself and only occasionally rises up and demands some attention! I’m aware that she is an “easier” child generally and therefore it is easy to let her needs slide to the background when her big sister is needing a lot of focus and attention. I try to ensure we carve out time to play and hang out one on one sometimes too, but she seems to be pretty happy and cheerful and fairly self-sufficient for now!