Playing the Victim

I was once set a meme on facebook that said

“Some days it feels a little bit more like Hostage Negotiating with a band of drunken Bi-Polar Pirates than actual parenting”

I laughed hard and agreed, liked the post that had been put on my wall and I walked away.

Later, that day I suddenly started to feel like a victim of parenting, yes, a victim …. Crazy, right?

It seems ridiculous typing this out.

Where was my normal parenting experience, why was I the one dealing with schools, doctors and other people’s judgement when it was clearly not my doing, I had in no shape or formed created this but here I was dealing with everything.

I wanted rainbows and sunny smiles but instead I got lies, stealing, punches, kicks, destruction and verbal abuse.

The crazy did not feel normal, and someone needed to take responsibility for the crazy in my life.

I would blame myself for their bad behavior, I would blame myself for their destruction of their own property and others property.

I would blame myself for their defiance of me and wonder why others couldn’t see it.

Then when they did behave badly at school or out in public I would also take on that responsibility.

I punished myself when I lost my temper, going nose to nose with a child screaming my lungs out, I told myself I was a bad mom that they would be better off without me. It scared me that I was capable of so much rage and anger.

I felt like I was the person who was putting everyone else’s mistakes right

I once verbally spoke out to a friend that I truly believed that in the small hours of the night they would get up and decide who was going to play bad child and who was going the play good child, that they purposely went out of their way to ruin a perfectly good day.

Sometimes you must break the cycle of self-criticism  , and it can take all sorts of situation to bring you to that point for me it was my oldest screaming at me that I was no better than her. It took me a few minutes to realize who her was but when the penny did drop I understood who he meant – Bio mom

That stopped me in my tracks, I didn’t know her really our only encounters where when I would either hand the kids of to her on a Friday or in some cases tell her the oldest didn’t want to go with her and I wouldn’t be making him, yes, I did that on many occasions, but that is a subject for another time.

So, who she was as a “mother” I had no idea, but what I did know was I didn’t want to be that person he saw her as.

My thinking had to change and it needed to change quick ……

I didn’t want to sit on the steps of the deck outside at night and cry

I wanted to stop hiding in the bathroom wishing the whole world would just be quiet

I defiantly wanted to stop moaning to my husband when he got home at night that HIS kids where monsters and he needed to deal with it.

And the shame needed to go away and the temper

Time to stop being the victim

I needed to look at them as children who were hurting, traumatized and feeling alone and I needed to see myself as the person who was going to love them through it all.

I couldn’t fix all their problems in a day but I could manage to make their day a little brighter just by realizing I wasn’t the victim here

I told myself repeatedly (until I believed it) this didn’t happen to me it happened to them, they were the ones hurting and I blaming myself, feeling sorry for myself and raging all over the place wasn’t helping … time to step up and be the adult.

Easier said than done, I know

The hardest bit is feeling like you are being the parent and she (bio mom) is getting to be the Disney mom.

Can you relate?

Maybe you can maybe just as a step mom with children who don’t display any problems. Maybe as a mom who is raising her birth children you can relate.

Or as a foster parent with a child with RAD or other attachment issues you can relate.

I think we all can relate … I’m not a special case, I’m just one case among many who has felt like a victim on this road of rising children in whatever shape of precious form they come in

We are not alone, there are others out there that feel like I do and how you do. It’s just not all of us say it, we don’t admit to it for the fear of being judged and shamed for not being the prefect parent.

And if you are by any chance the prefect parent could you please give the rest of us some advice on how you manage it all. I know I for one would love to hear from you.

So, to all the imperfect, amazingly flawed, beautifully inappropriate, angry stomping victims, who can confess to being out of control mother’s, I applauded you and salute you ….

You are my super hero’s