u/True_Pangolin_2509

On my local Facebook mom group I'm seeing more and more posts and comments by people who identify themselves as teachers or school staff (always anonymously of course) describing behavior I could see my AuDHD son displaying and blaming parents for it and telling us that bad behavior starts at home and to "do better".

I have spent years and years trying to "do better". Blaming myself. Convincing myself that if I just parent better all his problems would disappear. Knowing absolutely nothing about ADHD or autism and even less about the combination of both because no doctor ever brought it up. Slowly learning and finding resources all by myself with zero support or guidance . Getting on wait-lists for therapies and evaluations. Getting him diagnosed, finding the right treatment--which isn't fucking easy by the way--to getting him on an IEP and trying to figure out the best supports. Trying to suss out what is right and wrong for kids like my son--often with conflicting information. Figuring out what is good information and bad information. Trying to advocate for my son but trying to keep an open mind and not be *too* pushy because I'm never sure if I'm working with the right information or assumptions.

He's on medication that I review with a psychiatrist every three months to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to do. He goes to therapy. OT. Speech therapy. He's on an IEP. He has rules and expectations at home. He's still brazenly neurodivergent. Weird, I know. But I'm a parent that fucking cares, okay? And I'm tired of being painted as someone who doesn't give a shit by people who can't be bothered to understand or care about neurodivergence.

And yes I'm very pro teacher/education. I don't need *anyone* to come in here and lecture me on how hard teachers have it. And I believe there are genuinely shitty parents who just don't care out there. Teaching is a fucking nightmare these days and I know that teachers aren't getting the support they need. I extend all the grace their way. I just hope the grace is mutual because I'm tired of my son being demonized and scape goated over his invisible disabilities.

Finally figured out why a friend of mine ghosted me

My daughter had a best friend whose mom and I got along very nicely and we considered each other friends. We did things without the girls and texted each other every day. She was the first close I had in a very long time.

But the girls had a falling out. The other mom and I decided to keep on being friends. But that didn't last long. At one point she asked me in person how long had my daughter been dating a certain boy. It was awkward because I didn't know my daughter had a boyfriend, and I thought this particular boy was gay because my gaydar is broken and I'm also just really stupid. Daughter doesn't tell me stuff like that and I had previously expressed to this mom many times how much of a sore spot it was that my daughter didn't tell me a lot of things so I was surprised she assumed I knew about any of this. I felt embarrassed and put on the spot and spat out some stupid glib answer. I fell into a sad spiral for a few months over it and to add insult the mom never reached out to me again.

Well over a year later the mom and the incident still lives rent free in my head. My daughter's boyfriend is moving away and the friend seems to be making some moves to restart their friendship. I mentioned to daughter how I hadn't heard from her mom after she asked about the boyfriend. Daughter said thAt her boyfriend was the friends ex (which I also didn't know) and the friend had accused them of cheating on her (daughter says this isn't true) and that the mom probably asked me about it to determine whether they were cheating or not and must not have liked my answer.

Anyway. I'm too neurodivergent for this shit. I'm too clueless for friends I guess.

Ive had a very stressful few weeks but most of the things that were stressing me out mostly resolved this week. The last of it was my teen's endoscopy. And while the pictures showed nothing unusual (but some samples were taken for biopsy which I will hear back about next week) the procedure was really rough on her, much more than when she had her first one a few years ago. Lots of little things went wrong plus she couldn't get her Daith piercing out and the nurses hurt her a lot taking it out rather than just taping over it like they said they would if it was hard to get out. She's been a lot slower to bounce back from the procedure and the whole thing just feels bad to have had done.

But as I said that was the last of the planned stressful stuff. I thought I could finally unclench my jaw today and relax. But my son got sick very suddenly and is throwing up with fever. He's just so miserable. I get so anxious when my kids are sick and my mind always goes to the worst case scenario. I feel like my body just can't take any more worrying.

Because I won't have to pick my AuDHD son up from school every day with him in a bad mood.

School has always been rough but 2nd grade has been one big slog. Usually he's doing really well by this time of year but apparently not this year. Every day I pick son up he's in a shit mood. I only hear from school when his behavior has gotten worse. I never get follows up on whether anything has improved. No "he had a great day" days this year. The positive notes he's supposed to bring home are getting shorter and shorter. I've butted heads with his teacher a couple of times because of the way she was doing things, which I've never had to do before. Every week I see other kids getting awards for doing well but never my son. It makes me wonder if he truly hasn't done anything worth an award or if the good things he does go unnoticed because he's the behavior kid. And it's petty but when I give gifts for Christmas and teacher appreciation week I usually get some kind acknowledgement but this year none of the staff have acknowledged anything I've sent and I know they're busy so I try not to get annoyed but I think this with the other problems have really bothered me.

Not looking for advice. Just had to get this off my chest. The loss of personal time come summer really sucks and I struggle with it but at least this summer I won't have to deal with school. I don't know why this year was shit but I hope it's only because he and his teacher weren't good fits for each other and next year he gets a better fit. Not holding my breath.

Husband has a flexible job where he can go to the office or WFH as often as he wants. During the school year he's happy to WFH as much as possible. But every year around this time as summer looms he suddenly starts talking about wanting to go to the office more when the kids are out of school because apparently son is just too much to have at home while he's working. Even though we have a big house and he has his own office with a door and noise canceling headphones and my son and I tend to go on lots of outings. My son is AuDHD and can't be left alone at home yet but taking him grocery shopping or his sister's numerous medical appointments is very hard. Nope he's wants to fuck off to the office which would be great during the school year not so much during the summer. Infuriating.

Thought I'd ask because I got really upset shopping around Costco for no reason and am now having an emotional breakdown in the parking lot and I can't pinpoint any one reason.

There's no one thing that's bothering me, just a whole host of small things intermixed with big things and when my husband asks what's wrong I can't verbalize it. It doesn't help that he basically checks out if not completely cuts me off because he doesn't want to hear a rundown of everything that's bothering me, especially if I show a hint of emotion while describing things. So I've just learned not to name my feelings or things that are bothering me and it all just congeals into one big ball of stress and anxiety that I don't know what to do with.

Not looking for advice. Solidarity, comisseration with those who are also in this, and hope are welcome.

It's my son's birthday. And I can't stop crying. I feel so bad about it. It's not like I don't love him or regret having him. But shits been so hard for a while and I guess my stupid brain picked today of all days to be really sad about it.

And while I'm sure it will be an overall positive day, I've been overwhelmed with life and the struggles of parenting an AuDHD kid is weighing on me extra heavy. He's 9 and just seeing all these behaviors that we've struggled with for years still being so prevalent, behaviors he "should" have grown out of long ago, has made me made me feel despondent.

There was no school yesterday so I took him to a farm that's like a year round pumpkin patch (but different things seasonally). It's his favorite place. We've gone there many times with few issues. But yesterday was rough.

He's terrified of bees and wasps. It being spring with tulip beds all over the place, there were a lot of bees about. So every 5 seconds a bee would buzz by and freak him out.

The last time we were there was in the fall so things were a little different than last time and he just could not deal this time. The corn maze was down, that was terrible even though we never do the corn maze because my sense of direction is *bad* bad. The little concession stands that run during busy times were closed. The turkeys and geese were gone. There wasn't any hay on the tractor ride. The man driving the tractor made a joke about how the ride was 4 hours and my son took him literally and was really worried and upset no matter how much I explained that it was a joke and it'd take as much time as it always does. And these little things added and added to dysregulation.

And then there was the train ride, his favorite thing in the world. Except he always has his heart set on sitting in the front. There is only one other kid and their dad in line so I think he thought the front seat was safe. But naturally the kid goes straight for the front seat and my son is angry and devastated. Usually I can talk him into sitting in the back and he'll enjoy that but today he wasn't having it. He sat in the second row and seethed the entire time. When it was the over the very nice train driver offered to let him skip the line and sit right in the front but my son was too angry to even entertain the idea.

Once we got off the train he eloped. I found him fairly quickly but whenever I got too close he ran off again. So we spent about half an hour sitting outside separately, with him staying in my line of sight and me silently crying behind my sun glasses.

All through the farm we see the little kid from the train and he's just bopping along, happy as can be. While my son is grumping and groaning in his favorite place on a beautiful day.

Now that it's his birthday, everything that disappoints him is going to hit extra hard. For example we had to take a detour to school because of a road closure. He was throwing a fit. "I can't believe they closed the bridge on my birthday. They must hate me!". I am sure this will repeat throughout the school day over any disappointment, demand or inconvenience.

Meanwhile Facebook is serving me a steady diet of these kinds of posts: "I'm a teacher and kids with behavior issues are the worst and make me want to quit my job " (look I get it, but this is the very last thing I need to bear as a parent who is doing everything they can to resolve these issues and I wish algorithms would stop shoving this content in my face--there is a good reason why I don't seek it out on purpose) and "kids have behavioral issues because of bad parenting" and "IEP kids don't belong at school". It's not helping my mental state AT ALL.

My daughter has been wanting to set up a vegetable garden for years.

The problem is that April and May are two of the worst months for me in terms of mental health (I get horribly depressed this time of year) and there is so much to do between birthdays, end of school year stuff, summer planning stuff, etc. There's also a bunch of extras this year (daughter getting several hospital tests/procedures, getting my son psychologically evaluated, my father slowly dying of cancer, and as if I weren't drowning enough I have fucking jury duty in the middle of it all) I am so overwhelmed and planning out a fucking vegetable garden and driving to the garden store is just too much for me.

Anyway, I was really freaking out from stress yesterday. Like on the verge of breaking into hives (yes my body does that when I get stressed it's so fun). And as soon as I was feeling better my daughter started in on this garden. My husband saw my reaction and seemed to start to take ownership of this task. I was grateful and relieved.

But today he was talking about it and I asked if he bought a garden bed yet to confirm that he was actually going to take ownership of this task. And then he got really pissy and started ranting about how he doesn't *want* to research what to get and how he's sick of the kids "coming up" with stuff for us to do.

The fucking mandacity to throw a fit while I've been absolutely drowning in mental labor for well over a decade now. Doing the research for every tiny ass little decision with no help, keeping this house and family running. And the one time I try to offload some of that he acts like he's just too fucking precious for such drudgery. I have zero sympathy. *Zero*

Told husband I wanted to get to Costco right at 9 because the executive member hour is only half an hour on Saturdays. He made a big deal about getting ready early. And now it's time to leave and he's fucking playing video games. Guess I'm going by myself.

No medical advice please.

Anyway, my teen has many conditions, many of which she takes medication for. Migraines. GI issues. ADHD. Sleep disorder. Heart condition. I don't love that she's on so many medications but its not like I take her to all these doctors for fucking fun. These conditions are things she has told me about that affect her daily life so I do my due diligence and take her to doctors. I'm always paranoid that someone is going to suspect me of munchausen's by proxy.

Today we went to her GI. The medication she's been taking hasn't been helping her symptoms. Doctor gives me a choice between endoscopy or trying a different medication. He adds "...but she's already on enough medications".

I don't think he meant anything by it but that little aside kind of broke me? More of a me problem but still.

I've already been getting huge burn out between managing my daughter's medical stuff, prescriptions, and constant follow ups and illnesses along with managing my son's AuDHD and everything that involves. I just feel like it's damned if I do damned if I don't and everything is my fault.

Tired of being the parent who does all the research into parenting a child with AuDHD and then getting push back when I try to tell the other parent that no, it's not a good time to lecture the kid when they are dysregulated, melting down, or actively trying to regulate themselves. That his processing speed is slower so he's not ignoring you by not responding immediately, he just takes longer to respond. Tired of grandparents refusing to stick to a routine and that some milestones will take longer for him to achieve. Trying to teach his teenage sibling that shaming him won't change him while trying not to be too permissive of him or dismissive or siblings feelings.

My AuDHD kiddo needs to try to poop *every* day. He never wants to go so we have to make him go sit at least. He doesn't always need to poop but like 95% of the time he does and if he doesn't go every day chances are he will soil himself and it's such a pain in the ass to deal with the dirty underwear and I also worry about it happening at school. He has enough social problems as it is without becoming the kid who shat himself at school.

His favorite thing is to go over to my mom's over the weekends. This is mostly great. Unfortunately my mom thinks being a grandma means she never has to have rules or enforce boundaries or correct shitty behavior (he went through a phase where he was always telling her to shut up when he was there and she was like '"it's not my job to deal with it"), or make sure he uses the bathroom or showers. And yet she will be like "why does he poop himself" and I will say "because he won't choose to go poop so we have to insist he poops every day, otherwise he will poop himself". And yet the issue persists.

This weekend he comes back and smells quite bad. His underwear is not only caked in poop, his pants are covered in poop to the point where you can see it from the outside.

HOW does one let it get that bad? And then my teen, who knows his issue, shames him for smelling. If only *someone* at my moms house would fucking help him remember and not let him put it off until he poops himself. Instead they let him shit himself and then shame him.

The annoying thing is tbe poop isn't coming out of his pants. I've just spent a fortune sizing up his whole wardrobe after a growth spurt. Ugh.