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Doing alright right now. Trying to combat feeling isolated along with trying to stay busy around the house to have a less cluttered home. (I definitely notice that accomplishing something during my day definitely helps me to feel less out of control/ more sane.) Still having trouble feeling unanchored, like I'm free falling and grasping at branches that aren't there, desperately trying to grab on to something to get my bearings straight.
Also, trying to cope at times with feelings of frustration regarding less than ideal relationship dynamics with one of my brothers. Right now he is mostly being a jerk. I don't like the way he's treated me, but it really ticks me off the way he's treated our dad, and his former foster parents. It seems like in his mind the world owes him something, so he doesn't need to abide by the rules set for him because he got a rough hand dealt to him. He has had a rough hand dealt to him, but that doesn't mean the world owes him a thing and I know he needs to grow up, unfortunately it looks like that will only happen for him through the school of hard knocks since he's been unwilling to listen to or respect the wisdom of experience of those around him. As much as I'd like to give him some of the knocks upside the head that he seems so desperately in need of when he acts entitled and selfishly, I am not looking forward to the crash and burn that I think it may take him to get over himself and wake up to the fact that life isn't fair but whining and tantruming about it doesn't make it any better.
I also realize how incredibly stupid and irrational that it is, but sometimes seeing my daughter demonstrate her own selfishness scares me because I start to fear that I've already failed her and that she will end up like my brother, the jerk. (I have 4 brothers, the jerk is the youngest of the 4.) What's more delving further into the irrational fears and guilt category, I feel somewhat responsible for my brother's poor character right now. I know I am not forcing him to make the choices he is making. That's all him. Yet I feel like I failed him. I remember thinking of him almost as my first child. He was born shortly after I turned 11. At that time my mom was really starting to be off in her own little world, so I tried to step up and be his surrogate mom. No one told me to, I just felt led to do it because I knew he needed a mom and our mother just wasn't willing/able to do that for him most of the time.
I realize that I wasn't entirely sane back then either. I was really depressed because I was really isolated, I didn't have a lot of affirmation, direction or structure/ discipline so I often felt like crap. Being the substitute mom for my brother made me feel worthwhile. I realize now that that wasn't healthy. I sort of understood back then too how trying to play mommy to him was detrimental to both of us because I was selfishly trying to find value as a person in a role/relationship that wasn't really mine to fill. Of course he didn't want to be held all the time because by the time he was a toddler he wanted to do what healthy toddler do- which is be more independent. He wasn't rejecting me personally, cognitively I knew that, but there was something about not having that dependence that really hurt me and I longed for. I needed him to need me taking care of him so that I could feel better about myself.
That was 15 years ago though. He's 18 now and we've only lived together for about 6 or 7 years total out of his whole life. He had just turned 5 when I was taken out of my home and put in foster care. Six months later he wound up moving to the other side of the country to live with other relatives to avoid being put in foster care too. That lasted 5 years, but then he had to move back because that arrangement was supposed to have been a short term temporary one and the relatives who took him (and another brother) in could no longer afford having two extra children in their household. My parents weren't able to take him back then, so he wound up in foster care after all. He lived in one placement for a short time before moving to another home an hour's drive from me. He (and two of our other brothers with him) ended up living at that home for 3 years. Then they got split up again, this time the older two boys moved back to be with our dad and the one who's being a jerk now moved in with me and my husband and daughter. (My husband and I became certified as foster parents specifically to help take care of him. We didn't need the certification for him to live with us, but having it allowed DHHS to help offset some of the expense of doing so. We had offered to take him in because we had space to do so and him living with us would allow for him to go to a better school district and better school than the one he had been at beforehand.)
He lived with us for 2 years, but then moved on to another arrangement. I used to feel more guilt about it because I had some depressive episodes while he lived with us where I acted in ways that I am not proud of. Also, I sort of saw it as another failure of mine. In high school I remember being angry and hurting about the fact that I attended a special ed school. I didn't like that because the school didn't challenge me academically, some of the student interactions were particularly frustrating for me because it was a special ed setting and I felt trapped there. I remember being mad and feeling also discouraged at the thought that I was too messed up to go to a regular high school. I was smart enough to be in a regular school and take honors classes and all that, but I lacked the discipline/ organization to keep up. Whenever I fell behind I got depressed and stopped functioning as a person. Hence how I ended up in special ed. Here again I felt like I was too messed up. If only I were stronger I could have met his needs and we wouldn't have gotten split up again.
However, I realized after he started treating the two sets of foster parents he had after my husband and I that his douche like behavior was a result of entitlement that he developed having grown up in foster care. It wasn't quite as personal to me as I had thought. However that stupid thought that's haunted me since I was a teenager keeps coming back to me, "If only you were stronger things wouldn't have fallen apart." Why do I keep listening to that?! It's inane! It's such crap, but it still sinks in, rattles around in my brain and often deflates me. Grrrr!
And now I know I've spent way more time writing and generally being nonproductive, but I had been needing to vent to someone.
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