SINGLE MOM READY TO GIVE UP

I'm a single mom with two daughters. My depression has become bad enough that I'm wondering if I should give my girls to my ex. I'm on meds but I don't seem to have the energy to give them consistent parenting. They both had excessive tardies at school this year. Homework was non-existent. No matter what I tried they wouldn't do it. They fight all the time, refuse to do anything, and I can't muster the strength to deal with them. I have started hiding in my room away from them. I can't reach out to anyone anymore, I'm hoping reaching out to strangers will help. I don't know what to do. I have no family here. And a very powerful ex. He has lot's of money so they would be well cared for. I just don't want to hurt them by my depression. I have AS, so when it flairs up doing the smallest thing like laundry is painful. I just need help.

Hi 2lost,

Welcome to HealingWell and to the Depression forum. You will find a host of welcoming, compassionate people here.

I hope you will take the first step and make an appointment with a psychiatrist, if you haven't already. Depression is a medical condition above all else and should be treated by a doctor.

If you can find the strength, let me recommend some therapy to help get you and your girls back on track. Your girls sound like they're suffering too. Whether you give them back to your ex or not (although it sounds like that's the last thing you want to do) you should consider some family therapy to help them work through what's bothering them and get them back on track with school and with you. Don't hide from your children. They NEED you -- even as wounded and broken as you are feeling right now, they still need you. Instead, try explaining honestly what's going on, and ask them for their patience as you try to get better, and then show them that you are indeed trying to get better.

I can appreciate being knocked even lower by the AS. You've got to let yourself have days when you're just sick and low and not feel so guilty about it.

Good luck to you,
serafena

2lost,
When my kids were teens and I was suffering badly from undiagnosed fibromyalgia pain and depression I finally just broke down in front of my teens and cried. I told them that just a few years ago I had been their age and wanted to do whatever I wanted. I explained the responsibilities I now had, how I felt that their behaviour reflected badly on my ability to parent, how I was feeling like a failure, how I needed their help in keeping our family going.... Guess what? They rose to the occasion and jumped in and helped.

At one point I told my daughter that her choices in school were going to change her life journey. I wasn't doing this to her. She was doing it to herself. I used examples of older teens who had dropped out and now were lost in drugs and pregnant... She got the message that it was her choices that were plotting the course of her life.

All of my kids are now responsible, productive adults. Yes, I laid a guilt trip on them.... It worked. My grandpa was a Great Lakes Captain and as he used to say, "Any port in a storm!"