Speeding Downhill

So my daughter seems very bright and breezy and convinced that everything will be OK. She’s been trying to joke with me that we’ll have a period party when the time comes but I’m not really amused. In fact, I’m seriously anxious. I’ve lost weight again as I just feel constantly sick.

Things haven’t been helped by the fact that my son, who up to now has been everything a mother could wish for, seems to be going off the rails.

He has been earmarked as a potential Oxbridge student and until recently he was doing really well. But all of a sudden he seems embarrassed by his success and has been going all out to impress his friends in other ways.

At the birthday/aftershow party we had a few weeks back, he brought some of his friends along. Not the usual boys he hangs out with who are very nice but some other lads who were very cocky and who thought it was funny to get drunk quite quickly, with no care that they were guests at my party and not at some pathetic teenage rave.

One of them even thought he could light up in my kitchen and I told him firmly that he had to go outside to smoke. Unfortunately, I noticed he took Kyle with him and I found out later that my precious son has been smoking for a while now.

That upset me.

My dad smoked heavily when he was younger and although he stopped eventually, I’m sure it contributed to the heart attack that killed him. I feel very ashamed that my son could be so stupid as to start such a pointless habit.

I told him the next day in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t happy and he promised me that he would stop. He said he didn’t know why he started and that he would put an end to it. Since then, I have noticed he smells of smoke when he comes in from school but he keeps saying that it’s because others smoke around him. I hate the lying and I told him I didn’t appreciate it, but he promised me that he wasn’t smoking anymore.

And then yesterday, I came back early from work as I had a headache and I thought I would stop by his school to see if he wanted a lift and there he was. Standing outside, with a group of scruffy little bastards, holding court, laughing and ….smoking.

I drove home alone and very, very angry.

When he got in, I said I could smell smoke and he just laughed and said very easily “for god’s sake mum, you always say that but I swear, I haven’t been smoking”

And then the red mist came down and I went into a rage.

I told him I saw him smoking with his nasty little friends and he said I was mistaken and I was so furious then, that I hit him. Hard. Round the head. And then I pulled his hair and yanked his head towards me and smelled his breath, and then hit him again.

I don’t know what happened after that but Ewan came down the stairs and shouted at me to calm down and I started shouting at him too. And, oh god, the whole evening descended into hours of real and bitter fury as I spewed out all the bile that seems to have been hidden so deep within me.

I hate myself so much

Today all I can think of is Kyle’s face when I went for him. Why did I do that ? I never hit them when they were growing up. I’m not part of the anti-smacking brigade but I just never thought it was the right way for me to parent as I was raised on regular, hard beatings from my mother and it never solved anything. Why did I hit him? Why did I get so angry?

I’ve realised today that however much I thought the therapist has helped me all this time, he hasn’t really. All these negative emotions are still there within me and they’ve never been resolved.

I feel so worthless, so drained. I don't want to get out of bed. If I could stay here forever I would.

I feel like I’m on the edge of something huge. That if I wanted to, I could let just go of what little control I might be holding on to and fall into a complete mental breakdown. Even as I’m writing I’m not sure that won’t happen. Maybe I should just walk into my local hospital and ask them to section me.

Before leaving for school just now Kyle came in and left a letter on my bedside table, apologising for lying and for making me so angry and pledging never to smoke again and promising to focus on his studies once more.

Trouble is, I don’t feel very forgiving even though I should be the one saying sorry. Instead I’m still angry – at Kyle, at Sasha, at Ewan, at my mother …….but most of all, at me

The therapist told me right at the start of my treatment that I had to learn to like myself. I thought I had but in truth, I don’t think I ever will

I despise me