Month: December 2021

I had to give up adding diary notes yesterday evening. Charlie was just too agitated, following me around, making provocative statements and trying to see what I was writing.

She always wants to know who I am talking to and what I am saying. She was watching TV when I was downstairs with Sam, so I moved upstairs when Sam went to bed. Charlie stopped watching TV and spent 20 minutes just walking back and forth between upstairs rooms and being noisy.

She is obviously very distressed and was making remarks about wanting to go back to her parents in the UK and how it would be better. The UK is in tier 4 Covid lockdown right now, her parents are not seeing any of their other children and generally people are stuck at home during the latest surge in virus cases. I’m not sure how any of that is better than the freedom we have right now. But Charlie won’t think about any of that, she’s not happy and only a major disruption to everybody else’s lives will make her feel in control again. I give up trying to do anything at all and pretend to go to sleep in Ollies room. Soon after I hear the bowl of nuts being thrown off the dining table.

In the morning, the nuts have been badly cleared up and are all over the floor. If one of our children had done this, we would make them clear it all up. So over breakfast I ask ‘who knocked the nuts on the floor?’, the children all adamantly insist they are not getting the blame whilst Charlie stays quiet and lets it seem like it is the children again. She never bothers to clear them up and it’s left to me.

Charlie’s moody negative state continued into today. I am not sure what is triggering it but we had a grumpy day out at a nearby theme park.

Charlie was focused on her phone most of the way there and slow to get organised when we arrived. Eventually we got on a few rides and Charlie mentioned a ride she had been very disappointed not to get on last time so we headed over.

She was going to go on with Sam, but then Sam changed her mind and swapped with Ollie. Charlie was major anxious about the switch and started making out that Sam had wanted to go on the ride and how Charlie had only waited because of Sam. It was very uncomfortable and others in the queue could see Charlie being very obvious about her displeasure.

Sam & I snuck off to get some space and find other rides whilst Charlie went on the ride. But Charlie spent the rest of the day walking around making negative remarks which the children could hear.

By the time we got home, Charlie was in full negative swing. She has been in the room to “check” on me three times whilst I write this entry. She does various shuffling of clothes activities to make it look like she has a legitimate reason to drop by. Whilst in the room, she makes a lot of remarks about her past and things wrong with us and now. Then Charlie starts on suggestions that I don’t help enough. Of course I help loads, Charlie is provoking me.

It feels uncomfortable and I know she just wants a response from somebody so she can explode. Fortunately, the children keep quiet this time, they’re not interested in Mum either. I am shaking in fear, I really don’t need a Charlie outrage right now. It has been a good day and Charlie is just not happy that the focus hasn’t been on her for once.

Here she is again, back in the room to see what I’m doing. She insists she needs to be in the bedroom so I head downstairs, within 30 seconds she has followed me again.

Charlie has been mostly calm over Christmas. We have caught up with a few friends old & new. I have been very careful to keep away from topics that bother her, but it’s still hard to have any productive conversations.

Today, in the morning I was tidying up. Charlie’s office space was filthy with food trodden into the carpet and paper everywhere. I don’t know what was going on upstairs, but something about a game of Risk between Charlie & Ollie. I don’t normally play board or card games with Charlie because she is a sore loser, even when the children are present. When I finished tidying, I sat down to watch a few movie clips on TV. Ollie soon joined me of his own accord.

The next thing we hear is Charlie having a tantrum upstairs. There is lots of muttering and I hear the Risk game being thrown off the table. Ollie can hear it too. Eventually, Charlie comes down and sits with us watching TV with a face like thunder. I protest and ask what could I have done this time. Charlie replies that it’s Ollie who she feels has messed her around by not playing Risk with her anymore.

So OK, that has not gone well, but as a parent this is not the way for her to deal with her child. We’re constantly struggling with the children not handling their emotions, but when Charlie has angry outbursts and starts chuntering and then letting off steam at people, it sets a poor example for them to follow.

Yet again, I am not sure why Charlie being anxious today.

She has done three days training for a new job this week. Although she does like to make a fuss about how hard she works for three days versus my five days.

We have all been out today so everybody is a bit tired, I offer to cook tea, but Charlie insists on doing it. I clear off with the children and spend an hour tidying up the TV room which is filthy. It turns out when the children did it last, all the rubbish got shoved under the sofas. When Charlie calls tea, I don’t know what happened, but as the children went up, Ollie saw it was fake pasta (looks like pasta, but it’s made from rice) and immediately said he hated it. Not very polite, but it broke whatever was niggling inside Charlie. She threw his tea in the bin and took hers to the bedroom.

When I got there, I had actually asked her not to make me tea as I was going to eat up some left-overs in the fridge and I had talked about that with Charlie before she started cooking (I’m not a fan of the fake pasta either). But there’s a plate of food for me, Charlie is watching to see how I react, so I try to just sit and eat it. Everything I say even she is listening and trying to interpret as me being negative. So I shut up. Charlie sits on the sofa and starts complaining at the children about how unappreciated she is. How hard it is to go to work and cook food. I cooked the previous two days when we’ve both been at work and not complained, but I do not remind Charlie of this. She is clearly trying to offload her emotions onto Ollie. At first he responds, but I manage to signal to him to keep his mouth shut and he understands.

For the rest of the evening, Charlie is following me again, I really want to talk to Ollie and tell him what a great job he did of managing his emotions and not giving in to Charlie’s provoking words. But I can’t, even when Ollie comes into my room and is just resting behind me. Charlie comes in and tries to encourage him away. He’s not interested, of course his not interested. He knows Charlie is emotionally unpredictable and he doesn’t fall for it. He’s tired too and a ten year old should not be a dumping ground for an adults insecure feelings.

Charlie is being passive aggressive again. I have no clue why this time.

I am heading into the city for work today, all the children are up and calm. As I’m about to get changed, I shut the bedroom door as per our agreed privacy arrangements. Charlie always insists on changing in private.

Charlie knocks and I say it’s OK to come in as I’m not changing yet, I assume she just needs to get something. No big deal. But Charlie comes in, fusses around a bit and sits on the bed. I stall for a minute, but Charlie seems to think she’s staying. I tell her that I was about to get changed, maybe it wasn’t obvious by the closed door and me getting clothes out. Charlie starts arguing about who is getting changed, says I let her in. So I leave and get changed in Sam’s room, but I let her know that I will have my own house soon.

All this hostility is just nonsense on her part. So Charlie starts getting angry at me.. I have just called her out on trying to bully me. The children all hear and come running. I ignore Charlie and go to kitchen to pack lunch. Charlie follows. Funny she has not changed at all. As I head downstairs to say goodbyes to the children, she follows me down there as well. It’s ridiculous behaviour. It’s impossible to talk to Charlie about it, she always puts it back on me or other people, I hate leaving the children with somebody in this mental state.

I get home, a bit later than normal because I’ve been fearing Charlie’s mood since this morning. She is so hard to be around.

Charlie has a whole load of suitcases packed everywhere. She tells me she is taking ‘her children’ to a friends to stay. I can’t cope, I have no idea what to say. I talk to Charlie a little but she is twisting her stories and suggesting her issues are my fault.

She keeps saying that I threatened her and she didn’t like me filming her behaviour this morning as though that is the reason we argued. I try to say that actually, the arguing and filming happened at the end of a lot of her messing everybody around and being irrational so it can’t be the reason she was angry.

But Charlie is not taking it in, she has made up her mind that I need to be the bad guy and there’s no stopping her trying to enforce that revision of events.

Charlie changes the subject and keeps asking what we’re doing for tea and says it’s too late to cook pizza dough. It feels like somehow it’s my fault she didn’t cook what she had planned to cook. How am I supposed to know about tea? I have just walked in the door and had to deal with Charlie threatening to leave. I can’t stand around while she’s in this state and I am unable to reason with her. So I get some things in a bag and head on out. At least if I am away, she might decide to stay and deal with things rather than just offloading randomly onto me.

Charlie has continued to be very hard work this week. Yesterday evening she had a big fight with Ollie, I don’t know how it started but she was shouting at him as he asked her to leave him alone. Emotions were high on both sides, I stayed out of it at the time, but I managed to talk with both of them later in the evening and suggest they both listen to each other more. It was tense but it felt like they both backed off a bit.

This morning, I was heading into the office, I had told Charlie I was happy to drop Evan on the way to the train. Otherwise Charlie would have to get all the children in the car at 7am to drop Evan & come home again. So no big deal, I am up, Charlie is in bed and all is calm. Just as I’m getting ready to go, Charlie starts asking about cars. My plan was to drop Evan and then park at the train station so I could pick Evan up on the way home. But Charlie doesn’t want me to take my car, she says she wants it so she can go out with the children. I’m not really happy about this, Charlie’s car is fine, still plenty of space for 3 people. Although yes the my car is is newer and so on, but not to the point that it should matter for day trips with the children. So I agree to swap cars, but then Charlie doesn’t want me to take her car either because it has all her CD’s in. I’m frustrated, Charlie is now saying she wants both cars for pretty lame reasons. Then she says she likes mine because because it’s faster. But I repeat my offer to take her car, but Charlie is not happy by this point. I ask her for the keys on her keyring and she’s getting emotional, she goes inside and slams the door and I can hear her complaining about me. So I think I’ll just stick with the original plan and take my car, drop Evan and park at the train station.

Charlie comes outside and then starts opening all the car doors as I’m ready to leave, then she’s getting Evan out the car. All I want to do is take Evan to nursery and go to work, 10 minutes ago it was a calm quiet morning and now Charlie is telling me that I give her a hard time and making out that I’ve caused a problem. She was the one that got out of bed to start fussing over cars.

So I film some of her behaviour, she starts saying I am threatening her which I haven’t. I just want her to let me carry on with my day which didn’t involve her in any way. Eventually I get Evan into the other car, but all the children are stressed – I know our fighting stresses Ollie and Sam out because they have told other people this before. Evan is confused as well. I am angry at Charlie, if she had done nothing, there would have been no drama, but instead everybody is hurt, it’s 7am and I have no real clarity of what the actual issue about the cars was either.

It’s so hard, I just don’t feel safe around Charlie. She accuses me of all sorts of things. She has been hard work all week, even yesterday I brought her some drinks she liked and cream cakes to eat after the kids were in bed. I listened to her rant about Ollie and criticise his behaviour whilst I didn’t mention anything about her behaviour or how he is copying her. I’m trying to be nice and build bridges but she just refuses to see it.

She’s been negative all this week to myself and the children and it’s so hard to be around her. I fear for the safety of the children, I have no idea how long she will offload her emotions onto them or what she will say about me. At work, I decide to stay later just to avoid going home when I know Charlie will be there.

Charlie has been mentioning a bit recently that she’s not happy about her work placement. It’s just 5 days over only 2 weeks as part of her course but she’s not getting a lot from it. I’m not surprised at all when she wakes up and says she feels too ill to go into work. I believe the symptoms are real, but also that they are brought on by her own anxieties and emotions.

I get the children ready for school, it’s all calm and everybody is organised. I have dropped Evan at nursery, Charlie has so far stayed in bed and isolated in the room.

My next job is to put the washing on. I know before I start that Charlie will react, but I have no choice, it needs doing and Charlie is supposed to be at work. I top up the washing with a few smelly wash cloths from the bathroom, no big deal and I’ve been washing them every week for months. If I don’t, then the bathroom seems to slowly fill with more used washcloths. Charlie immediately reacts and says they can’t go in a coloured wash, I’m not interested because I know it’s been done lots before and there is no issue.

All of a sudden, sick and bedridden Charlie has lots of energy, she’s following me downstairs and angry. She says the cloths are all hers and refuses to acknowledge that they are the children’s. There is no gratitude for me sorting the children out, getting on and keeping things ticking over. Just Charlie trying to control the pettiest of things. Ollie & Sam see us fighting and are trying to split us up. I need to end the confrontation, but I am not going to be controlled by Charlie so I head off and get on with next tasks. Charlie is slamming doors again and I can hear her offloading her thoughts and rants at the children blaming me and saying it’s all my doing.

Basically, all the behaviour that Ollie has when he is angry, not listening, slamming doors and shouting hurtful comments. It’s there right now in Charlie. It’s a bad example and how can I expect him to handle his emotions when his mother is controlled by hers.

I had to give up adding diary notes yesterday evening. Charlie was just too agitated.

She following me around obsessively, making provocative statements and trying to see what I was writing. She always wants to know who I am talking to and what I am saying. She was watching TV with us when I was downstairs with Sam, so I moved upstairs when Sam went to bed. Charlie stopped watching TV and spent 20 minutes just walking back and forth between upstairs rooms and being noisy.

She is obviously very distressed and was making remarks about wanting to go back to her parents and how it would be better. Due to Covid, her parents are in complete lockdown right now, her parents are not seeing any of their other children and generally people are stuck at home during the latest boom in virus cases. I am not sure how any of that is better than the freedom we have right now. Charlie won’t think about any of that, she is not happy and only a major disruption to everybody else’s lives will make her feel in control again. I give up trying to do anything at all and pretend to go to sleep in Ollies room. Soon after I hear the bowl of nuts being thrown off the dining table.

In the morning, the nuts have been badly cleared up and are all over the floor. If one of our children had done this, we would make them clear it all up. So over breakfast I innocently ask ‘who knocked the nuts on the floor?’, the children all adamantly insist they are not getting the blame whilst Charlie stays quiet and lets it seem like it is the children again. She never bothers to clear them up and it’s left to me.