Charlie has been out at work for the day. I come in with the children and a plan to cook tea.
It all starts well, until I get out the salad that Charlie saved in the fridge yesterday. Charlie says she’s wants a new salad and makes another one basically the same as I the one I just got out. She is humming as she does it. I know that is a sign she’s anxious, it’s like a ‘I know I’m being cheeky hum’.
Over tea, Charlie says she doesn’t eat potatoes (she always did until today). and basically ends up going back to the kitchen replacing most things on her plate.
I am feeling offended about her reaction to what I thought would be a nice meal for her after work. After tea, she’s walking around talking loud about the things she’s doing. As soon as I mention sorting Sam next, Charlie goes to find her first and jump in. So I bail out and go and do work outside for nearly an hour to get out of the way. I hope that will move her on.
It doesn’t work, when I come in, I start off downstairs with the kids & TV. Ollie goes to bed and as soon as I go up to say goodnight, Charlie is there with us in the bedroom and starting a fuss about some things he’s put on the wall. I challenge Charlie that she is following me, she strongly denies it. Ollie is almost in tears over us fighting again, but I do not know what to do. Charlie is making it impossible for me to have a relationship with the children.
She leaves the room but hangs around close outside, I can hear her creaking the floorboards. Being stalked feels surreal and creepy.
I finish saying goodnight and try to head to my room, Charlie is still muttering about me and making remarks to Sam. I can’t handle the tension, so I get some bits and go off in the car for an hour. When Charlie is anxious, there are no good conversations, she just wants to offload a ton of emotion and expects me to agree with her distorted views. She’s been questioning Ollie on why he’s not going to year 6 camp. He’s in year 5, but his class is a 5/6 class. Everybody else understands he’s still a year 5 in a composite class. Charlie is determined this means he’s a year 6 now. It’s not fair on Ollie to get these confusing messages.
When I get back, Sam comes out of her room to say goodnight, Charlie is immediately with us telling Sam to go back to bed. I am being followed everywhere and harassed. I try to be clear with Charlie that I want space but she isn’t processing it. She hangs around the room asking different questions, ‘where did I go?’, ‘did I get something?’, ‘ was it about here?’. She won’t give me space to write my diary. Ollie gets woken up by the conversation. Charlie is now walking around the house spitting loudly on the floor and clearly vexed. She want’s reassurance that everything is OK, but I can’t lie to her about that.
She is asking if I had a bad day at work, she clearly has no appreciation of how difficult she has been this evening. How she is constantly disrupting my relationship with the children. I notice she’s repeated her new trick of leaving bloodied sanitary towels visible in the loo. It’s disgusting and all along she is in a bubble where her behaviour is normal and everybody else is out of line.
I eventually escape to sleep in Ollies room. Charlie is pacing around the house as I fake sleep. She is clearly emotional, muttering different provocative things which I am ignoring.
I remind myself that am not here to deal with the level of emotion she has, and how one sided it is. She will not accept how her behaviour impacts on others, and that makes any honest discussion impossible.