I feel weak – my stepson makes me angry

My stepson is my trigger. True, I have felt a few symptoms of un-wellness of late: out-of-body, pessimistic, insular, agitated. Even this blog, which I have taken up frantically again as if the wind were at my tail.

Add then add two weekends in a row of the stepson being around which sent me off the handle. So now add to the mix:  highly irritable, angry, actually very angry, no focus, no desire to see anyone.  Watching myself as if in a movie.

I see my stepson and I want to push him out the front door.  Preferably not touching him – so perhaps with a chair. And tell him that if he ever swears in my house again, or with my kids, I will make sure he never sets foot here again.  This is my house.  I bought it.  If he wines like a six year old, is rude to his dad, doesn’t get out of his onesie all day with his headphones on, or writes fuck on my furniture, he is not welcome here.

No, I am not proud to be a stepmom.

CBT with Hubby was really working – I needed to learn to desensitise.  Stepson has behavioural problems and compromise is needed. Until suddenly there is a transgression – in this case screaming at his sister to ‘open the fucking door’ a few times – which makes me armour up as if my life’s security is under attack.  I am prepared to lose everything to protect myself and my kids.  Blended Family Bullshit doesn’t talk about Asperger stepkids and Bipolar stepmoms.

I remember once in London, living in a house-share with around 15 people to one bathroom.  I was in my mid-20s, having a big fat party over weekends, dealing with depressions during the week, largely thanks to my overuse of Ecstasy. The point of the story is that in one single day, I dissolved that house-share and started a new one around the corner, with a select few of the regular paying tenants. I left the dossers to fend for themselves in a house where there were gaping holes in the stairs and wind and water in the add-on rooms. With bills to pay.  I can’t even remember what made me blow up – something to do with my boyfriend (who was running the house-share) being short-changed by the dossers. So I acted.  Quickly and dramatically, and got a whole lot of people to follow me.

This story is one of many I could tell about how I can ‘whip’ and take myself and others down a very different path, based on a bruising or a slight. I know I can be dangerous, and yet, it’s also my strength, and I hold onto it like a shield.

Don’t mess with me boy. I am medicated and moving slowly, but I will move.

The rational voice in my left ear says – I am the adult, I need to solve my emotional problems, I need to compromise because I love my Hubby and this is his son.

The other rational voice in my right ear agrees with me – nothing to see here, the world is a revolting place, I have achieved my very best, I have had enough. All I want to do is mindless pottery. Or take Rivotril and sleep.  I am ignoring phone calls from Hubby and friends. I am the bitch from hell, who has no appreciation for everything I have, and over-reacting to the realities of life.

Oh, and I have a big job interview tomorrow.  Rats. One thing I can do really well is play-act. I can do that for an hour tomorrow, right?  People buy me because they buy my energy.  I hope I don’t stuff this up – perhaps I’ll take Ritalin.