My Mister Fix It

Have I ever stated that Mark is a Mister Fix It? He loves to fix things that are broken and not working properly. I don't just mean things that he can tinker with and fix up I mean people too. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned how he helped fix ME! I was broken for a very long time.

Mark and I met online in an ICQ Chat room back in 2000. My girlfriend Denise introduced me to icq so that we could chat online. Although I used to think it was funny as we only lived a few blocks away from each other at the time but I installed it on my computer anyway. Then one day I accidentally found the chat rooms. I was hooked. So hooked that everything else took second place including my family.

Now that I think back it really was a sad time. My (now ex) hubby was not as attentive as he could've been. He was more interested in scoring dope than scoring points with his family. In fact he was dispicable with my Brodie, our oldest. Telling him that he wasn't HIS kid but mine and that Angus, our baby, was HIS. Can you imagine what went through Brodie's mind? This poor kid with Aspergers (mind you we didn't know at the time) being told that his own father didn't even think of him as HIS child. I can tell you that he most certainly WAS.
My Mum was extremely sick with emphysema, and had been for years, although she was adamant it was asthma! and she told everyone that it was. Now I am not making excuses for being like I was this is just a little background info.

By June of 2000 I was fed up with the boys father. When the GST began in July of that year I packed a suitcase for him and left it on the front door verandah. I used to joke about it actually. I said that when the GST came it that having a hubby was going to make things 10% more expensive. To be honest I was glad to have sent him on his way. My boys and I deserved better than him. It was worth losing a suitcase. What was even funnier was the fact that when I told him to go he went straight to my parents house a few doors up and said that I had kicked him out. What was my parents meant to do .. house him and feed him? They took him to my brothers home in the end.

It was around this time that I met Zaney and his g/f at the time online. Zaney being Mark's nickname when we met. We had a few casual chats in icq and that was pretty much it for a while. Mark was online during the week but was off living a life on weekends, when I seemed to miss him the most as I was home all the time.

Mum passed away in November 2000. It was an awfully hard time. I was working full time raising the boys as best as I could on my own with Mum & Dad helping out with child care. They were the boys primary carers while I was working with Victor helping out as much as he could. I was suffering from the working mothers guilt and it played heavily on me. Mum was my rock and now she was gone.

The following year was a mixture of working full time as a teacher, being there for my boys, gaining full custody of them (very much worth the $2000 I paid the lawyer) and being addicted to being on icq. I had friends in my computer. I needed them. They consoled me, encouraged me and helped me. They were there in ways that my ex-hubby never was. They helped me through my marriage break up, the death of my Mum, my now dread and hatred of working. In fact it was my friends online that helped me realise that I was depressed and encouraged me to go see my doctor. I am eternally grateful to them for that. Ena, Zaney, Lynxy, Rebbie and all the others that I cannot seem to remember right now.

In 2001 things had been tough. Brodie had been such a handful. Running away from home, being extremely defiant and still at that stage undiagnosed with Aspergers and ADHD. The boys father who had been helping a great deal with looking after the boys after school up and vanished two days after Christmas.

In January 2002 took my boys on a holiday to Victoria to meet Zaney & his g/f, Nazz. We loved it there. We were in a caravan park. It was in the middle of dairy country. There was no where for Brodie to run away too. It was peaceful. I even managed to survive the school holidays.
Before we went home to Adelaide I found out from my Dad that my brother, the extremely scary & abusive one, was now living at his home just a few doors down from me. I was too terrified to go home. So much so that I asked Mark and his g/f to drive back with me. That I would pay for their fuel if they would come with me. I was so relieved when they agreed.

The came back to Adelaide with me. While they were staying with me we talked about my moving to Victoria to live. It was a great idea. They were going to take Brodie back with them and get him settled to start school and I would come over with Angus at the end of the first school term. I had accepted a teaching position back at the school I was working at the previous few years. At least this way I could save some money before moving interstate.

The day Zaney and Nazz left to go back to Victoria with Brodie I went back to work. Later that night when I got home I found out that my brother, the nasty one, had committed suicide. He was accused of molesting his step-daughter. His friends had deserted him and he felt that he had no other options left. So he gassed himself in his car where he worked in Virginia. I had no idea he had felt that bad but to be honest after all he did to me as a child and as a young adult the less I saw of him the better. He was so horrible to me that I cannot even think about it without wanting to cry.

I didn't realise that I would feel the loss of his death as badly as I did. With Brodie gone, Dad going away on holiday over my birthday no less, me going back to work & no one about to really help me any more I felt lost. I ended up in hospital myself, on the psych ward no less. Mark came and rescued me. He told me what I needed to do to get out of the hospital and back into the 'real' world.

My Mister Fix It came to my rescue. He helped me pack up my house and move interstate. Although it would be several years before Mark and I got together as a couple. He was always there to help me when I needed him & still is.

Violent Outbursts

Temper tantrums seem to be a commonplace thing of late with Brodie. I'm a little frustrated here, well more tired and at my wits end if anything and struggling to get some form of 'normality' in the home. I know there is no such thing as normal but some peace in the family would be great.

Brodie is intimidating everyone in the family from his little brother, to me and now Mark too. I don't know what to do. He is becoming more aggressive, violent and he has a horrible case of potty mouth. The swearing that comes out of his mouth is shocking!! He towers over Angus and myself. He's an extremely solid kid too and has quite a bit of strength. Only last week he was pushing me about because he did not get his own way.

It probably doesn't help that Mark has Borderline Personality Disorder which, at times, can be a challenge in itself as they tend to clash a little more than they should but that isn't all that much of an issue really.

I've phoned our GCAMHS case manager yesterday and left a message. She doesn't work on Fridays so I wont hear from her until next week. I hope that she manages to phone early in the week.

We seem to be floundering at the moment and I want to be able to survive the weekend. We have tried everything we can think of from positive reinforcement of good behaviours, token rewards, removal of privileges, time out. I could go on but I think you get the idea and nothing seems to be working right now.

I've been thinking .. ..

I don't know how to put this in writing without the possibility of it being read the wrong way or taken out of context. I do, however, feel the need to write something.

Over the past few days I have been feeling awfully blue and I didn't have much of a clue as to why. So I did a bit of thinking .. not always a good thing for me it tends to get me into trouble! Anyway here's what I have been thinking about .. well mostly last night anyway just before I went to bed.

I know I am still coming to terms with the idea of being in a partnership (after all I had been on my own for 5 years) and I believe that I am doing really well adapting. I still have a lot to learn and most importantly I know I need to learn to communicate better.
Now don't get me wrong here, this is where I am worried that things may be taken out of context, but they might not be though. Mark and I have separate bedrooms and I totally understand the need for him to have his own space and for me to have mine. After all we all need to have a place to retreat to now and then even if it's just to contemplate our navel, read a book or whatever we feel we need this space for. However, there are times when I just want nothing more than to be held while I drift off to sleep. Now I am not the type of person who will jump up and say "HEY this is what I feel I need right now or this is what I want right now." I'll just go with the flow and let things happen even if things don't go my way. Oh I can hear you thinking well STOP being like that and speak up! I don't know if I can, I truly don't. You could say I am too timid or shy. Well I am in some respects but not in all.
Now Mark I know you are going to read this so please forgive me for not sharing this with you during our recent conversations. You know I have trouble sharing a lot of things. This is still a learning curve for me ~ for both of us really. I really don't want to screw this up. We have so much potential as a couple, as a family.

Another thing that has been occupying my mind a lot recently is how the boys treat each other and Mark & I. Well perhaps not so much with Mark, they tend to pay more attention to him than they do me. They always have.
They have been causing me so much stress of late with their behaviour, their attitudes, the stealing, the lying, the cursing, the swearing.. the list just goes on and on. I know that I shouldn't let the boys get to me like they do and I need to have more patience where they are concerned but they sure do know how to push my buttons and get me riled up!! I know I shall be relieved when school goes back tomorrow, I know that sounds awful but that's just the way I feel.

Also I know that I haven't been as enthusiastic about going to Church as I should be. I know it will be a good influence on the boys but I have the feeling it will be good for ALL of us. Including me ~ even if I don't show it.
I do know that once I was at Church today I felt better than I had been for the last few days. So that's a good thing, right? Who knows the more we go the better things might become for all of us.

Why??

Why is it when kids automatically say sorry that they think everything goes back to normal as if there was no problem in the first place? Why do they think that calling their brother names the right thing to do? Why do they think it is okay to run away from me instead of confronting what they have done wrong and talking about but instead they make it worse by taking off? Do they really believe that disappearing makes things better? They are only delaying the inevitable!!!

I'm so tired of the way the big fella talks to me and the rest of the family. He has absolutely NO respect for any of us. I am just so tired of the way he behaves. Does he honestly believe that people like how he reacts? Perhaps he has no idea how he looks to the 'outside' world when he behaves this way. I no longer have any clue as to what to do with him. I'm so frustrated and tired of all of this.
He's even had the gall to dump his girlfriend via an email. Come on where's the respect she deserves. I believe she needed to be told face to face. Not in an email. How rude is that? I thought I was raising him better than that. Obviously I went wrong somewhere!!

All I can think right now is he's off out there somewhere possibly getting up to mischief. He's not even a teenager yet .. .. I would hate to think what he will be like in a few more years! I just hope that he doesn't end up like my brother. If he does then nothing will help him. He needs more positive influences and I just cannot provide them at the moment, especially when he refuses to listen to me any more.

What am I going to do now??

Just the cutest .. ..

Yesterday just the cutest thing happened. The big fella got a phone call from a girl in his year from High School. They talked and talked for ages & she asked to speak to me, which was a first, and I thought it was just too cute. Anyway, Steph, asked me for permission to go out with the big fella. How cute is that?? To be asked permission. Of course I had to say yes!!

And there was the big fella thinking that he wasn't a good looking kid and nobody liked him! To be honest I've lost count as to how many girls have phoned him since he started HS. They've been making plans for the school holidays. I'm not exactly sure what the plans are yet though. I do know one thing though the big fella was wishing he was in the other Year 7 class so that he could spend more time with her. How cute!!