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You have done well to cope with so much. I had to get some help from our wellbeing service last year after a series of things on top of the usual challenges, having realised that I had reached the stage where I was not able to change my mental state. I remember reading of at least one previous regular contributor being on antidepressants.

Regarding homeschooling, are you able to let school know that you will be taking a break from supervision next week?

Me too I can remember several. I have therapy - started off with support from the organisation that my daughter was going to - telephone counselling - now I see her independently (or by phone at the moment) - it’s a life saver

@Bluemetro & @Safia, thanks so much for your honesty, I was beginning to feel like an adoption outlier!

Bluemetro, with regards to schooling, I have decided to keep sending DD1 since Lockdown 3.0 started as our relationship is currently so fraught and school seems to be her ‘safe perfect’ place, although, interestingly, the mask is starting to slip for her teachers. She was home for a few days last week due to snow and she did an absolutely unbelievably stunning job of (pretending to do) her work. Honestly, I sit, like a hostage, just a couple of metres away from the table where she’s ‘working’ on her iPad but she is so skilled at deception (amazing sleight of hand honed through years of stealing) that she utterly fools me and, generally speaking I am NOBODY’S fool.
We have more snow falling here now but I will be shovelling a tunnel through to school (8 miles away), I am that determined not to spend another nano-second ‘home-schooling’ her! 😅
@Safia, I have been offered therapy through our long-awaited/much fought for/last ditch ASF package, but the therapist can only offer me Zoom sessions and I’m concerned about building up a relationship with someone I will need to learn to trust implicitly in order to offload - but not face-to-face. I’d be interested to hear about your opinion of phone counselling, if you wouldn’t mind sharing?

I would give it a go - there won’t be anything else on offer for a long time - the person I spoke to was excellent and very experienced. She can pick up a lot through subtle changes in voice or tone. I’ve mostly had phone sessions though when I started seeing her privately it was face to face until lockdown - which was a bit strange at first! There are advantages either way - sometimes people find it easier to open up on the phone but obviously there’s the loss of visual cues. And you need to have somewhere you will be able to talk for an hour undisturbed. I’ve since trained as a counsellor and do both phone and face time / zoom etc. as well as face to face for a while. They all can work - it is about the relationship and commitment to do the work. Medication can take the edge off things but counselling can help make changes / accept a situation.

With the schooling - I don’t know your daughters age but I wouldn’t engage in her games if possible - if she’s very skilled at deception she’s going to win anyway and also maybe sees it as a challenge to find ways to trick you. And it’s not a good skill for her to have so not good for either of you really. I presume she’s going into school otherwise so I’m sure they’d understand - it’s her responsibility to do the work - so natural consequences if she doesn’t (though that’s a hard one as a parent)

Thanks for the information and opinion sharing, Safia, I really appreciate it. I guess I’m a bit resistant to Zoom therapy as we currently have a family support worker and now a youth worker allocated to us as a family (plus an arts therapist who makes us do things like announce our good news for the week while speaking into a 🐚 (yes, a conch shell). This is me (inwardly) at each session 🙄.

The family support worker and the youth worker are really lovely but all they do each week is phone me to find out how I/we are. Because COVID. Well, on the positive side of things, we’re all still breathing. Win win! On the negative side of things, I’m so run ragged being sandwiched between children and elderly parents also with extra needs that I don’t actually have the time to speak to actual friends. You know, people I genuinely want to talk to on the phone.

And if one more ‘expert’ has the bright idea of asking me if I’ve thought about not having the foods in the house that DD1 likes to ‘steal’ and gorge on (all the exotic things like bread, how very dare we!) or have I considered ‘locking’ things away (you mean like the wooden box of DD2’s birthday sweets I had to cable tie shut but DD1 still hacked at it to get to the sugar?) or the genius idea of giving her a weekly box of treats to ration out so she can control her own intake (yup, tried that too, this is especially popular with DD1 as it legitimises her sugar/treat consumption so she can enjoy her ration allowance in one sitting and then steal more, because the therapist said it was a good idea).

You are right about the school work, Safia, I should let her ‘fail’ more but she is a bright girl (won a place at a super selective grammar school) and it seems a shame to let her sabotage that as well as everything els, especially as she has a significant disability which will most likely limit her future life, independence and employment opportunities.

Anyway, I’m collecting my anti-depressant medication tomorrow so I hope to be in a more positive frame of mind very soon.

Thanks again for the honesty on this thread; I feel better for knowing I’m not alone in my experiences.

It’s hard isn’t it - and especially hard when you know she’s so capable - I was just thinking of the way you described her pretending to you she was doing school work but being deceptive in the way she is (/was?) when stealing - which must be so difficult and frustrating for you. Have you read Bryan Post the great behaviour breakdown? It’s ages since I’ve read it but I think it was quite helpful for things like stealing lying etc. It’s sounds like you’ve had a lot of “expert” involvement that hasn’t met your needs. Very often people don’t really understand if they haven’t been through it themselves - or can’t more like. That’s why the old AUK boards were so useful - there was always someone who’d been through something similar and could offer suggestions - and amongst the suggestions something that might help. As far as counselling is concerned - this is something just for you - no techniques or advice but somewhere for you to talk about your feelings where someone will listen and that in itself helps because it’s not all swirling round your head in the same way but just being able to express it all means you may feel more supported and may find a way forward that helps you. Give it a try if it’s being offered - if you don’t find it helpful at least you will know and can stop. Good luck with the medication I hope it really makes a difference -and takes the edge off things

Hi furcifer,

Sorry no words of wisdom I am afraid but just wanted to send you hugs. It is incredibly difficult parenting an adopted child and there have been times in the past when I was sure I was on the path to a nervous breakdown. So I think there are lots of adopted parents in this position and who have decided to go on medication . We are currently in a good place at the moment although I know it won't last. Since my ad has got used to being in lockdown her behaviour has really calmed down which has made me realise just how much school increases her anxiety levels and then we get the fall out in the evening.

So sending you strength, dealing with our children and all their problems, plus dealing with "experts" and their useless advice as well as schools and elderly parents - it all increases stress levels to unbearable levels so take care of yourself. Xx