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 �what is Man? a miserable little pile of secrets.� - andr� malraux "i desire to live in peace and to continue the life i have begun under the motto, to live well you must live unseen." - rene descartes note random entry image credit design by : ilazarn ikmal powered by : diaryland |
tired, so tired.
2015-02-09 @ 10:57 a.m.
wow, two months since i wrote last? well, that first month i had literally no time to write, since boy's fucking license was suspended again (for the LAST TIME - if it happens again, he's on his own) and i had to spend my entire day in the car for the better part of the month. this second month has been me getting the house back together and being incredibly selfish since i am the only one who is going to look after me. listen, i love boy to death, i really do. but i have said it once and i will say it again. i know my value as a person and as half of a partnership, and if it comes to a point where i feel that i am half of a partnership but responsible for the whole thing, then we're going to have to reevaluate. i'd say little A (and his mother, they're a package deal, which explains most of it) is about 75% of the problem, and boy's ... lackadaisical attitude toward them both is the rest of it. i don't even want to get started writing about it, because it will take me hours and hours and make me very unhappy. but suffice it to say that she and her girlfriend (+3 kids by different fathers so she can do drugs and collect government benefits) are legitimately horrible human beings who really have no business even being allowed around children. and little A, who has no concept of what a real parent is all about, is regularly subjected to these "parents" who might as well be a couple of 14 year olds with cars and some money. seriously. little A is almost 12 now, in 6th grade - 7th in a few months - and is barely literate, is incapable of almost any level of self-supervision, problem-solving, decision-making, or self-care. he has incredible trouble following even casual conversations. you have to repeat yourself several times, speaking as though he's a very small child. he just can't comprehend complex sentence structure. every single day is like his first day on earth. the only things that he can do competently are eat and shit, but even the shitting part is too difficult for him apparently as he cannot fully wipe his ass (i have found countless pairs of shitty underwear, even shitty bedsheets that he just continued to sleep on top of for weeks). can't or won't, we still have no idea. but i am inclined to believe that after three years of living somewhere, having the same rules and expectations and routine every day, that at some point you would begin to pick it up. and with this kid it is just not so. after this long, knowing what i know about child development, constantly reading about age-appropriate milestones that he has not yet met, i honestly think that he is mildly to moderately retarded. that's the only plausible explanation i can come up with. when i was that age, if someone was like, "can you do [x]?" or "don't you know how to [x]?" i felt inferior. i wanted to impress people. i didn't want anyone to think i was a moron. i wanted to be an 11 year old grownup and show everyone that i knew everything! but little A seems to have no such drive. no curiosity, no desire to display his abilities even when there is a direct incentive. it's just like ... there's nothing going on in there. you literally have to give him step by step instructions to do simple things that we have done hundreds of times. we are going to the store? "okay, stand up. did you remember to turn off the tv? did you remember to turn off the stove (space heater)? now go put on your shoes. is it the winter? what do you wear in the winter? okay, now walk outside. yes, also get in the car." i mean, this is the kind of interaction i'd expect to have with a 4 or 5 year old, but here we are. but it's with everything. is it learned helplessness or is he really slow? i really don't know, but it's starting to really wear on me that no one else but me seems particularly concerned. of course his mother doesn't know or care, because she herself is functionally retarded (we've upgraded her nickname; hereafter she'll be referred to as satan). but it really bothers me that boy just blithely continues on, thinking that one day little A is just going to magically "get it," like he's just being lazy or something. i don't know man, i think at the very least we should have him tested. his level of incompetence seems to transcend laziness to me. i think that he genuinely has no idea what's going on. so yeah, that's why i haven't been writing much lately. i hate coming in here to badmouth a kid, but each and every day of my life is so infuriating and frustrating dealing with him (with absolutely no support from anyone) that i don't really have much else to say. it's exhausting. and then compound all of that with boy's troubles, and satan actively undermining us at every turn ... i really can't. i love boy so much, SO much. but everything that came with this relationship has been both the best and worst thing to happen to me. |