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@Heather225

hi welcome listeners I am ButtercupDaisy I hope your all having a good day 

Hi everyone 🤗 Hoping to make some new friends on here to chat to and get to know. Anyone over 40 on here?

@Heather225 Hello Myself Sneh. I love listening to people. I believe in humanity helping each other and growing together.

Hi!
I've been blessed several times with the support of some listeners, but I never introduced myself. 

I live with a woman and 2 boys, or young men, 14 and 19. All 3 of them are Asperger's, but the youngest has rejected any attempt at diagnosing him, so not confirmed. 

I love this woman, and we were a couple once. But years ago I felt she left me as soon as we moved in together. She sleeps in another room since then. And I felt I was only an asset to take care of the kids. This is not black and white. Sometimes she shows me affection or tells me she loves me... And I know people in the spectrum show love in different ways... But I can't never be sure of what's in her heart or head, I only know how I feel. And I go to sleep alone, and I wake up alone, and I can't count on any of them. I don't know any given day if she's gonna speak to me or hate me. While I always try to be there for them (I don't go out, or to the gym... Just go to work and visit my elderly parents once a week). 

So I started with love and hope. I wanted to be her husband and a father for the kids. We started like that and I took a raincheck on her love for me. I took them "on credit". This was 10 years ago. This never came, so we never married. The kids were unrully and frustrating, but we had a good relationship. Although she took my worry about them not acting "normal" as if I didn't love them enough. Also the 1st 6 years she told me very often that they were planning about leaving. So I didn't know my place, I tried to be there for the kids, but not knowing if the next time I got home they would have left. I kept her secret and I acted as if everything was fine in front of the kids. After a while she would say it in front of the kids too. 

A couple of times we talked and she asked me in a weak moment and I told her I couldn't take it anymore. Or she told me "maybe it's better if we go on our separate ways" and I said "maybe". Those two count like me abandoning them. The 200 times she did it, don't count. I never left and I never stopped providing. 

The 2nd time we agreed that we had a future as a family only if we were a couple. I had lost hope for that years ago, but she agreed, so I stayed.  Nothing changed. 

That's my personal story and my whinning. But it pales in comparison to their story. So my problems always feel like petty and selfish. And I try to silence them. But they come to the surface, because my life is passing by, and I feel defeated and lonelly, and depleted of energy. 

They came from an abussive father when I met them. They didn't get a lot of help from the State, and her family only offered her a floor to sleep the 3 of them (her, a baby and a 6 year old). After I took them in, she had trouble finding and keeping jobs because there was always some emergency with the kids. They've been very dependant, and she wanted to compensate the lack of love from their father and her family. I suported that, spending all my salary and burning my life savings. But mostly our family time was positive. The kids adored me. But they were very nasty to each other and to their mother, so I was the one often lecturing them. To me they weren't agressive, but only very disrespectful, talking to me like I was their pet, not a father figure. 

As they got older, it became more and more difficult making them go to school. They needed a push and a long fight everyday to go, since the beginning, but reaching the teen years, almost impossible to win that fight. She is tiny, and I was already at work for those fights. Without school the older brother started leaving everthing behind. And he reached a point where the last shower and change of clothes was a month ago, and his last meal touched, 4 days ago. He was either unresponsive or very agressive when we talked to him. So we took him to a hospital.  

They had been in therapy since they were little. But they started to take it seriously after this. He got his diagnosis as Asperger, and the medication triggered his 1st hard epileptic episode. They also found a brain malformation and a genetic deffect. He was twice more in the hospital, and in a program... But when he turned 18, help was over and a new team of doctors took over because he's not a kid anymore. He's been at home since then, not studying, not doing any workshop, nothing, he's like a homeless person in our coach, and again, he can't talk about it. He does the minimum not to be an emergency. 

Now the younger is taking the same road, after he turned 14. And his doctor wants to put him in a hospital, but the mother refused. 

She, the mother was diagnosed as Aspie when searching for help for the kid. We had an interview as parents, and the specialist said "Maybe your kid is, but YOU are textbook Asperger's". She is also anorexic, and was before diagnosed as "General anxiety dissorder" and "Borderline PD". She cries several times a day, and when she's not attacking me, I just want to protect her. 

We've been in suicide watch since the older kid was 14. I've been talking HER out of it without anyone else knowing almost since the beginning of the RS. 

Older kid lost contact with the world when she paused her full time mother role because she started a job, thinking the kids were a bit more autonomous. The people involved tell her now she can't work, she has to take care of them 24/7. 

Here skipping school is agaist the law. So Social Services came to our house, some helped, but mostly just talk and ask questions we don't have answers for. Police came a couple of times. And after a fight of the younger kid as school, we were put in a program where they watch us in case we are horrible parents. We had some money help pending because the older kid was labeled as disabled, but when we got flagged in this program, that money was frozen until our family is cleared about it. This label as bad parents almost kills her, she almost doesn't sleep since we are in this program. 

The kids can talk to me about movies or videgames as if I was their friend (although they are not interested very often). But the moment a topic of real life comes in the conversation they leave, or get angry, and leave. I got tired of asking to do things with them and they refuse. So I asked less and less. Until I'm at a point that I need to save some energy for myself, to be able to get up the next day and go to work to put a roof over their heads. 

So our daily life now is that mostly nobody talks to nobody, she offers help, and plans and food with sweetness and love, and they treat her like a slave, and they are very rude to her, often cruel. We all feel like life is not worth living like this. Last month we started taking walks, she and I, and was nice, and our mood improved a lot, but then she felt she was neglecting the kids by doing that. And got resentment towards me. 

The last conflict was that I doubted it was the right decission to refuse the order of the psychiatrist that the younger kid was to stay in the hospital. I told her in private, not in front of the doctor. She's not talking to me. 

She's told me several times she has applied for social housing to "get out of my hair". And I'm not sure it's true, but I haven't stopped her, not begged them to stay. I don't know what's the best thing, but I know continuing like we are, it's not. I don't know if I'm part of the problem, or if I've enabled this situation, or just being in the picture and giving her a target for her frustration that doesn't fix anything. But in any case, I don't have anything to make me believe that I'm the best for them. 

If she dies, I can't work and watch them 24/7 until I die. And I'm so alienated from them that I don't want to, they have a biological father. If I die, they find themselves on the street. So they need a plan B and I can't opose that. 

anyway, what a mess, right? My friends and family got tired of telling me "you have to think about yourself", and get overwhelmed by my frustrations. Therapist, and even a priest, told me to leave. 
Only sometimes partners, or parents of people with BPD understand that I stay, because they've stayed too. But I often have no one to talk to and anxiety builds up, and I think I'm going to break. 

Thanks a lot if you managed to read all that. 

Hello all, 

Im a 51 yr old divorced white male living in the Southeastern USA.  Struggled with anxiety/depression and PTSD from my divorces.  Just spent 8 years away in prison and now trying to put my life back together one day (sometimes one minute) at a time.

Im new here but I can be a good listener if someone needs an ear.  

Looking forward to chatting.

@Heather225

I’m a apprentice 6 now and I’m hoping your having a good day everybody god bless 

Hello everyone, you can call me Comfort! I would like to ask you today what color you associate with? 

Today, I associate with the color beige, which for me, means neutral or calm. What about you? :)

My name is Cory,

Chatgpt helped me find this place. I've experienced trauma and abuse. Some days I feel like nobody could ever love me. I'm painfully lonely at times

Hey, I'm Aliha, joined as a listener here. As a psychology student this platform has really really been great for me, when I found out about 7cups I knew it was totally for someone like me, someone who's all about mental health and psychology.

Along with my own personal growth, great professional learning on several mental health topics, I've found some amazing communities including this one, where I believe the idea of getting stars for helping others and doing little tasks throughout the week is totally worth it.

I'm really enthusiastic about connecting with others in this community and to contribute my strengths for positive changes.