Sadness....

So I am teetering on the edge of a nasty cliff of depression, which may seem like an odd place to be, or to recognize, but I have dealt with severe depression in the past, and I recognize the warning signs.  I have been fighting this path since around January, when it started to show up in pockets, but I had coped well with it, and had staved off any major bouts.  But the time the stress of the house renovations taking so much longer and costing so much more, the lease running out on the apartment in March, the kids having to live with A and A's extreme relapse into heavy, heavy drinking while the boys were living there (even though I was there during most of their waking moments)--well in March with all of that, i battled my way through a short bout of depression.  I was on the upswing again, especially from Mid-may when we finally moved into the house until late June.

It was late June when the school meeting for the boys revealed everything falling apart--all of the reasons that I had for staying in here, in this little town with no opportunities for me, no opportunities for the boys aside from what I thought was school situations that were good for them, no jobs, no potential mates, very few friends, very few people i can relate to, almost no other parents who have kids with special needs and can understand how different it is from raising "typical" children.  Nothing except some of my extended family, and now this monster of a house that I just renovated and sunk ALL of my savings and any backup funds into.  Thousands of dollars that I could have used to move to a more populated area and to use as start up funds while I worked on getting myself established in a job and a new apartment, and have time to deal with the mess that getting the boys into the appropriate school programs entails in a new school district.  But alas, g's school program was working beautifully for him, a perfect match--they had learned who he was and how to read him, and as a result he had a great, forwardly productive year, academcia and scoail growth were seen.  And I had counted on him being able to be in that program for another 3 years, which woudl have given him a solid base to grow and learn from, and prepare him for the eventual transition to a differnet program come middle school.  And i thought that Josiah's program, while not workign perfectly, we improvoing and that with the new imformation from the neuropsychological report and recommendations, that he woudl be able to handle staying with hsi current settinfg of main stream with both modifications an accomadations to help give him the suppor that he needs.

But alas, the state budget cuts resulted in G's classroom being cut completely, and so now he is goign to a brand new program that has never been attempted before in the school it is in, with new people, new place, new everything--which just sucks, as people seem to think the is CURED of his neurological issues just because he had a good year with the right supports.  Change the supports and he will show you that he was not "cured" of the incurable, he just had the right supports in place to meet his needs which is why it worked for him.  And Josiah--well, it is a nightmare that I still can not really bring myself to write about.  I think after a few horrible experiences this summer, he will be starting an appropriate school program in the fall, but it is going to take a while to really know, as he will have to learn to trust them and they will have to learn to read him and understand him.

I will have to drive him--an hour away, to this good program, as his behavioral intervention plan (BIP) calls for me to be able to pick him up within 10-15 minutes of their call if he has a melt down that they can not help him get under control.  So i will have to be nearby until we rework the BIP, but they have to have him there and get a better feel for him once he is settled in, to be able to do  a Functional Behavior Analysis and create a new BIP.

Finances are a mess, even with doing both freelance writing and more babysitting than I should be, I can not make ends meet.  I am falling behind in everything, and my car is not functional again, which means money that needs to go to basic living like rent, utilities, heat (it is almost heating season here), and food, now has to be rerouted to fix the car, which I have already sunk so much money into it is ridiculous.  And I have to break a promise to my children, which I vowed I would never do.  I had promises them we would go to the Magic Forest this year (a small amusement park for little kids) and if possible I would take them to teh great Escape (a large amusement park).  They have been asking the last couple of years, and I had really thought that this year we would be able to go, but finances fell through the floor when I had not planned on the extreme additional expense of this house.

But it is more than that--a disconnect from people, a disconnect from God, a disconnect from purpose that is dragging my spirit into sadness--a sense of having made a wrong turn and not seeing a way to make a u turn or to find a detour back to the right road.  I would love to get back to work, to have a set of things to do and get paid a set amount to do them at set times. I was look at entry level jobs in my field, and they start at over $32K a year.  But getting one, when I have two kids who need me to have a flexible schedule is very hard, especially as the reason I left the last career oriented job three years ago (when I was making over $37K a year) was directly related to an inability to balance my family issues with my work issues.

I just feel like no matter how hard I work, no matter how much I do to bring my children up and help them reach their fullest potential, that no matter how hard I try to eek out an income from freelance articles, babysitting, cleaning houses, and other little odd jobs--that I will never get ahead, that I will not find the fulfillment that I seek, that my life will not have a focus or a purpose.  I feel lost in a sea of sadness, and even trying to make new friends has just been a painful and confusing experience--and i have never in my life had trouble making new friends and building good, strong connections with amazing and interesting people.
I feel like all areas of my life are failing--financially, spirituality, emotionally, physically, as a friend, as a parent, as a human being....  I am trying to find the bootstraps that I can grab to pull my self up out of this mire out of this situation, out of this spiraling sadness---but I think my boots fell off in June and have sunk into the quicksand that I did not realize I was standing in...  I never give up, i will find a way through, i am just  having trouble this weekend moving past the cloud and getting out of the mire.