Summer vacation and being unfairly judged
Almost two weeks ago the summer vacation started, and this year I have a plan; I needed this because due to autism I need to know what I can expect and also with adhd it’s more difficult to think ahead. So when I don’t have a plan, I get more easily overwhelmed and I try to avoid that state of being as much as possible.
Last year we had planned to go camping for two weeks. I was really looking forward to it, but due to pmdd I was extremely exhausted and annoyed by stupid little things from my husband which made the vibes .. not very joyous.. it was really sad because it was also our first vacation as a family and since 2020. Our expectations were not super high but still, we expected it to be more fun. After those 2 weeks my husband had one week left, and after that, 3 weeks until school would start again. I tried to plan ahead for a babysitter (my mil) because she had told me in the past that if we wanted her to babysit, we need to ask her at least 2 weeks ahead. So I did that, but she was already fully booked.. so I had nobody else to babysit (I asked around, but me and husband are not comfortable to go on internet to find someone, we want to know the people and we want to trust them with her, so our circle is not very wide).
So in these last weeks there was one day where I was extremely overstimulated and asked in the family app if someone could please help (I told them I was really not okay and could not properly take care for little one), no one could help. Later I found out that mil was at a fair, near our village. But she didn’t take my difficulty seriously and basically told me that she also had difficult times with her children and was tired all the time and that I just should suck it up.
That, among some other of these kind of interactions with her about babysitting and me being autistic and in burnout, suddenly took her off the high place I had for her in all these years. I always saw her as my second mom, and took her words seriously. But in my lowest point, she was convinced I was just lazy. She came between me and my husband with nasty words about me that my husband believed, causing him to treat me badly. But gladly my husband also began to see this, and started to stand up for me.
It took me a year to come to terms with this behavior, and I’m now in a place where I’m just ‘whatever’. I know not everyone takes problems like mine seriously, like I make it all up just so I can be lazy. They don’t know how frustrating it is to want to do things but my brain is making things so specific and complex that I actually need help from other people a lot of times to get me started. That’s not laziness, that’s just another operating system, and that doesn’t make me less. But she, and others in my life, had made me feel like I was worthless.
My husband is really my hero, even with all the difficulties, him needing to really step up and basically do most of the caring for our family and household, he always stayed loyal to me and is willing to see his own faults and work alongside me. But the biggest thing for me to feel loved by him was him standing up for me with his mother.
I truly hope one day I can forgive her, she is just human, but it’s not magic and it takes time. I’m also just human.
Until next time, Verity Voron