One of our members shared this blog post with the community.

Thank you Denise Graham for sharing your feelings with us. I know many sympathize with the feels you shared with us. Thank you for expressing yourself freely and for showing others that they are not alone in their feelings.

Ever since my daughter Ashley was inpatient for acute psychiatric care and she wasn’t allowed visitors, it is getting to me that there is no life for me right now.  No guy in my life dating me or even 1 prospect.  I don’t have my own space as I live with friends.  

The last 3 Saturdays I have either felt incredibly angry.  The lonliness has gotten to me all while feeling like an incredible failure.  It seems like life stood still for me.  Everything turned upside down as a single mom.  That friends have forgotten me too or just don’t get it or want to understand.  What is inside of me is just killing my soul.

At the same time, even with all this, it seems everyone I know, life has gone on.  Girlfriend after girlfriend with the next guy.  They go out to eat, the new car, house, gatherings, and more.  And here I am on a Saturday nite hearing from my friend that her and her husband had a date night.  Meanwhile, I am so embarrassed explaining I failed at not 1…2 marriages. I failed at a healthy relationship. I failed my daughter, and most of all I failed me.  Or that is what my head is telling me.  My heart had already been aching because I spent endless hours for weeks on end advocating for my daughter.  This, at the same time, getting what I needed to get done too, while gaining so little for my daughter.  All that time wasted for what??? All that work wasted for what???  And so little was gained for her.  I didn’t get all her services filled.  Barely anything was resolved.  Everything a complete mess, falling apart.

Now everything is unraveling, even though I worked so hard to attain it for the right reasons.  Now I am left with anger, heartbreak, embarrassment and more.  I can’t show that I am angry, that I am a failure, that I am embarrassed, that I feel loneliness, and my heart just completely breaking in half.  I can barely think, breathe or move forward when I still have to.  So I am doing everything to think positive, get past it move forward and keep going.

When I try to get it off my chest, others don’t want to hear it.  As a single mom, the loss of time, money, resources, and not having a sounding board or someone to share my day with is already hard enough.  So I don’t feel I exist or have a typical life.  Why not…I am constantly reminded by others that I don’t have a normal kid or a normal life.  That one cuts deep.

Then after spending all my time dealing with the hospital, exhasted.  Barely any time to think.  Barely time to breathe.  Barely time for me or what I need and want for me.  On top of that, I still have to give up stuff just to make what little I have last.  So I give up so many things.  I Now I feel like I don’t belong and more. My heart continues to break, and I am doing everything not to break, give up, and completely shut down.  

That is all what my head tells me when I finally had time to stop and think.  When I finally had time to take a breath.

Then I googled something after I was feeling all these emotions, thoughts, and this article came up.  There are too many people who have no idea what I go thru.  Being single makes it harder than being married and being married makes it even harder than being single.  So either way, it is hard.  I don’t feel I belong anywhere some times.  I know that isn’t true, yet I feel that way.  This article has an incredible way of describing what I never could really express in words to others.

This article spoke to me when I needed to understand what I was feeling, going through, and most of all, that I was not alone.  This the link to the article read, is an excellent way of describing the almost indescribable because of what I am going thru. When I say something, generally the answer is…I’m going thru (filling in the blanks).  Or the answer is…I understand because I have a friend with a (fill in the blanks).  

I want to be in a healthy relationship and feeling whole again.  I want my life is together.  I want to move on and have a better life because of all this.  I want so much more…this time for me.

I hope by sharing my story too, that others know too that they are not alone.  
Denise Graham
https://raisingtheextraordinary.com/isolation-special-needs-parenting/

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