I went to NB to visit my kids and grand-kids back in September and, for the most part, it was a hard visit. First was my oldest daughter. All was well with her, she’s looking forward to becoming a full time teacher. It was a brief visit over pizza but we had a longer visit one evening out at my parent’s cottage which was so nice. Conversation was easy and pleasant without resorting to small talk, neither one of us can stand it.
Second was my younger daughter’s baby shower. The poor girl was not feeling well at all. In addition to depression and anxiety, she shows symptoms of PTSD surrounding her pregnancy. She had a baby who died within hours of being born and she had a miscarriage some time after that. At the shower she explained that she had ketones in her urine so she felt crappy physically too. She had a bit of a meltdown at end of the baby shower. I did my best to comfort her, there was really nothing else I could do for her.
She and her husband have various active stressors at the moment. Some are financial, some are work-related and some are due to this pregnancy. I guess you could say, “that’s just life” and you wouldn’t be wrong but I think that’s kind of a callous attitude. A situation like this calls for a more empathetic attitude. I know what it’s like to be overwhelmed by so many things at once.
My granddaughter is showing signs of high anxiety, possibly PTSD also. She had a little meltdown at the baby shower too. There were other kids there and they were making a ton of noise. I think it just overwhelmed my granddaughter and she needed to step away from the chaos for a moment. Not only that, she was separated from her mother while her mother was in the hospital for months during the pregnancy in which the baby was born live but died within hours. Not to mention the miscarriage and witnessing my daughter’s mental health struggles after that. I can see how watching her mother struggle through this pregnancy would be very triggering. I am concerned for my granddaughter but she does have a counsellor at school she talks to.
My son and his two partners are going through a break-up, which is never easy. It was awkward visiting him at the his children at his former partners’ home. One of his partners (the mother of his two children) seemed very depressed and more than a little detached. I met the second partner for the first time under these circumstances and like I said, it was very awkward. The children don’t really know me right now but when they are older they will. Their interaction with me was minimal.
The two women and kids live way out in the country and don’t drive; their apartment is tiny and grungy; the whole building could use some TLC or a stick of dynamite. It’s about what you’d expect someone on welfare to afford (I’m not making a judgement here, I can tell you that welfare is really not enough to live on). I was saddened by the whole situation.
The women are now drinking and my son suspects they are having sex with their downstairs neighbour, and leaving the sleeping children alone in the apartment (with no smoke detector) upstairs. They only take the baby monitor with them. There’s more but that’s a whole other post. At least with the older child in school there are more adults involved, who should be able to pick up on signs of abuse or neglect. I don’t live close enough to keep my own eyes on them.
My mom was away at a nephew’s wedding so I visited with my dad a couple of times. I was grateful for the use of the car and cottage for my NB visit, and for the couple of hundred bucks he threw my way, but for the most part he was quiet and I felt uneasy. My dad specializes in small talk so my visits were brief. I guess there wasn’t much to else say.
Yeah, this year was a hard visit.
My Phoenix Rising 