Emotional Support Sisters

I am in a conundrum. My mental health needs are in direct conflict with my children’s mental health needs. I have two different situations that do not seem to have a good answer.

The first is our dogs, especially the 10-month-old puppy. The puppy is destructive. She also has a lot of bodily functions that make lots of messes. The added stress of her destroying things and having to clean up after her, whether inside or outside is pushing me to my limit. My kids are not very good at picking up after themselves, which provides lots of material for her to destroy. My kids will only help with poop duty if I remind them many times and then actually start cleaning up. I want to re-home them to a family whose mom wants a dog, rather than a mom who got a dog because everyone else wanted one.  My girls on the other hand use them as their emotional support animals.  The dogs are their confidantes. They slept with the girls at night, helping them fall asleep easier. So do I continue to live at the edge of insanity and keep the dogs for the girls, or do I devastate the girls, by taking away their emotional support dog? There is no good answer.

The other situation I’m in is homeschooling. I pulled my son out of school for a few reasons. He was being bullied, he was overwhelmed by the noise and chaos a class of 34 produces, and he was falling behind academically because he was so overwhelmed.  He has mostly caught up, now. Because I am using a charter school to help fund the curriculum we have also been able to establish an IEP, which should we transition back to a traditional brick-and-mortar school will be very useful. The problem is that when we even mention going to a traditional school, my son goes into full meltdown mode. I want him to succeed, but I am also really overwhelmed right now. 

 It is a lot of mental effort to teach and run a household, especially when the mini-workers still need almost constant reminders to complete tasks. Right now, although doing better since being diagnosed and treated for ADHD, my poor brain most days is still creating error messages and sending metaphorical smoke out my ears. Finding a solution that keeps everyone happy and healthy is proving hard, especially when my brain only sends out error codes.

Missy