Ok, this is probably the last place I should be posting about this.
My son had a visit with his father today. I chaperoned, because the person who was supposed to bailed at the last minute.
It actually went way better than I expected.
I'm still reeling. Basically, every time his father got anxious, he demanded I tell him he was doing the right thing. The pressure was crippling. Frankly I'm self medicating to try to cope with the pressure.
I keep trying to focus on how happy my son is.
It's going to be a long time for me to process this.
I'm cringing waiting for the email I'll get tomorrow - "It went so well, when can we do it again..." with no acknowledgment of how much work I had to do to set it up.
I feel like a selfish *****, and completely drained, and wanting to check out for maybe the next decade.
I can't imagine anything "self-care"ish I can do to make this better.
Time, a lot of time.
This is worth it, right?
To shield my son, make this seem normal, not let him know about the paranoid needy emails I had to wade through to make this happen.
This so dramatic, but I feel like a part of my soul has been killed.
So much I had to go through for 3 bloody hours.
They can learn from this, right?
Look at it like the blueprint on how visits can go for the future?
It won't always be this hard, right?