[onmyway]

Hello there. A little bit of history; i have 7 kids, 3 who live 3hrs away with one set of grandparents, and 4 who live here but with another set of gparents, as i have a lot of healing to do before i take my kids back. Today my oldest 3 will be coming and it'll only be the 2nd time in almost 5 months that i've seen them. As well, all 7 of my kids will be there, along with my mil who is very unpredictable, passive-aggressive, and likes to give backhanded insults.. we have a very strained relationship. One of my diagnoses is severe anxiety disorder (generalized and social anxiety). The party is going to be with all of HIS family (my ex/father of kids).

I am worried about; 1) if all 7 will be overwhelming for me to deal with, as it;s something i'm not really used to and stimulating environments really peak my anxiety; 2) being around mil, particularly because we have court over the kids this week and talk of this is likely to come up.. and just the situation in general.

What i need is HELP! on how to get through with minimal panic. (or overwhelment). Coping techniques? Words of wisdom? Support?

Thanks!

[Perna]

Take one person at a time! (Don't tackle thinking about all 7 kids at once like they are going to ring you and all start talking at once :-) Think about the people who are going to be there and figure out which 2-3 you like/feel most comfortable with and contrive to be around them the most. Maybe suggest a walk or other outdoor activity with some of the younger kids so you can get out of the "press" of all those people and feel a bit freer and less needing to talk, have younger people around who I find less difficult to be with, etc.

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by onmyway

As well, all 7 of my kids will be there, along with my mil who is very unpredictable, passive-aggressive, and likes to give backhanded insults....

I'm not sure if your mil's insults are like anything I'm picturing, but how I deal with a backhanded insult tends to depend on its level of backhandedness:

If it's backhanded enough that it can be understood in more than one way, I choose to understand it in the way that suits me best and respond accordingly. The first example I can think of is pretty darn dumb but it may have to do for now. I think I got it from a list of things not to say to anyone you want to date again, years ago:

Q (theirs): You sweat less than any fat girl I know.

A (mine): Why, thank you!

Having to explain a joke usually makes the joke flop, and I'd expect the same to apply to an insult. If the person offering the backhanded insults is frustrated enough at your failure to understand, they may dispense with subtlety and switch to frank insults. At that point you can gently ask, " What's going on?"

[Cyran0]

onmyway, looks like I got here a little late to be of any help but I hope the day went ok and you're doing well.

Cyran0

[onmyway]

Thank you everyone!

Perna, it actually turned out i was not as overwhelmed by the kids as i may have suspected. Yay me for progress! .. I think.. it did help, of course, that the respective grandparents where all the kids live also did a lot of the 'care taking' .. i tried to do what i could but they are just so used to it that often they'd jump in without even thinking (not saying that's bad, just saying, 'how would that have gone if there weren't so many others there helping?'.. but in the same token, large groups of people/noise/stimulation freak me out, peak my anxiety, so i guess it's still a plus \)

Fool Zero, i'll give you an example of one of her backhanded insults from yesterday -

Her (talking to someone else about how my son is doing in school, while i'm standing right there) : He's come such a long way. The school is absolutely amazed at how much progress he's made since he's come to me, and they think it's because i put in so much effort to help him catch up. He's still not at grade level yet, but he's close, and he's improved dramatically from where he was (pause, glance in my direction, pause) before. And they absolutely credit it to my willingness to work diligently with him to help him learn.

Of course, if i were to have said anything, *I* would come across as aggressive, and she could deny all plausability and say, 'what are you talking about? I was just mentioning how he's doing so well' .. So i said nothing at all.

Thank you CyranO

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by onmyway

Her (talking to someone else about how my son is doing in school, while i'm standing right there) : He's come such a long way. The school is absolutely amazed at how much progress he's made since he's come to me, and they think it's because i put in so much effort to help him catch up. He's still not at grade level yet, but he's close, and he's improved dramatically from where he was (pause, glance in my direction, pause) before. And they absolutely credit it to my willingness to work diligently with him to help him learn.

I'm picturing at least four different issues kind of tangled up together here:

-- What's going to work best for the kids.

-- What a good job she seems to be doing and how impressed the school is with her efforts.

-- Competition and/or other unfinished business between her and you. She seems to be saying that she's doing better than you did.

-- How you're going to hold this and what you're going to learn from it. It wouldn't do anyone much good for you to decide, for instance, that she must be better than you at school stuff so you should just give up. Neither would it help much to decide that she's taking advantage of the kids to get back at you and has to be stopped at any cost.

I don't think either of you wants to use the kids as pawns nor prevent the other from doing whatever is good for them. Even though this might look to you like letting her win, you may need to start by staying out of the way for a while, acknowledging whatever she's doing that does seem to be working, seeing (when you're ready) what you could do to help, and working up gradually to taking on more. If you were to pressure her to do something your way or to let you do more right now, she'd probably take it as a challenge and feel obligated to treat you as a threat. It sounds as if she could pretty easily frame the situation as what's good for you versus what's good for the kids, with her as the advocate for the kids. If you let her find out at her own pace that you're not really a threat to her and that you can both contribute to the kids' wellbeing, she might eventually have to choose between what helps her feel better and what's good for the kids.

I could probably have used another week to think about this, but then there'd be the very real danger that I'd forget about it entirely.