That's done it. I'm crying. Tony is being an absolute shit - Phillip is ....not well. He really is doing his best, but stuff just doesn't work for him. All the things I should have done years ago (you know, actually leave him before he really stuffed the kids lives) &c are haunting me big time. He [kindly??] offered Phillip a room in his new place when Phillip became unwell last November - when I realised that clear conversations about whether he would want to live with me again (Phillip, not Tony) were pretty meaningless when he became ill, and my home was now too small to offer anything to him.
I did actually hope that since Tony was now [by his reckoning] "well" and working [5 days per fortnight] and that he is now a trained 'mental health peer support worker' ... that he would be a help to Phillip and that being with family would be better for him than a share house.
Did I get that wrong!!! And this is Everest-wrong compared to earlier Mt Buller-wrongs [looks big, but not really].
Tony wanted him there so that he could have rent on the room and supplement his income. So as Phillip got worse and was less able to negotiate Centrelink, Tony became more and more difficult about wanting the money... money that I know Phillip didn't have. So he started staying at a mate's near my place (on the couch) and coming to my place for meals. It took me a little while to work it out, I'm ashamed to say. So he wasn't costing Tony anything except for space to keep his bed, desk, clothes and about half a dozen boxes of assorted stuff. Then last week - just before Phillip's birthday [Tony has such exquisite timing, doesn't he?] he told Phillip that he has to pay for STORAGE!! So now all of Phillip's stuff is either in my ceiling or my garage, and he is still sleeping on the couch at his mates. I said I wanted him to stay at my place, but he won't. I think it feels worse to sleep on the couch at your own mother's than at a friend's...
Tony took him out for dinner for his birthday [4 days late - on the actual day Tony told him to get his stuff out before he owes even more for storing another week], and on the doorstep of Phillip's favourite restaurant asked if he'd rather the cheap one up the road, and then when going over the menu asked if he wanted rice OR naan with the meal. It's possible that these were meant to be some kind of levity, but Phillip is way past the joke and it was just so unnecessary.
I feel devastated, and angry, and guilty, and useless. I try not to vent on Twitter 'cos Sarah is on it, and I just can't bring myself to bitch about him in her hearing. That tweet was when the whole thing was just too much for me.
Now I'm at work and I'm on the downhill run to 12 or so assesssments that I'm doing in a fairly short period of time. On the upside, the preparation is pretty intense, and once I start and get into the flow I can shut out most of my emotional crap. On the downside, all it takes is a phone call...
Sorry to dump like this...
So.
How are you?
