It wasn't supposed to be like this

There's a TL;DR at the bottom. I'm an only parent to two adopted (almost 8 and just turned 5) daughters who are not biologically related to each other either. My ex and I got them at birth from the state foster care system and both were born drug exposed. Both have special needs. My almost 8 yr old, who was more severely exposed, has severe ADHD, mild (atypical) autism, and sensory processing disorder, as well as specific learning disabilities in reading, writing, and math. My 5 year old is hearing impaired and wears hearing aids and obviously there is a communication delay. When my younger daughter was 19 months, my ex husband, who I'd been with for 16 years, was arrested for possession of child pornography. I had no idea! It destroyed my world. He was my best friend, my soulmate, my anchor and he had been looking at, downloading and then uploading child porn since before we met. I learned that he married me because marriage is what you're supposed to do anyway and hopefully I would make him want to change. My biggest fear, as he knew, was to be a single parent. I watched my dad be destroyed when my mom left him for my stepdad and he was never able to be there emotionally for us again. My mom put her husband above us always...even if that meant not seeing us for weeks at a time. Eventually, when we got older, around 8-10, my stepdad, who'd been around since we were 3 & 5 finally came to love us and they became parents. To add, seven months after my ex's arrest I met a guy who made me feel like a queen...until he and his daughter moved in with us. Then, for one, all of our collective trust issues collided. Still, we stayed together and made ourselves a family unit and it worked. Then, he got cancer...he died four and half months ago. I have NO real help now. I'm alone with my kids all the time. I've been diagnosed Bipolar and borderline personality disorder, with generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks. I can't work but I can't qualify for disability because I can care for my kids. So now I'm the emotionally unavailable one to my kids and I hate it...I just want it to be different...I want to have only one kid to be responsible for...or I want a partner...or I want to go back in time and make different choices. I'm working really hard through mindfulness to remember to be present...to accept what is now...to focus on each day only...but it's hard...TL;DR My children are special needs adopted through foster care by my ex husband and I. I never expected to be raising them alone, my worst fear...but here I am, doing just that, due to circumstances I never saw coming. I'm really struggling with accepting it,even three years later...I just want life to be different. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2ThSGBE