Why is it so hard? Why do things have to get so vicious and personal before he will just talk to me? He tells me that he is suicidally depressed – but he can’t say so before first picking a giant fight with his sister, villainizing me for failing to see and prevent whatever must have caused the depression, making death threats, initiating some close calls with physical violence and delivering a lecture about all the ways in which every one of us has let him down.

When they are being really monstrous to me, I think about how I spend my days getting up and going to work an hour early, so I can leave an hour early, so I can spend two hours weathering the vitriol until Ian comes home. The after-school program at their school has openings, and I think about how much it would cost and whether I could find room in our budget. But then things are monstrous monstrous, like they were today, and I remember that my handling their after-school time isn’t about the money. It’s because daycares, teachers and after-school programs can’t be trusted to deal with my son when he’s this depressed. Because, before he makes it apparent that he’s in need, first he will blame and punish the world for allowing him to get that depressed. and then the world will blame and punish him back.

At ten (hell, at thirty) it’s impossible to believe that something that feels that awful could be causeless. Something, someone must be at fault, right? And the question is, how do I introduce to him the idea that it might not be our fault, without seeming to invalidate his feelings of having been wronged?

Oh well, if I have an imaginary child-care budget, then surely I must have a counseling budget.