Drowning

If you have a friend or know someone with a child who has a disability, developmental delay, or behavioral problems, you're probably all up to date on that child's therapies, medications, issue of the day...and you're also probably tired of listening if that's all she talks about. It probably puts a strain on your friendship- even if you never want to admit it. I am that mother. I talk about it because it's consuming my life, has consumed my life. I'm sick of hearing myself talk about it.
I am struggling. I am a mother who loves both of her children with all her heart, but feel I am failing them. Dealing with my oldest is a challenge. It's a challenge I have faced every day for the past 8 years- daycares, pediatricians, specialists, counselors, psychiatrists, schools, principals- it all starts to run together. While I searched desperately, trying to put a name on what was happening, relatives and my own husband kept telling me "there is nothing wrong", "he's fine", "he's just a boy". It's only been in the past couple of years that they have finally joined the party and name/names got stamped into the medical chart. I thought naming it would help me know how to "fix" it- it doesn't. Hell, it doesn't even help with the insurance.
My youngest is an overachiever. He's a mender, a peace-keeper. He sees when I'm sad and says, "Mom, I was so good today. Does that make you happy, Mom?" And this breaks my heart. He asks why he can't go to group therapy too. He doesn't understand, even when I try to explain it in ways I hope he can comprehend, that it's not a reward, it's not something we're letting his older brother do. He brings home perfect papers, writes stories about happy lions and makes up songs and he looks to make sure it's making me smile. So much time and attention is spent trying to help our oldest, I feel I am not providing my little guy enough of what he needs.
My husband wonders why I am so exhausted at the end of the day I fall asleep on the couch soon after the kids go to bed. He wants to spend time together, but he never seems to understand, I am drained emotionally as well as physically. The guilt and stress are 100lb weights strapped to my back and I feel like I have been dropped in the middle of an ocean and I'm having a hard time keeping my head above water. Everyone needs me, every ounce of my energy goes to my family. There are plenty of times when I've stared out my patio doors and thought, I could get in the car and just drive away. But I don't, I couldn't. They need me. I resent it, and I hate myself for feeling this way. I feel I am standing in a crowded room screaming and no one hears me.
I like having a plan. I like having a goal, an end point. There is nothing more satisfying to me than identifying a problem, mapping out a plan and fixing it. But with this problem, there is no quick fix, or even a fix at all. Just a slow, plodding guessing game with hurdles that are jumped one day just to be tripped over the next. Someone told me this is not a sprint, it's a marathon. I've got miles to go, and I am so damned tired.