I am well aware that it is the time of year to be thankful. I am thankful for so much and I tell God that every day. I am thankful that it has been over a year since Lexi's last suicide attempt. I am thankful that it is just a year ago today that I had picked Lexi up from his very last mental hospital stay. I am grateful that over the last year we were able to raise enough money to get his service dog and that Mickey gives him a reason to live and is helping him make it through his day in ways I could never have foreseen. I am grateful that Lexi is back at public school-I never was all that great of a home school teacher-Lexi said I was way too tough on him. LOL I am grateful that Lexi, for the most part is making it through each day at public school through his ups and downs and anxieties and social autistic spectrum warfare. I am grateful for the other stuff too, roof over head, food to eat, family who cares, work, awesome clients that have become friends if not family. I can go on and on on my gratitude list. I am also grateful because I think God can handle me being ticked off.
I have heard since Lexi was diagnosed that adolescence is the toughest time for those with ASD. Many people from lay people to experts warned me. What they didn't know, nor could they have known, is that Lexi's genetics had a mental illness time bomb waiting to go off. That time bomb was going to try to kill him and soak into his soul like a degenerating toxin of thoughts. I call mental illness a cancer of the thoughts because it is a legitimate medical and physical illness that needs to be treated as such. There is no more will power involved in fighting mental illness then there is in fighting cancer. It isn't an attitude problem or something we grow out of like an allergy, it is a true illness. It CAN go into remission but it is always there, lurking and waiting for your moment of weakness to attack the brain.
According to Lexi's doctor his form of mental illness is one of the worst she has ever seen because of how young it hit him and how hard and fast it hit him. Her projection for him is that we probably can not count on him stabilizing until he is in his mid 20's if not later. The progression of the disease will slow down once he is in his 20's but it will still progress. Lexi and I work very hard to prove her wrong. It isn't necessarily being stubborn, we just know we proved a LOT of people wrong about his autism and his abilities as they were once projected when he was a very young age. I take comfort in my son's ability to prove doctors wrong like a warm cup of denial tea that I sip on and flavor with every teeny tiny success. Successes I am grateful for-see list above. Then there are the moments when reality kicks me in the stomach.
It can be small like a comment from Lexi, I was walking around campus today and couldn't stop laughing, have I taken all my meds lately? It can be moment when he hits lows that he questions if his meds are working at all. It can be phone calls front he school questioning if his meds have changed or if something else might be going on at home that could be causing this or that as points of concern. The suckiest answer is "no, meds are stable and nothing is going on at home." This is when we begin the thought process of, his mental illness is progressing and it is time to up or change the meds. *kick in stomach* Here's the thing, he has only been stable for about 10 weeks. Come on! Give the kid a freakin' break! He's cracking through his meds?
Here is my prayer...Lay off of my boy, God! He's one of the good ones. He has struggled through all that you have dished out at him and remains one of the good ones. He is beautiful, compassionate, intelligent and just good to his core and God you keep shoveling more and more struggle on to him. He gets up every day and battles his social deficit and anxiety, the frightful ambiguity and peculiar world of other people. He battles memory problems from the mental illness, uncontrollable mood swings that terrify him because he feels so out of control. He struggles with reality from anxiety provoked hallucinations that have tried at times to kill him or entice him into psychotic breaks. Through it all, God he remains now hopeful of a full and prosperous life, he chooses to search for the truth of God and the light in the world. Why do you keep making him or letting him get worse? That is enough God! This is enough for him. LAY OFF! Damnit God, lay off my kid!
My heart screams this as I make the phone call to his psychiatrist letting her know that we need to meet soon to discuss his meds. I am reminded that he is on maximum doses of some seriously strong medications and that it is not good if his illness has progressed past these medications. I pray out to God, who I know is big enough to handle my anger, time to lay off my boy. Let him be healthy, God. Please, just let him be healthy. He has so much good to offer. So much light to shine. I hope my prayers are heard, answered and fulfilled with every cell in my body and every intangible fiber of my soul. I am grateful that God can handle that I am ticked off. I hope I never have to understand fully what it is like to have a child with cancer or some other form of irreversible deadly disease but I imagine they get pretty ticked off at God too. How hard it is to watch our children suffer and struggle. In my humble opinion, dear God, we've ha enough. Amen.
