Well, it is time to leave another year behind. In so many ways this has been a year I do not want to forget. I have learned a lot this year. Top on my gratitude list for 2014 is that there was not one suicide attempt. My prayer is that those are a thing of the past. No mental hospitalizations and no 5150's. The family has found new hope and support through a church community that the children chose and feel very accepted and committed to be apart. We have had ups and downs and all arounds with each kid as the grow through adolescence. Overall I am extremely proud of my kids as they have grown, chosen to overcome obstacles by bravery, compassion and strength.
We now have Mickey, Lexi's service dog, with us and he is a spiritual appendage to my son that gives him strength he didn't know he had. Mickey makes all of us smile and when the intense storms blow through, Mickey intuitively hangs on and helps wherever he is able. He is a true member of our family. Up there near the top of my gratitude list! My son smiles on a regular bases now...I didn't know his face worked that way! What a beautiful smile he has!
Both kids have been successful at public high school. This has not been without some great life lessons for each of them but the biggest lesson is to keep showing up and get the work done. Isn't that a hard one for the grown ups as well. Knowing their struggles, my heart bursts with pride watching them persevere.
I have been told by some that I am different now. Taking stock on time and place I would have to agree. I started law school in 2011 and my son was young, mental illness had not triggered, my daughter was finishing 5th grade. I had a different perspective on life and my part in it. Today, I understand more about how little I can control and how strong I really am. I also have learned that most people, well intended, have opinions that they know very little about. Most opinions turn into judgments and those judgments are isolating and stigmatizing. My bruises from this realization are healing but I no longer dance around the straight up. Maya Angelo said that people will show you who they really are...believe them. I do.
I also have seen who I really am...believe me. I am loving, compassionate and enduring. My loyalty is direct and steadfast but my tolerance for misinformation, ignorance, judgments and stigmatization is gone. Allowing those things to befuddle me only is a waste of time and energy of which I have little to spare. I am more direct now and to the point. Whether others understand or not I know that I have hit places of pain I could never have imagined and kept breathing. I white knuckle hope and prayer that very few could ever understand sometimes making it one minute at a time, one day at a time and hold outs for a productive and healthy future for my children. I could never ever explain that to anyone and, for the most part, have stopped trying.
Somehow the resolve in it all keeps me going. The questions have faded, the shock has faded, the search for a fix or a cure has faded and the acceptance of faith gets me out of bed in the morning, keeps me breathing and gives me strength to weather the storms, the good days and the future.
2015 holds challenges ahead. I will keep praying that my son's mental illness will not degenerate and I promise to feel kicked in the gut every time i notice or am directed to see it's worsening. I promise to celebrate every good joke, every accomplishment and kindness. I promise to find success in every day because sometimes just surviving the day is worth celebrating. I promise to be fortified and strengthened in gratitude by the angels in our life who fortify us with their kindness, encouragement, faith and love. I promise to keep reaching for grace no matter how frequent I fall short.
Personally, graduating from law school feels surreal and mind blowing. I promise to celebrate it with shock and wonder at myself at the end of April. I promise to cry an complain and stomp my feet as I train for the marathon of the bar exam. Self doubt and fear will be my enemy and I promise to scream loudly in their faces, even when they are in the mirror. I promise to give everything I have inside to pass that bar exam in July. I know that I was called here, pulled here and that same source, calling, pull will drag me through victorious eventually. I promise to be grateful for every prayer, positive thought, offer of forgiveness and patience and blessing that comes my way. I also promise to ignore anybody else's doubt, negative statements, fear and foe to my success.
Standing on the lessons of 2014 I move forward, stronger, ready to take on what may come, what storms may blow, what challenges lay ahead. I will be less social in my bar preparation, I will be more stressed, I will be a little uglier and my house will be a fright. My kids will be neglected and I will be less groomed then my mother would hope and the most I can say is I will try not to smell or offend but that might be the most of it. Those who hang on to our friendship through my neglect and intensity of 2015 are saints and those who let go are practical. I am grateful for it all and look forward to a year from now when I can put it all behind me and stand on the lessons of 2015 with grace and honor. Hope to see you there.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Denial and Faith
Such an over used concept, "denial" and always categorized as something that we do NOT want to use...denial is baaaaaad. Is it? I beg to differ.
Looking at it from the perspective of my son for a minute, although I would never be so bold to say I speak for him without his permission, I do not. I speak from the perspective of his mother watching him with pride. Although my son crashed and burned BAD his first attempt at public high school and his mental illness triggered on top of his significant challenges with autistic spectrum disorder he expressed his desire at the end of last school year to try public high school again. Yes, of course I was terrified out of my mind. Nobody will ever understand what we went through in order to pull him through the last two years...a move, homeschooling while working and going to school myself, sleepless nights, hospital stays, ER, baptism by fire of the mental health system and so much more. But what can you do when your kid says he wants to try it again...you have GOT to let them try. When I asked him his reason, he wanted to try more normalcy.
Here is my friend denial in the open. I have spent a year and a half under the counsel of his psychiatrist trying to break me down and tell me "he is not normal...his normal got hit by a truck and is now dead...he is mentally ill and my old sense of normal will never return." That was a punch that took some recovery. I mean, through his autism diagnosis I was told to try to teach him to fit in to "normal" and he has to learn to keep up with the real world and the neuro-typicals. Once the mental illness triggered I was told to stop trying to help him fit in to "normal" and instead just try to help him find happiness. I felt like one of those looney toon cartoon characters that shake their head so hard trying to find sense in it all that a weird eydiddyaydiddy noise comes out.
So, the boy started public high school again, IEP in place, all on board, fingers crossed and surrounded by prayers so hard my knees are bruised. He has had some major ups and downs. Bumps in the road that we slammed in to so hard we saw stars. At one point though, he chose to capitalize on denial. He said to me, "I don't have a single friend and I don't understand anybody at that school but I have decided to care anyway." He decided to care enough to get up and do it every morning, no matter what mood hits him, no matter how anxious he is, no matter if hallucinations trigger or not, no matter if he gets manic in the middle of a class and can not stop laughing for hours, no matter if he becomes so depressed that he can barely breathe, no matter WHAT he is going to care and get up and go the next day and the next. No matter how hard it is, he convinces himself it is worth getting up the next day and trying again. If that isn't using denial and faith together like siamese twins on a hot date I don't know what is! Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe there won't be as much chaos or anxiety. Maybe tomorrow he will understand a fellow teen long enough to make a friend.
Then there is my own personal relationship with denial. Mine is a little more seductive. I've been given the cold hard facts from the psych doc. Yep, those are the kick-in-the-gut facts that make me stagger for a day or two. Once I catch my breath I get seduced in to denial all over again. Maybe it won't get worse. Maybe he will be ok. Maybe he will make a friend today. Maybe he is not as odd as his sister describes him to be. Maybe we are in a weird enough small town that he will be fully accepted and it will all be ok. maybe it will all be ok. Maybe he will not need to go up on his meds. Maybe he can beat his mental illness and overcome the autism like a superhero. Maybe he will be able to wake himself up. Maybe his moods will stabilize. Maybe he won't damage anymore property. Maybe he will grow out of his anxieties. Maybe he won't hallucinate again. Maybe it will all be ok. Maybe it is all okay now and all the bad stuff is in the past.
Then the school calls. Denial bubble busted by the kick-in-the-gut cold hard facts. "No, there has been no change in his meds and I'm sorry if he is disturbing people or being a disruption". "Yes, he is incredibly intelligent Ms. Teacher and I know he could be Acing all his classes but the fact that he shows up every day is in his own right a form of Acing all his classes so back the TRUCK off". The moment at the psych doc when you get some more cold hard facts...he is getting older, is he safe to drive, is he ever going to be independent, is he going to be able to fulfill his dream of being an auto tech. Such a down graded dream from the boy I once knew and yet my friend denial has asked me to grab on to that dream with both hands and hold on.
Denial keeps me going, keeps my boy going. I've heard the phrase "denial ain't just a river in Egypt" but you know what, I build a boat for my denial river and sail on it every day. The cold hard facts may bust a hole in it but we bail and bail and patch the holes and keep going. Catch the wind where we can and ride out the quiet times. God Bless Denial!!!! Amen.
Looking at it from the perspective of my son for a minute, although I would never be so bold to say I speak for him without his permission, I do not. I speak from the perspective of his mother watching him with pride. Although my son crashed and burned BAD his first attempt at public high school and his mental illness triggered on top of his significant challenges with autistic spectrum disorder he expressed his desire at the end of last school year to try public high school again. Yes, of course I was terrified out of my mind. Nobody will ever understand what we went through in order to pull him through the last two years...a move, homeschooling while working and going to school myself, sleepless nights, hospital stays, ER, baptism by fire of the mental health system and so much more. But what can you do when your kid says he wants to try it again...you have GOT to let them try. When I asked him his reason, he wanted to try more normalcy.
Here is my friend denial in the open. I have spent a year and a half under the counsel of his psychiatrist trying to break me down and tell me "he is not normal...his normal got hit by a truck and is now dead...he is mentally ill and my old sense of normal will never return." That was a punch that took some recovery. I mean, through his autism diagnosis I was told to try to teach him to fit in to "normal" and he has to learn to keep up with the real world and the neuro-typicals. Once the mental illness triggered I was told to stop trying to help him fit in to "normal" and instead just try to help him find happiness. I felt like one of those looney toon cartoon characters that shake their head so hard trying to find sense in it all that a weird eydiddyaydiddy noise comes out.
So, the boy started public high school again, IEP in place, all on board, fingers crossed and surrounded by prayers so hard my knees are bruised. He has had some major ups and downs. Bumps in the road that we slammed in to so hard we saw stars. At one point though, he chose to capitalize on denial. He said to me, "I don't have a single friend and I don't understand anybody at that school but I have decided to care anyway." He decided to care enough to get up and do it every morning, no matter what mood hits him, no matter how anxious he is, no matter if hallucinations trigger or not, no matter if he gets manic in the middle of a class and can not stop laughing for hours, no matter if he becomes so depressed that he can barely breathe, no matter WHAT he is going to care and get up and go the next day and the next. No matter how hard it is, he convinces himself it is worth getting up the next day and trying again. If that isn't using denial and faith together like siamese twins on a hot date I don't know what is! Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe there won't be as much chaos or anxiety. Maybe tomorrow he will understand a fellow teen long enough to make a friend.
Then there is my own personal relationship with denial. Mine is a little more seductive. I've been given the cold hard facts from the psych doc. Yep, those are the kick-in-the-gut facts that make me stagger for a day or two. Once I catch my breath I get seduced in to denial all over again. Maybe it won't get worse. Maybe he will be ok. Maybe he will make a friend today. Maybe he is not as odd as his sister describes him to be. Maybe we are in a weird enough small town that he will be fully accepted and it will all be ok. maybe it will all be ok. Maybe he will not need to go up on his meds. Maybe he can beat his mental illness and overcome the autism like a superhero. Maybe he will be able to wake himself up. Maybe his moods will stabilize. Maybe he won't damage anymore property. Maybe he will grow out of his anxieties. Maybe he won't hallucinate again. Maybe it will all be ok. Maybe it is all okay now and all the bad stuff is in the past.
Then the school calls. Denial bubble busted by the kick-in-the-gut cold hard facts. "No, there has been no change in his meds and I'm sorry if he is disturbing people or being a disruption". "Yes, he is incredibly intelligent Ms. Teacher and I know he could be Acing all his classes but the fact that he shows up every day is in his own right a form of Acing all his classes so back the TRUCK off". The moment at the psych doc when you get some more cold hard facts...he is getting older, is he safe to drive, is he ever going to be independent, is he going to be able to fulfill his dream of being an auto tech. Such a down graded dream from the boy I once knew and yet my friend denial has asked me to grab on to that dream with both hands and hold on.
Denial keeps me going, keeps my boy going. I've heard the phrase "denial ain't just a river in Egypt" but you know what, I build a boat for my denial river and sail on it every day. The cold hard facts may bust a hole in it but we bail and bail and patch the holes and keep going. Catch the wind where we can and ride out the quiet times. God Bless Denial!!!! Amen.
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