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.