Genetics

Well, it has been awhile.  We have had ups and downs with Lex.  Who knew that a simple concussion could bring back some of the severe symptoms of mental illness.  Apparently any injury or "insult' to the brain makes the brain revert back into the old grooves.  That sucked and made us all nervous for awhile.  One of our hopes, as soon as I can afford it, is to get a "partial conservation" on Lex so that if he has another severe break I can protect his interests, medically intervene on his behalf, take care of his dog and his car, pay his bills, etc.  Well, a partial conservation costs several thousands of dollars and I just don't have that yet.  Thank goodness he has stabilized out again *knock wood* and is doing well.  No really, he is doing well.

Lex is going to school full time through a Department of Rehab program learning to be a Master Auto Tech.  He loves college so much he has re-energized his life long passion to become an automotive engineer.  He wants to continue in college and get a degree in mechanical engineering.  This was not though possible years ago do the the damage to his brain from his mental illness.  I know he world is a fragile place for him but right now, things look very positive.  As any special needs family or family of the mentally ill knows, you never breathe out and let your hopes rise too far.  We are always ready for what might happen.  In that life lesson, I have also learned that whatever comes next always comes from a direction you would never have expected.  Hence, genetics.

Yep, now it is his sisters turn.  No, not the same but anxiety that is crippling her.  I am watching my other child, the one I called in jest my 'redeeming child' become almost non functional with anxiety disorder.  The anxiety is not new.  She has always had it.  What is new is the irrational thoughts coming from this painful problem.  My twinkle star, my beautiful girl is tortured by her thoughts.  This is one I personally struggle with.  I am not a fear based thinker.  When I get scared, I come out punching with a "oh hell no" attitude.  I have always been extremely independent, maybe stupidly courageous kind of person.  I did what had to be done when it had to be done and if I was scared I was able to compartmentalize my fear and focus on the task at hand.  I have lived through physical attacks, tornadoes, hurricanes, rode my moped into a mud slide, earth quakes, driven all over the country, travelled abroad and more and fear was not an option.  I don't know how to parent this level of anxiety.  I don't know where to be tough and where to be tender.  I just don't understand it at all.

Thank goodness I have some understanding from my association and work with NAMI.  Anxiety is a form of mental illness. It is not her fault.  It is not something she can control because if she could, she would.  Right?  I keep thinking that if I can get my life on track then my kids lives will improve, they will stabilize and feel confident and sure of themselves.  My life keeps being the target of a shit storm of weird financial instability, unemployment, etc.  All my effort to et that part under control is only so effective.  The rest of what my kids deal with is genetics.  Nature vs. Nurture, right?  I mean, it probably does not help, my anxious unemployed state of being but it probably isn't the whole problem either.

Genetics feels like blame.  As any divorced parent would love to say it is all the fault of the other parent we all know that is not helpful.  Personally, I get my bad stomach and cold feet from both parents.  I get my workaholism from both parents in positive and negative ways.  I get my blue eyes from my Dad.  I get my tiny lips from my Dad.  I get my wit from my Mom.  I get my dark and dry humor from my Mom.  I get my weight problem from my Dad and my chinless condition from my Mom.  It's the genetic card I was dealt.  My son probably gets his autistic spectrum from my genetics.  There are some mental instabilities in both sides of my kids families that their genetics can pull from and trigger.  I remember my ex mother in law taking valium for anxiety on an almost daily basis.  I certainly know my ex struggled with some serious issues.  I have cousins and aunts who struggled with some issues as well.  Let's just say, my girl comes by her anxiety naturally, but not from me directly.

I love my girl.  I want her well.  I want her to be strong like a warrior.  I want her to have healthy fear to not act stupid but healthy courage to be able to walk in the world and be okay.  I want my kids to be okay.  I just fucking want my kids to be okay.  I don't know what more I can do to make that happen on the nurture side.  Have I said lately that I hate mental illness?  I hate it like leukemia, like cancer, like any chronic fucking illness that limits and threatens the life of anyone but especially my children, my beautiful and amazing children!   Fucking genetics. Until medicine knows more, understand more, we are victims to genetic gamble.  Roll the dice when breeding happens because you never know what you might get.  Victim just ain't my thing.

The Land of In-between

The Land of In Between

It is my understanding that the place where catholics believe a sinner goes to explain their sins and wait for a determination between heaven and hell is called purgatory.  I find it interesting that the dictionary also defines “purgatory” as a place of mental anguish and suffering.  I can say with great certainty that the land of in between is not a comfortable place and definitely understand why mental anguish could be used to describe such a location.  When one is on their way up, there is movement and focus on forward motion.  When one is on their way down, their is focus and effort to stop the slide.  Sitting in between leaves little to productively focus.  It is like driving through a valley for hours on a straight highway, time may be passing but the mind wanders and plays tricks on the thoughts.  It is a chance to survey far off in all directions where you see nothing but you see the wind blow, the dust devils, the heat vapors.

Here I sit.  My “in between” is in all directions of my life.  It would be so simple to think it is just about me, having graduated from law school, taken and failed the bar exam once and now waiting for results from my second and hopefully final go at the exam that is hopefully going to change my life.  Wouldn’t that be enough to cause mental anguish and suffering?  I mean, let me go further with this, I have been working full time and going to law school for four years and then went down to part time in order to appropriately study for the bar exam.  It is not cheap to take the bar and most success comes from taking months off prior to the exam to hyper focus and cram your brain full of crap needed to barf back out during exam days.  I stocked up, begged, borrowed and got through the first exam giving it my all.  I fell short. Honestly, it was by less than 1% but short nonetheless.  

So then I needed to pick my crushed soul back up, dust it off and rally into the next exam by begging and borrowing more from every resource, even my own physical stamina.  You want to see how fast a 48 year old woman can gain weight?  Just make her sit in a chair for 10-12 hours a day staring at a computer and handwriting notes.  And for extra measure, tell her that her whole financial future relies on this success and watch the cortisol pack on the pounds. It is okay, Cortisol and I go way back to when my son was younger and randomly launched into violent self injurious attacks several times a day.  I have felt the warm hug of the pounds of stress and lack of sleep for almost two decades now. I would like to consider the pounds of fat compensation for the lack of functioning adrenal glands since I’m pretty sure they shriveled up and moved out years ago.

Now I wait.  It has been a two and a half month wait since I took he bar exam last.  It is shorter than the other wait from he first time.  The first wait was four months.  It is different this time.  I now know what it is like to think you gave it your all and still fall short.  I know what it is like to get excited and put together a resume in preparation to move forward and then have no use for it…yet.  I know what it is like to see that look on my kids faces when they finally register not only that I failed but that we are going to live in this weird, stressed out desperate place for another six months.  I know what it is like to be working at an internship with a job potential and watch it slip through my finger tips because I fell short.  Did I jinx it by being happy and excited and hopeful?  Was I cocky? 

Wouldn’t it be great if that was my only place of purgatory?  If my part time work was steady and stable and my kids were in a stable place and my home was stable?  Would the bar exam/legal career purgatory be enough mental anguish?  Apparently not.  My place of work is on the verge of shutting down, being sold, self destructing and it is my understanding that with only two weeks notice at any time I may not have a location to work from.  Yes, that is the worst case scenario leaving the best case scenario that someone awesome buys the business that houses my work and they love it, care a whole bunch and grandfather me in at a low sublease and all is hunky dory.  It could happen.  I have absolutely no control over this whole process.  I could bail out and go find somewhere else but have chosen to wait it out.  Reason being that my clients have stuck through my off and on bar exam absences and potential shift at any moment to less hours due to launching legal career that throwing a geographical change on them will likely bring an even deeper shedding of clients.  After 2 bar exams I have lost a significant number of clients as it is and I don’t want to invest in building up my when my true direction is to change careers altogether.  So, I take it one day at a time, one client at a time. 

Then there are my kids.  One is about to turn 18 and reach adulthood.  He is a kid with high functioning disabilities that we have held together with a variety of services and assistance over the years that will all go away on his 18th birthday.  This includes various financial support and resources for therapies.  There is the whole power of attorney vs. partial conservation debate going on trying to determine what is the best way to protect him and be able to advocate for him when needed but only when needed.  When he turns 18 and he can start working, what will happen? How will he do? Will he remain stable? Will it overwhelm him?  Will he rise to the challenge and impress the shit out of me like I know he can?  Again, it could go either way and I have no control over this process. It is his journey that I can only parent.  I equate parenting to that of a pinball machine.  I am the paddles the try to push him up and keep him from falling into the hole and when all forces come together to help him hit some points and ring some bells and flash some lights I cheer loud and proud.   I am very lucky, he has scored all time highs in his life despite the many “tilt” messages he has been dealt.  

Then my other kiddo is one who is still in struggle and shift mode.  Her health issues went in to full bloom this last year and caused her whole life to come crashing down painfully around her.  It took us so long to find her help but even the help is not returning her to full capacity and the pain and struggle wears on her and by proxy, me.  Nobody knows if she will get back to full physical strength or if her health issues will continue to flare up on her an knock her down.   She begs for me to help her but I am again with little power to help or comfort her. I love her full strength but can not make her well.  How much does a parent push or hang back and let her figure out her direction in all that has shifted?  How much of this is her personal journey that I need to simply parent and not intervene? How much do I have to watch her suffer in pain while I pray and hope she can find joy and happiness despite it all.  

Then there is prayer. I have always been a relatively spiritual person with full understanding and without doubt of God, the Higher Power.  I have studied various forms of acknowledging that power and have always believed in prayer and moving energy.  I am not sure if I believe any of it anymore. For simplicity sake I say it is the helplessness I felt watching my daughter suffer that has made me question it all but that is just a drop in the bucket.  Dare I say it was the straw that broke the camels back.  It was all of it.  It is all of it.  The crap ass life I had, better than some, worse than others.  The abuse and attacks I overcame.  The survivor label and so on I have done therapy to help me assimilate.  The bad marriage.  The abuse.  The autism. The kid with such severe mental illness breaks that the psychiatrist told me to consider the child I once knew as dead and learn to embrace the new child.  I rallied and prayed and meditated and had faith and hope and believed in better each and every day.  Then the girl got so sick and felt so much pain and nobody could help her, seemingly not even God.  Similar to the bar exam experience as an encapsulated piece of that give it your all mentality and still falling short.  So what do I believe in now?  I have no idea.  I can’t reconcile any of it.  I keep waiting for inspiration or the ability to pray again without feeling so much anger and sadness and betrayal.  

My home has been beaten, abused, torn up and punched through and is in great need of repair, freshening, deep cleaning and more but there are no resources left.  I await the gate to open to achieve and acquire more resources and it is here that we loop right back to the beginning.  I drive through this valley letting time pass as I watch the dust devils of memories, hope, emotions and anxiety swirl about.  I day dream of what it will be like if this happens or that happens and I have moments of absolute paralysis in fear of what if this happened or that happened.  Like the stuffing that fall out of the holes in my couch, I pick myself up, stuff myself back in and put a blanket over it knowing that one day I hope to do better.  Until then, I drive in the land of in between.  Purgatory 

So what do I do in purgatory?  How does one handle the land of in between? I will tell you that my grace, along with my faith, have fallen away.  I whine and complain and vomit a lot.  When I felt hopeless I could always turn to prayer but what do you do when you think prayer is futile. I mean, really, what can I do. I just keep going.  Yes, we can quote Dory.  I keep on interning and trying to learn new skills for an impending legal career.  The more I can do now and learn the more employable I will be one day which can only counter act any challenges to employment that my degenerative vision might bring.  I look for new agencies and resources to help my soon to be adult child.  I research power of attorney options.  Best possible purgatory antidote was getting a puppy which will one day be trained to be my low vision dog.  Puppy therapy is always good and my puppy is particularly amazing. I avoid people who don’t know my status of fragile sanity.  I keep taking girl to doctors. I keep taking care of the clients that remained faithful.  I contemplate the benefits and detriments to taking up drinking as a serious habit.  I cave in to junk food more than I should in an effort to numb some of the mental anguish. Sometimes I fantasize about driving away, just keep driving, like Thelma and Louise, “drive”.  Mostly, I just get up and take each day as it comes and try not to vomit each meal.  I take a lot of antacids.   

While I am not catholic and have only known very little about the catholic religion, I use their language for my in between status. I am here, confessing my sins of the soul as I wait for the determination of heaven or hell.  I drive the long valley highway hallucinating on my memories and emotions trying to pass the time.  I am not lost and I am not moving up or down and it takes all focus just to keep up with the movement of time.  I love my puppy and get drunk on puppy breath.  I hold on to my tiny mustard seed of hope and wait. 

My 2014 Resolve and New Years Resolution for 2015

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.

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.

Damnit God, lay off my kid!

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.

Small Victories

It may seem stupid to some but today I am just in shock. It is hard to explain why I am in shock but it is because I passed.  I didn't know that I could pass.  I hoped I would and I worked hard but I didn't know I could.

You see, so much has happened. I have spent so much time in the chaos of my son's disabilities as his mental illness triggered over a year ago and the suicide attempts began and his craziness blew up like a bug bomb in the kitchen pantry. I have spent so much time throwing out what has been damaged and sorting through the wreckage as I try to keep moving forward, keep him alive, functioning and happy. I have been trying to keep my daughter as damage free as possible while also helping her stay in our new reality. All the while I have been continuing my studies part time in law school.

Most definitely my law school experienced changed as all of this exploded into every aspect of my life. My support network practically disappeared but other types of support came out of the shadows. From clients who deal with similar loved ones feeling free to tell their version of crazy and understand mine, a fairy dog mother who occasionally drops food, clothing or pet supplies at our door and keeps us going with her angelic kindness, a Mom who has risen up to be one of my only true sounding walls in the Universe and a new church community.  As isolating as crazy has been it has also been incredibly revealing. Many fell away all of a sudden, many opinions and judgments were launched at us feeling like hand grenades some days or even land mines we need to tip toe around.  The landscape in crazy town is very different.  There is no way to know what each day will bring and for that matter, the world here can change on a dime and all we can do is be prepared to stay calm, know where our shelters are in case the storm gets too out of control.

And yet, one of my sanity keepers has been law school. I think if I did not have law school during this sleep deprived crazy town shake up I would probably have been swallowed in self pity, overwhelmed, grief.  I had something demanding my attention, pulling me out of my head, my grief, my shock and forcing me to take a breath and change my focus.  Sometimes I physically had to hold my head in order to focus because I felt like my thoughts were on the verge of implosion...maybe they were.  I stopped having faith that I was a good student but I was a student who had tenacity and persevered.  Now, as I round the curve in my last year of law school it is time to look at the bar exam. One of the steps to taking the bar exam is the national legal ethics exam called the MPRE.


The timing ont he MPRE couldn't have been more crappy. As the service dog organization I had contracted with and the service dog my son had pinned his hopes and life too crumbled and the chaos of that mess became hours daily of emails, phone calls and worry the MPRE loomed in front of me and immediately following the date of that exam were my final exams for the trimester I was currently attending.  I insisted upon this date though because if, by chance, I did not pass this exam I would have yet one more try at it before I was too deep in the muck of bar exam prep and I wanted that cushion.  I launched into my studies for this exam through all the chaos, the Crazytown storms and so on.  The form of questions for this exam are my mental nemesis and my score was wretched.  One day I would have a passing score on the practice exams and the next day I would bomb it.  I read, practiced, studied, listened to lectures, podcasts, anything and everything to help me.

I took the exam with accommodations for my visual impairment which threw me for a bit. I listened to a cd of the questions and the answer choices and then circled my answer.  It was truly the first time I learned to close my eyes and just listen. I have always tried to read and listen but with the degeneration of my vision the two together were creating almost a static in my brain.  The questions were hard, confusing and so many of them I just laughed at and circled an answer in a "whatever!!!!" type of thought process thinking as I walked out of the exam...I have no flippin' idea how I did on that.  There were so few question I actually thought I understood and was clear on the answer choice.  I was pretty sure that my brain was now completely destroyed and that Crazytown had rotted my potential. I thought I had no chance in hell at passing the bar and finishing law school was really just an exercise in stubbornness.  I had resigned to the thought of if I passed it would be by the grace of God and if I fail I will continue to take it and the bar until I pass just out of spite-just so cCazytown will not win.  I walked out and let it go.

This morning I got my score on the MPRE and I not only passed, I ACED it.

Ok...I got my kids out the door to school and all of a sudden started crying.  The last year and a half flashed before my eyes, the pain, the fear, the ER, the psychiatrist appointments and the constant bad news, the torture in my boy and the fear in my girl and my feeling of utter helplessness and confusion.  I couldn't breathe for a few minutes as all of it swarmed my brain and I stopped on one point of truth...I passed.  Through all of that I persevered and did well?  I may still have redeeming qualities in me yet.  I might be more then all of this pain. I might be more then parenting successes and failures, crazy kids, botched service dog organizations and I might actually be ok.  I ACED it.  By the grace of God I ACED it.

This is exactly what I needed as I move towards the bar exam and towards graduating and wondering what in the world am I doing, visually impaired, mayor of Crazytown and not even able to find time to do my hair or wear make up.  I might be ok.  To quote a song I grew up believing and admired, "she might just make it after all."  Unlike Mary Richards I do not want a husband...I want a life.  I want happiness and to help people and to affect change for the better in my world.  Thank you God for giving me this nudge...this gift.  I ACED it.  By the grace of God, I ACED it.  By the grace of God I go forward. I celebrate my small victory.

The Road to Bring Mickey Home

Well, it has been a while since I last blogged and there are lots of reasons for that, not all of which I will  go in to but some of which I feel needs explaining.

As many/most of you know we contracted with an organization last fall to help Lexi get an autism service dog. I had done my due diligence in researching organizations and needed one that would not only address autism but psychiatric issues as well.  We began our fundraising and have been blessed by our community and friends coming out and helping us raise over $13,500.  We completed our fundraising in early May and were told that our dog, Mickey would be moving to advanced training no later then early June.

Around this time, the organization began having some trouble which seeped like stink into many of the families lives and affecting our fundraising abilities, our support for our journeys and our kids. In my opinion and from my limited perspective there seem to have been some mismanagement issues in general with the organization and maybe with some of these issues.  I don't really want to stir up stink because, frankly I don't want to know more...I just wanted to keep my kid alive and get him his dog.  I was and still am very sad for all who are affected by their negative experiences and hurt by any of what has happened and I have asked for prayers to surround all of us, including the owners, managers, trainers and even lawyers involved on all sides of these issues.

As the negative statements started to fly, Lexi began to panic and lose hope that we would ever see Mickey in our home.  Mickey was his only hope at times and the fading of that hope allowed the darkness to come back to my son.  As the change of schedules from school to summer break came on, Lex fought the darkness but it had a choke hold on him.  Mickey did not advance to his task training as planned and we were told to be patient and allow another month.  When the next month had passed and still he had not passed into his next phase of training I finally asked if our dog was being delayed because of legal troubles and without going into details, the answer was yes.

The organization announce that they were not able to resolve the issues at hand and would be dissolving and this of course sent Lexi in to a panic.  We lost contact with the organization itself and began our many communications with their lawyer.  Rumors, negative statements, name calling and blame throwing seemed to hover around like a dark cloud to our cause and I really wanted to keep cutting through it to stay with the facts, the important issue of where is our dog and how do we get him moved forward or in to our possession.

After a great deal of work finding and keeping to the facts and staying out of the focus of blame or negative chatter we were blessed to be able to transport our dog from his amazing puppy raisers to the advanced trainer with guarantees that he would get his training completed and be placed with Lexi.  While our sweet Mickey had some holes in his training he had an awesome foundation with our puppy raisers and is an amazing dog who is so willing to learn and please that did not have far to go in his advanced training.  We did not need some of the more complicated skills like tethering so the trainer felt that Mickey would be a quick learner and able to be certified with his basic SD skills within two weeks.

The trainers facility was really nice and peaceful and all the dogs seemed to just hang out together in these big yards, relaxed, happy and calm.  We watched as they did some basic work with Mickey and they were direct and focused but quick to praise him and engage with him celebrating any success he had.  I felt very confident leaving Mickey in their capable hands.

Shortly thereafter, the lawyer called with more difficulties and as the first week went forward it was then announced that the organization would be filing bankruptcy.  I was encouraged to speak with the trainer and see if she would still be able to complete our dogs training and certify him but if she did it would be without the backing of the organization.  At this point, I gotta tell you, it just felt like we were in this long, slow moving train wreck and every time we thought we could breathe out more started to snap and crack and damage just kept happening.

Speaking with the trainer who had become so overwhelmed she felt like she just needed to release the dogs as they were and that I'd need to come get our dog as soon as possible.  Completely understanding her perspective, which is not completely my business to disclose all here, I agreed to come get Mickey as soon as we could make the trip.  She promised to continue to work him until we arrived and if he could pass his basic service dog skills she would still be able to certify him even without the organization's backing. She has that ability and capacity so I trusted her opinion and hoped upon hope that Mickey would be able to pass.

And so we made our journey to pick up Mickey...my stomach in knots hoping for our certification and remembering to have faith in Gods plan, even if it wasn't my plan.  Lex had struggled with his anxiety and darkness and I just knew that if we did not get Mickey we would be back in mental hospitals if not worse.  We arrived at the training facility and once again were greeted with a swarm of relaxed happy labs.  One of the trainers brought Mickey to us and showed us all the tasks she was working on and how to continue our work.  Mickey passed his basic service dog certification and we were given release forms and paperwork and instructed on how to help Mickey strengthen and solidify his skills.  I know the trainer was in a hard position and she worked very hard to make sure that Mickey was/is the best dog for my son that he can be.

We are setting up with a trainer locally to help Lexi learn how to work with Mickey and finish some of the advanced service dog training tasks. Mickey is a perfect gentleman in public and immediately bonded with Lexi,.  They LOVE one another.  I have never seen my son smile so much in his whole life.  Mickey lays his head on his lap and stares up at my boy keeping his eye on his forever boy waiting for whatever comes next relaxing into their connection.  I watch the two together and know that every step of this journey, bumps, scrapes, bruises and sleepless nights were worth it to see that smile, to see his hope return and to know that tonight...I don't have to worry about suicide attempts, his anxiety or panic attacks, his feeling isolated or alone because Mickey has given him purpose, hope, direction and a friend.

I KNOW that as this train wreck has happened to our family we were in the part of the train that got the least amount of damage as we have survived with our dog while MANY are not able to get their dogs because either puppy raisers are too afraid to hand them over to the trainer not knowing who to trust or because they do not want to take the dog untrained "as is" for very understandable reasons or some who just simply can't get the money or time to make the trip to retrieve their dogs even thought they have fully paid/raised their funds and deserve their autism service dogs or seizure alert dogs or diabetic alert dogs or whatever their service dog was going to do to save the life of their child.  While my heart cries with joy as I watch my son smile it is crushed for those who are more damaged in the wreckage of this organization.  Yes, there are probably several to blame, name and be angry at but my job is not to figure that out. I do not want to get involved in any of that and trust the lawyers to sort through the wreckage and find the truth as best they are able and hold the guilty responsible.  I pray for them, for the families hurt, for the dogs, for the trainers and for the children.

Tonight I celebrate our journey and am so grateful for Mickey, the organization who brought him to us (no matter what condition they are in now-they still brought us Mickey), the psychiatric crisis team who suggested we begin this journey, all the family, friends and strangers who supported us and my son for having faith through the darkness. Yes, we have work to do but we work with joy in our hearts and gratitude. No matter what bumps we have tripped on or been bruised by in passing...we still made it to this point and gratitude is so much more healing.  Thank you God. Thank you ALL.  We will continue our journey, share our work and accomplishments and ups and downs with all those who have supported us.  We welcome all prayers and support.  Support ONLY please.  We fight darkness with light and love and gratitude.  We look forward to sharing more light. Thank you.