Cycles of Grief

There are actually some days that I am just not fit to go into public.  I can't explain why those days happen but they do.  For whatever reason, there are days that it all just smacks me in the face. Sunday was one of those days.  My son wanted to go to church which is always a rare and positive thing so I planned on taking him to church.  We woke up and he was grumpy, snappy, even somewhat explosive.  The morning was a bumpy one.  To ass salt to the wound my daughter had to tell me how embarrassing I was to her and that was it for me.  All done.  I just did not want to find the strength to push through it. Oh sure, I know all the realities of teenagers, hormones, mood disorders and not to give in, take it personal etc but not that day...it just was like hitting a nerve that rippled through my core.

I don't want to lose the opportunity to go to church though, right?  So we went. I waited until church was starting so I could sneak in to the back and sit as unnoticed as possible.  I did not want to talk to anybody, have anyone see me when I felt like I had just been punched in the gut. So then I am sitting there and there is this family in front of me with a little boy.  He stands on the pew and puts his arms around his mom.  He was all of maybe 7.  She leans in towards him and smiles.  Damnit, face started leaking.  Grieving.  I miss this moment in time that I had with my kids.  That moment when I did not know of mental illness and when he was little and I thought I could "cure" the autism and his life was bursting with potential.  I miss my own innocence in parenting. My daughter was the hugger, and her arms would wrap around me.  I called her velcro baby.  Now I embarrass her.   Ugh.  Just a day of grieving I guess.

A while back I went to a 3 day seminar on neurological differences given by the U.C. Davis MIND Institute,they are fantastic! One of the classes discussed how parents of kids with neurological differences go through a grieving cycle. It's not like a death grieving.  There is no end for us.  I'm not qualifying it as better or worse just acknowledging the truth in the cycle.  When you first find out about the disorder, you grieve potential lost and then you move on, become accustomed to the new level of normal.  As is human nature, you begin to see positive signs and maybe even grow hope for a bit then BAM...nope, the disorder rears its head and you see the potential lost again, hopes fade, grief wins again.  It cycles and turns around and over again and again.  It doesn't mean there isn't progress, it just means that the grief is the acknowledgment of what is not "typical" what is "different" and what is not what you expected or hoped for for your child.


It is times like these of late that I want so very much to remember that the powers greater than myself are limitless.  I feel extremely overwhelmed and fatigued and yet I still am the Mayor of Crazytown and I have midterms coming, kids to manage, a fraction of my business left to run, medical and psychiatric appointments to schedule and keep, a house to manage and a fundraising campaign to promote.  The grief, the sadness and the fear have limits.  They hide the light, cover it like nightfall. The darkness offers only limited sight.  The darkness passes, the pain fades and the light of limitless power returns. It is a cycle. It is human nature, I guess.  I will move through it.  Some days I will have more grace then others and some days I will laugh at it.  Some days I will want to hide and let it stink.  I just gotta keep moving...keep reaching towards the source of limitless power and know that it will pull me through.  This is an honest blog but kind of dark...I promise the next one will be about how I find humor in it all. Bipolar can be funny too!