Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Disenchanted

I can't think of a word to describe how I am feeling lately. I think the most appropriate word would be "blah." But, since that word is probably not in the dictionary, and does not make a very good post title, I am going with disenchanted.

School has been going OK for my son. The new placement is not as bad as I feared, but also not as good as I had hoped. We have had almost all good days, but I don't think any progress is being made. The school seems to be so focused on just keeping things calm that they may have forgotten that their purpose in his life is to prepare him for the future.

And what am I doing about it? Absolutely nothing. I am tired of fighting them. I am tired of being shot down. At this point, as long as he is relatively happy at school, and they are not doing anything to harm him, I am letting it go. I am doing what I can to get him the services he needs outside of school, and that is going to have to be enough for now.

Maybe when those services are in place and the school can see how it is helping, they will step up and do the right thing. For now, I am tired of repeating myself and never being heard. I get enough of that from my kids!

Monday, October 11, 2010

A New Day



Today is a new day, in a new life, for me and my son. I am not sure which direction this change is going to be, especially after the weekend we had.

Saturday was a rare peaceful day. My son was very mellow, not up or down. He was friendly, respectful, funny and calm. He was himself, and this illness seemed to be gone for that one day. I enjoyed the time I got to spend with him; I enjoyed him. He was my sweet little boy that I have not seen for awhile.

Sunday, he was angry, cruel, distracted, and down. The usual. But, it was so hard after having such a good day the day before. While Saturday was wonderful, it also reminded me of what I have been missing. I have gotten so used to rages and depression, so resigned to bouncing off the walls mania, that it seems so normal. I know it's not, but to us, it has become normal. 

The stability we found when he started on his current medications over a year ago has been slowly deteriorating. So slowly that, while I knew we were in crisis, and that things need to change, I had forgotten how good things were for awhile. His therapist tried to point it out to me once, but I guess I needed to see it for myself. I was reviewing the last week with her, saying it was a pretty good week, no major issues, got punched, kicked, bit just a few times, but the situations didn't escalate. She says, that is not "good." No, it wasn't, but when you compare being punched once to being attacked repeatedly for an hour or more, one punch is good! But, when you compare one punch with spending a nice, fun day with a sweet eight year old boy, then it is bad. I guess I just want us to get back to that place where I can afford to see one act of violence as bad. Where I have a lot of good to compare it to, and where weekly trips to the emergency room are a distant memory.


Today is the first day at the new placement. I am conflicted. I can see some good things coming from this in the (hopefully near) future. I can see some bad coming, as well. I am scared for my little boy. I am scared for myself. I am sad, and discouraged. But for his sake, I have to be hopeful, and supportive, and positive. It is so hard to bury all the bad feelings and thoughts while he is around that after I dropped him off this morning, I crashed. Then I had the whole day to worry, and dread, and maybe to hope. Which version of my child will I greet at the bus this afternoon? Will he be happy, sad, angry, manic, depressed, violent...? And then, what about the next day? And the day after that?

I ended up spending most of the day distracting myself from the thought of what was happening at school, as much as possible. My stressing over it would not change the outcome. I was able to think about other things for minutes at a time, occasionally.

This afternoon I picked up a smiling boy from the school bus. I desperately searched his backpack for notes, or some signs of what happened throughout the day. No luck. He says he loved it. He seems happy. He made new friends, and went outside for recess, and ate lunch in the cafeteria (he has spent both inside the classroom since about midway through last year). He survived. He may have thrived.

My only hesitation here, since this all sounds great, is that last Friday he gave a similar report of school: a great day, he loves school now, nothing bad happened, on and on. Then, I got my last email from the former special education teacher, telling me all about what an awful day it was, the destruction he caused and them placing him in the seclusion room. This is a day he thought was great?

So, after struggling through the first day - me, not him - I am still worried about the days to come, but not sure if I need to be. At least parent teacher conferences are next week, so I only have a little while to be in the dark.

For now, I am going to pretend that I can believe that what he says is true. I am going to assume this is going well for him, until I hear otherwise. Well, I am going to try.

Friday, October 8, 2010

School and Friends

This week my son was officially labeled as "different." Technically, he was a long time ago, but now he is officially "too different," which is what makes it official. No parent should ever have to hear "we can no longer meet his needs, he has to go somewhere else." This week my son lost his teacher, his class, his friends, and his normalcy. But, this post isn't really about him.

I have vented all my frustrations of how this is going to hurt him, I have pondered how it may actually help him, I have vowed to do everything possible to make this a good change in his life.

But I don't feel I have the right to complain to anyone about how this affects me, so I am doing it here, anonymously, because I have to get it out.

I feel like I also have lost my friends. There is one person at school that has stood by me through everything for the last eight years, and has always been someone I could turn to. She was also someone I enjoyed talking with, and whom I had a lot of respect for. Now, I feel betrayed. How could she sit across the table from me and tell me they would no longer help my son, when she has continually told me, "we are not going to give up on him. We will not kick him out of this school, that is not what we are about." How could she?

I have lost my identity as a {name of school} parent. I am no longer a member of the PTA, I will never again stand outside the school with the other moms and chat while we wait for our kids to come out. And yet, I will see these people often, but I am no longer one of them. How will I handle the first encounter at the grocery store, when normally we would stop and chat and laugh, and now they may not even say hello in passing? Now I am the mom of one of "those kids," and so I must be "one of those moms."

I have loved and supported this school for eight years, and now I am an outcast there. I don't know who to be anymore.