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.