Editorial Note:
Let me preface this post by saying...this is difficult to share but hey, these are my "Confessions." This is my reality, my naked truth. I won't apologize for it. It's therapeutic for me and hopefully helpful and/or educational for someone else.
I don't know where to lay the blame. Is it the medicine??? Is he just exhausted from the pressures of the school year? That is his complaint. "I hate that school!" "I hate Ms. Whoever?" "I can't go to school tomorrow!"
Hubby not in attendance for this tirade --I feel desperate. He is acting like he is totally possessed. I warned, "If you hit anything else I'm going to call the hospital or someone and you're going to have to leave." He looks almost stunned at the hole in the first door. He looks down at his hand, which is now throbbing, like I can't believe I did this. A few minutes later...he is banging fretfully on another door. I call for assistance.
He is shocked and pissed all at the same time. He has not harmed anyone. The only carnage is my bedroom door and the utility closet door. When I tell him the Crisis Team will be coming out to assess him. I tell him, I'm not exactly sure what they will do, if they will take him to the hospital or not. Scared to death, he calms his ass right down.
He is as cool as a cucumber when they come in. Of course by then, his meds have probably kicked in fully. I wish I could say for sure what is going on in his head at this point. The truth is, it would be a guessing game. This whole psychiatric medication scenario is a guessing game. An expensive, challenging, daring game of guessing what will work. What will make things better for this kid? Will this make things worse? Lately, we are seeing more of the latter.
I'm sure my neighbors all got a thrill from gossiping, wondering what the hell is going on in my house. My mother peers out of the window as a few neighbors gather to talk. She assumes it's about the yelling that's been coming from my house and the two unmarked cars that pull up. I don't really give a shit what they think at this point. I have to do what I have to do. I have to deal with my reality --not with what the neighbors think about my reality.
The Mental Health deputy is great with him. Thankfully, Red is not the belligerent out of control person who tore threw my house moments earlier. I can't believe this is happening, but it's been brewing for months. The boy is growing more and more out of control. He has good days, but we're all so exhausted from the bad days. We're all on eggshells. In our fragile box of chocolates, we never know what we're going to get. I hate that the little one has to live with the rage and explosions. The poor little anxious guy. He has his own battles and challenges to get through on a daily basis. Luckily, these days he has friends to play with and go hang out with. He can occasionally escape the madness.
I am pretty cool throughout this process. I call Hubby away from his mental health break (an evening of basketball playoffs and beer) to come home to the craziness.
I have the urge to poor a glass of wine while they interview Red. I decide it would be inappropriate. Ya think?? It wasn't until they left that I felt a knot in my stomach and found myself shaking uncontrollably. I didn't feel like eating anything. I finally poured myself that glass of calm...I mean wine.
Before leaving the Crisis Deputy hands Red his business card, and tells him if he needs anything to give him a call. This kid pulls out his own business card and hands it to the guy. He's networking for his video business. You just gotta love that! We're all on the edge of insanity and he's drumming up business.
They didn't cart his ass away to the junior looney bin. He presented as totally lucid. Maybe he should be an actor. He sure can pull it together when he needs to. Don't think for a minute that he was all roses and sunshine, sorry for what he put us through the next morning. He's still hating life at school --saying he just can't take it anymore!
His doctor offered for me to have him go half-days until school is over. I feel like I'd be rewarding this acting out. He'd think...all I have to do is have a major meltdown to get out of school. So that would be a no thank-you. At the same time, I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm really not sure what to do. I just know...there has to be a better way.
I look forward to hearing your comments, thoughts and your Confessions:
Let me preface this post by saying...this is difficult to share but hey, these are my "Confessions." This is my reality, my naked truth. I won't apologize for it. It's therapeutic for me and hopefully helpful and/or educational for someone else.
The storm blew in so quickly...it was like a tornado, without warning. It was ugly. It was out of nowhere. It was the worst I've seen him yet, and that's saying something. Just the other day, I wrote how I'm growing immune to his meltdowns. Guess what? I spoke to soon. There are now holes in two different doors in my house. Did he knock wood for luck? I don't think so.
I don't know where to lay the blame. Is it the medicine??? Is he just exhausted from the pressures of the school year? That is his complaint. "I hate that school!" "I hate Ms. Whoever?" "I can't go to school tomorrow!"
Hubby not in attendance for this tirade --I feel desperate. He is acting like he is totally possessed. I warned, "If you hit anything else I'm going to call the hospital or someone and you're going to have to leave." He looks almost stunned at the hole in the first door. He looks down at his hand, which is now throbbing, like I can't believe I did this. A few minutes later...he is banging fretfully on another door. I call for assistance.
He is shocked and pissed all at the same time. He has not harmed anyone. The only carnage is my bedroom door and the utility closet door. When I tell him the Crisis Team will be coming out to assess him. I tell him, I'm not exactly sure what they will do, if they will take him to the hospital or not. Scared to death, he calms his ass right down.
He is as cool as a cucumber when they come in. Of course by then, his meds have probably kicked in fully. I wish I could say for sure what is going on in his head at this point. The truth is, it would be a guessing game. This whole psychiatric medication scenario is a guessing game. An expensive, challenging, daring game of guessing what will work. What will make things better for this kid? Will this make things worse? Lately, we are seeing more of the latter.
I'm sure my neighbors all got a thrill from gossiping, wondering what the hell is going on in my house. My mother peers out of the window as a few neighbors gather to talk. She assumes it's about the yelling that's been coming from my house and the two unmarked cars that pull up. I don't really give a shit what they think at this point. I have to do what I have to do. I have to deal with my reality --not with what the neighbors think about my reality.
The Mental Health deputy is great with him. Thankfully, Red is not the belligerent out of control person who tore threw my house moments earlier. I can't believe this is happening, but it's been brewing for months. The boy is growing more and more out of control. He has good days, but we're all so exhausted from the bad days. We're all on eggshells. In our fragile box of chocolates, we never know what we're going to get. I hate that the little one has to live with the rage and explosions. The poor little anxious guy. He has his own battles and challenges to get through on a daily basis. Luckily, these days he has friends to play with and go hang out with. He can occasionally escape the madness.
I am pretty cool throughout this process. I call Hubby away from his mental health break (an evening of basketball playoffs and beer) to come home to the craziness.
I have the urge to poor a glass of wine while they interview Red. I decide it would be inappropriate. Ya think?? It wasn't until they left that I felt a knot in my stomach and found myself shaking uncontrollably. I didn't feel like eating anything. I finally poured myself that glass of calm...I mean wine.
Before leaving the Crisis Deputy hands Red his business card, and tells him if he needs anything to give him a call. This kid pulls out his own business card and hands it to the guy. He's networking for his video business. You just gotta love that! We're all on the edge of insanity and he's drumming up business.
They didn't cart his ass away to the junior looney bin. He presented as totally lucid. Maybe he should be an actor. He sure can pull it together when he needs to. Don't think for a minute that he was all roses and sunshine, sorry for what he put us through the next morning. He's still hating life at school --saying he just can't take it anymore!
His doctor offered for me to have him go half-days until school is over. I feel like I'd be rewarding this acting out. He'd think...all I have to do is have a major meltdown to get out of school. So that would be a no thank-you. At the same time, I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm really not sure what to do. I just know...there has to be a better way.
I look forward to hearing your comments, thoughts and your Confessions:
Logging you in...
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
diyalabs6192603 11p · 192 weeks ago
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago