Broke

I seem to have screwed up my bank account – 490.00 later in bank charges I am very broke. I have no idea how to get myself out of this mess either. And of course it’s the beginning of the month so all the bills are due. My sanity is hanging on by a thread. Patrick is struggling both academically and behaviorally still in school. Trever was told today that his pre-school can’t start because of some paper they can’t get signed. It’s Friday, and somehow that makes me sad. I have all weekend to deal with family life, when family life isn’t so good. I keep telling myself hang in there, take one day at a time, this too shall pass. It works until I get home, then it’s like a brick wall falls on me. Oh yeah, PMS happens the first day of the month also. FUN FUN FUN

Respite

I came home last night just when the meeting with CMH was finishing up at my house. They deceided to give us an infinte number of respite hours, take all you need, just don't admit your child in the hospital or sue us. I guess I should be happy, but respite hours actually make me sad. Its telling someone - here watch my child because I can't handle it. I'm glad he's getting picked up at school everyday, he will no longer have to endure getting picked on, on the bus ride home, I just wish I was the one doing it. I'm incredibly stressed today! No money, no end to any of this stress in the future - I need respite from myself, not from my son.

They kicked us when we were down

So CMH is thinking Doug is hearing conversations in his head, apparently the Doctor claimed that he never told Doug to take Patrick to the ER, that a med increase is all he needed. Also they state that I need parenting classes because I’m not capable of raising an autistic child – nice huh? Nothing like kicking the dog when the dog is down.
Well not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, well it’s a bad thing. But it help proves that Doug and I are not going insane. Patrick is now exhibiting the behaviors he has at home at school. In the emergency IEP meeting today it was discussed that Patrick refuses to do anything, not just school work. EVERYTHING. Patrick its time to go to your next class, NO. Everything is NO. He screams, cries, whines, refusing to do anything, throwing his stuff around, crumpling his papers, yelling at the other kids to leave him alone. I asked about getting Patrick a para-professional and at this time it looks like a NO because aides are only used in this school district for academics not behavior. We came up with a behavioral plan that allows for sensory breaks in the sensory room, the teachers will now only tell him to do something once, if he does it gets a reward, and 5th hour for ½ the hour he can go to Mrs. L’s class. They all believe he is extremely mad because he doesn’t get to see Mrs. L as much this year, so there hoping this is a short term fix until we can get him settled down this year.
Had my girlie appointment today, have to schedule a mammogram and an ultrasound – they think they felt a cyst. So I’m a little worried still. Can’t wait to all these test are done and everything comes out normal.
This weekend went a little normal, nothing remarkable to note. The boys actually got along fairly well. There was one point in the car – Patrick asked in a nice calm manner – “Trever why are you starring at me?” – Trever “because I love you pat”. AWWWWW. That was so nice to hear. The best little conversation I’ve ever heard in my life. Life is not the number of breaths we take, but the number of moments that takes our breath away. That was one of them.

Hell

Last night I realized that there really is no help out there. I have realized that today I can go on suffering in my ever looming depression and lack of support that I need. Or I can reach out to the one spirit I know can help me. Today God I give you my problems, I give you my pain, I give you the questions that are eating me up inside that go unanswered, and I realize that all you want me to do in return is to live my life with Joy and faith. Today I accept your help.
I’m not sure when the spiral down into hells basement started with Patrick’s mind, but I believe what pushed him over the staircase was his believing that his teachers now hate him, and that his teacher called him a cry baby in front of the whole class.
To describe his actions for the last week in words is too difficult. I’ve been hit, I’ve been called mean names, and my younger son has been hit, has been yelled at and has been the target of abuse all week. He has ran away, he has threatened to kill us, to kill himself, to call the police on us, begged us to find him a new family, cried, yelled, sworn, wanted to eat lots of food, didn’t want to eat at all. To make him happy was not happening. He demanded we take him places to get toys and if we didn’t jump and do it he screamed and cried.
Wednesday when I walked in my house from work, Patrick was sobbing real scared and hurt sobs; my husband said he was taking Patrick to the hospital. My heart was ripped out of my chest right then and there and stomped on. My husband could not understand my cries to not go, and he left with both my children to the hospital. I hurt so bad, after all we have been through this week, and to face this right when I got home from work was just beyond copeable. I had to go to preschool orientation and I just sat in class like my body was there and my mind was somewhere else. I got home and I’ll I could think about was getting a knife and stabbing my leg. I just had to rid my mind of my pain. I even got up and held the knife a couple times, but I didn’t do it.
My husband and the boys got home at 10 pm, the hospital would not admit him because he was not a threat to himself. They set up a meeting the next morning at CMH. His doctor agreed with Doug and said Patrick was unstable and they should go back to the ER. The CMH intake decided not to agree with the doctor and blamed our family for the issues and said we had two choices take him home or have him put in foster care. FOSTER CARE? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. That is NOT an option. And something wrong with home? Yeah we have an unstable child making the family unstable. Not the opposite. Please not the opposite, but is it? I really do not want to go down my own staircase of hell where I blame everything that’s ever gone wrong with my child on me. I’m so sick of people blaming my parenting, but if so many people do blame us, me, is it me?
Both my husband and I know that are marriage is now only hanging on by thin strings, and it’s just so sad that we both admitted we were contemplating divorce. That sad thing is, it’s not about love, its really not even about money, its about parenting. It’s about both of us not wanting to walk on eggshells everyday of our lives. We are both just so lost. We are both on the verge of entering are own personal hell. He is coping with unbearable pain in his back, two special children, and a wife that is depressed. I am coping with the stress of trying to keep the basic needs of our family taken care of, shelter, food, clothing, dealing with a stressful job, dealing with a husband that is in pain, dealing with two special kids.
So today God – I give you this. I am writing today saying please help us, please keep our marriage strong, we vowed to you, please help us. I know I can’t do it without you.

Monday 20th

I received an email from the school today – wanting to discuss the problems my son is having in school today…
Welcome back to another year. It was great to see Patrick smiling while walking down the halls.
At this time, his team and I have some concerns that we would like to discuss with you so that we can be sure Patrick has a successful year.
This year I have noticed a couple things that are different with Patrick. In the middle of class he may whine, cry, or even refuse to complete tasks or assignments. Last year, I know he had difficulty with a couple of the teachers and missing work, but I have never observed these types of behaviors.
Are you available to meet with us on Monday, September 27 @ 8:00 to discuss a plan? If so, we also think it would be beneficial for Patrick to be in the meeting so he understands that we are all on the same page.
I typically do get an email like this or a phone call of some sort – Please help me with your child. Some years my husband and I actually take bets to see how long it will take for the newbie teacher to call us.
I don’t mind trying to help them, but at the same time I always feel that they are more qualified to handle him and his issues than I am. They have more resources available than I do. But they don’t really use them. Not sure why, I have thought all along that my child would be better off with a one on one aide then to make a teacher of NT kids who has 30 kids in her class, deal also with my son’s outburst. I feel for the teachers because my son can be a big handful to take care of, but yet also feel they bring it on themselves wanting to treat him like a NT child, whatever label you want to give my child the one I’m certain he is NOT is Nero-Typical.
So when I got home last night my son Patrick ran out to my car asking me if I hated him, or was mad at him. I’m like no Patrick I never hate you. He’s like did my teacher email you; I said yes, they did. He’s like why are you not mad at me. I’m like all they said is they needed to talk to me, what is up? Well he said he was crying at school most of the day and they had to call his teacher support (special ed) teacher in the room 3 times. The third time she called him a cry-baby and he got enraged at school. He said he even told the principal that he thought Mrs. L should be fired. He was very angry all night and afraid to go back to school today because he thought all of his teachers now hate him. He also was very hungry and wanted to eat everything. I’m afraid he is becoming more unstable, and DO NOT want to have to admit him back to the hospital. Please pray that this was just an off week.

Sunday Blues

Every Sunday I have this disorder – which I don’t know if it is unique to me or if other people suffer from it in the world, I like to call it my Sunday Blues Disorder – NOS. This Sunday it was more intense. I was upset with myself from slapping my son in the face, there is more grown up ways to handle things for sure. Patrick was very angry and irritate still. He had it in his head that he HAD to go to the store any store and buy a toy – any toy, and he had to do it NOW. He was not accepting no for an answer, and I was not going to change my answer. My Aunt Betsy came over to hem some pants and she couldn’t even believe how irritable Patrick was being. Let just say when 8 pm bedtime arrived I couldn’t have found anything to be more joyous about.

Saturday Rage

I'm going to start this blog by going back 3 days. Don't get me wrong this journey really started in 1999 when my first little blue bundle of joy came home. But since I need to find a release for my own emotions I will start on Saturday and I may or may not work my way backwards 11 years.

Saturday: Doug took his usual day off from being a stay at home dad and went to shoot his gun with his Dad for the day. I didn't anticipate a bad day, because for the last few months things have been more predictable, a little bit more controllable. But this Saturday proved to be different. Patrick pretty much woke up in a bad and difficult mood. Patrick feels that he has to control his brother at all times. Well all day I listened to the two of them back and forth arguing and yelling and picking. I was standing in the kitchen when I witnessed my 11 year old slap his 4 year old brother quite forcefully across the face. That sparked my rage and I slapped my 11 year old across his face, which sparked the Tasmania devil out of my son. He started hitting me calling me a F'ing B-tch. I held him down, which is getting harder and harder as he is getting bigger and bigger. When he somewhat calmed down he packed a container full of toys and ran away. He was gone about 30 seconds to a minute and came in and asked me to call the police because he wants to live somewhere else. Eventually things calmed back down with him and he apologized. I wish I could describe better how scary his rage really is. The change in the look in his eyes, the inability to calm him down. Its just not describable.