Just a long rambling

I haven’t been this sad and out of sorts since we got Monster’s diagnosis. I have to shake myself up and get myself out of this funk.The truth is, what the after school program did is really doing us a favor. We can save so much money by working different shifts so we can see Monster off in the morning and meet his bus in the afternoon. It’s summer that has me worried. If I can’t find a good PCA then I will have to work ridiculously early and hubby will have to work ridiculously late so we can watch Monster ourselves.
The ones I’ve interviewed so far just don’t fit. There is one who seems nice enough, and I don’t know why I have reservations about her, but I do. Maybe I need to talk to her some more to get a better impression of her.
Another one who was supposed to come by on Saturday stood us up. So much for her being reliable, huh?

OCR is going to ask the after school program for a mediation meeting. If they say no then it goes to investigation. I think if that happens we will drop the case. It’s not worth it. They don’t like my son anyhow.

So – what more do I want? I always manage to recover from these big shake-ups in our life; why do I always fall into such deep despair before I get past it and get on? I scare my little guy when I get like this. And I scare myself too. When it gets to the point that I think about not making that curve on the bridge, not turning the wheel when I need to, I worry about myself.

Honestly, I know I will get through this. I have lived with my depression long enough that I know the real danger signs and know when to ask for emergency help. For now, I just let myself entertain the suicidal thoughts because for some reason they feel necessary – getting past them by wading through them.

Monster needs me to pull myself together though. His whole little life keeps getting so shaken up – thrown out of one daycare after another, and now maybe a new school, and maybe a PCA and a whole new routine. I hate that he’s going through all of this, when really what he needs in his life is some continuity. At least we have been able to keep the details to ourselves. I don’t think he understands that all of these changes are due to his behaviors. But then, he knows a lot more than he ever lets on, and he is so intuitive. He could know everything. Plus I sit here sad because it’s 3:30 and I don’t get to leave until 6 and I want to just hold my boy and smell his hair and feel his weight in my arms. I want to ask him about his day and tell him how wonderful and sweet and amazing he is, and tell him how much I love him. And maybe I’ll let him fall asleep in our bed tonight. Just because we’ve both been so sad. Hubby doesn’t like my enabling Monster like I do – thinks he should be forced to fall asleep alone every night. And, who knows? He may be right. But in the big scheme of things, what does it hurt? Tomorrow a plane could crash on our house or we could be in a car crash. Then what does it matter if Monster got to fall asleep in our bed?

I think I’m too fatalistic. I try to raise Monster to be a good member of society, but there’s a part of me who wonders whether this world will even exist for any of us in ten years. Part of me wants to just leave Monster be and not stress him, and let him be himself and be happy and not have to try to conform to a society in which I have already lost trust. And even if we all reach old age, why is it my job to force my son to become a mindless follower of rules and laws that sometimes don’t even make sense to me?

I used to laugh at homeschoolers, but now I hear myself telling Monster why he has to do something a teacher or aide at school has told him to do, and I wonder to myself, WHY? It isn’t something I agree with. And yet I am telling my son he needs to do what the teacher says. And I know it is about respect of those in authority, and I know that’s important, but the anarchist in me wants nothing to do with it. I try to figure out where the balance is – how to raise my son to be free-thinking, but respectful. How to allow him to think for himself but not have him end up being a child who goes into his school with a gun and shoots everyone who has made him feel bad. And I don’t know what that balance should be.