Friday, January 30, 2009

Long self-pity rant.

It’s been one of those weeks. I think my body is adjusting to my new happy pills and so making me less happy. Monster’s birthday is Thursday. This also happens to be the one night I am able to tour the inclusive school I’ve been trying to get him into for two years. The woman is being SO friendly and SO helpful and SO accommodating that she is letting me come to the kindergarten introduction and she is then going to show me around the school. She understands I have been taking (IMO) too much time off for Monster and since her tours are Wednesdays at 11:30, this is a big favor to me.
The day before is M’s swimming. We don’t get home until 7:00 and then it’s time for treat, relaxing, and combing out the mess of hair he is insisting on growing.

Monster seems to have developed separation anxiety which his psychologist says is not really as strange as I think – many Aspie kids go through it much later than NT children.

I worry over his new home daycare and hate that I have to put him anywhere. I think he’s happy there and I think he is well-taken-care-of, but the woman is not exactly warm and kind. I don’t know if I am doing him permanent damage leaving him there. This woman has an Aspie kid herself. He’s 12. He and Monster seem to have a love/hate relationship. He will tell me he is unhappy there and Matthew (the 12-year-old) is mean to him. He knows these things worry me, so I never know what is true and what isn’t.

Tuesday Monster’s social worker is coming over for her monthly meeting. Monday is my singing group. I want to do Monster’s birthday this weekend. Hubby is taking him to the indoor pool Sunday and I thought I could wrap and when they got home we could have our little family party. Hubby says he should just wait until next weekend. EXCUSE ME??? This is the kid who has been asking since before Christmas how many days until his birthday. I will save him a present to open on his birthday, but the rest need to be done Sunday.

Besides, the 8th is Monster’s party and much to my excitement three people have RSVP’d. I Was setting M up for the chance that maybe no one would be able to come and he said to me, “Then I’d get ALL the treat bags!” so it seemed like it might not be a disaster if nobody showed up. Except that I had rented someplace for 10 kids and ended up with our family of 3.

Now, my horrors and fears and terrors and such. I have been involuntarily falling asleep at work. Seriously. I’m sitting there working and then I sort of drift off. I almost got fired yesterday, and so I have to go see my doctor. I don’t know what is going on, but part of me thinks it’s anxiety. It all started when my mean boss told me I wasn’t working out in her department. I thought it would stop when I got my old job back, but it hasn’t. I’m overwhelmed right now and afraid. I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday afternoon, and it’s a fasting one, so I’m pretty excited about that. My HR dept told me I HAD to take the earliest appointment they could give me, even though they had an early morning appt on the 13th. No, too late. And I’m terrified he’ll take my driver’s license away, even though this only ever happens at work, which makes me think I just don’t want to be here. Weekends, I can sit on the computer or read for hours and never feel that weird droopiness that suddenly comes over me and makes me doze off. Maybe there’s something horribly wrong with me. Maybe it’ll happen again and I’ll get fired.
And how will I get to work? And if I take one of those busses for people who can’t work, who will pick up my child?

I think it’s a combination of frustration, feeling overwhelmed, and then work boredom. If I stay busy at work them it doesn’t happen. Or I can fight it off because I can keep my brain occupied. But I look at our February calendar, and I hate looking at it. I don’t want to do it. And to be honest, I don’t want to work anymore, which makes me wonder if subliminally I’m trying to get fired, which is stupid because where I work I just need to wait around until we’re all layed off. I actually hoped I would be one of the people on the list that went out a few months ago when 4,000 people were let go. Then I would be home with Monkey. I wouldn’t have to put him in daycare. I wouldn’t have to worry about summer care. I could put him back into OT. I could find him a social skills class.

The feeling of helplessness I have about M’s life and future seems so much more real to me since the day school program let him go. I feel very isolated. I feel very alone, and that nobody cares about my fight. My support group seems to be falling apart. The last three months it was just me and the moderator. Maybe they’ll cancel it soon.

I do have my first appointment with a counselor who works with parents of special needs children in a couple of weeks. I want to start crying now, and start telling her how helpless and isolated I feel, and how I’m losing my job and losing my mind and I need to keep both because my son needs me. We need our house. We need our security, our quiet, our retreat. Anyhow, I warned this would be a long ramble. I don’t want to go to the doctor on Monday but I guess this is the push I need. I may be diabetic. I may have heart , liver, kidney, thyroid troubles. I guess it’s time to bite the bullet and find out. Monster DOES need me and if I don’t take care of myself I can’t take care of him.

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