The past few months have been full of frustration and
anguish. Actually, that’s kind of an on-going thing that I’m learning about
life in general, but the past few months have been especially difficult. Today?
Today I feel really good.
It didn’t start out that way. Just this morning I had a
conversation with my husband about being so sick of the stress and of feeling
scared for my kid all the time. Our youngest is on the autism spectrum, and public
school has been extremely stressful for him and for us. I mean STRESSFUL. A LOT .
But today we had a nice breakthrough with the public school
people, and after five years of consistent efforts (a/k/a relentless harassment)
to get him where he needs to be, he finally has a lot of sunshine coming his
way.
Going through this process with him has made me think a lot
about how difficult it was for me in school, and how no one (that I know of,
anyway) went through the process of helping me get out of where I was. My mom
will probably be pissed if she reads this, and righteously indignant (that’s a
specialty of hers), but the reality is that I didn’t get out of where I was
until I dropped out of high school, and I did THAT all by myself.
When I was in school, I had a lot of trouble getting
homework done. I didn’t have to really work very hard – academically things
were pretty easy for me, and I almost always did exactly how much work needed
to be done to get it done. But, again, it wasn’t much of an effort because that
was the easy part.
The hard part was being at school. For some reason, I don’t
have any memories of wishing to be at school instead of home. It would make
sense that I would appreciate the opportunity to be out of the house as much as
possible – now that I think about it, that’s the route my sister took. She was
involved in sports and cheerleading and things of that nature.
I didn’t have too many problems, though, until fourth grade.
My teacher was a BITCH. Why would anyone that mean want to teach fourth
graders? There were also waves of violence and torture and mind fucking going
on at home at any given time, and I felt like my parents joined ranks with my
teacher when it came to doing what they wanted me to do.
That was one of the years that I threw up a lot. I mean A
LOT. Like once a week, usually just before I went to school, or shortly after
arriving. After fourth grade, I only threw up a couple of times a month, and
just spent the rest of the time being nauseous. I didn’t throw up on purpose,
and I dreaded it happening and fought to keep my cookies down pretty much every
day.
It wasn’t just going to school, either – it was getting out
of bed and then leaving my room in the morning. Breakfast always sucked, and I hated
that, too. We all had to eat breakfast together (every. fucking. day) and read
the bible and listen to my dad bestowing his wisdom upon us. My mom was a great
martyr, but she also liked to gossip, so she wasn’t too bad to listen to – she kept
it interesting. My brother and sister and I usually just fought with each
other.
Anyway. I was grounded for almost my entire fourth grade
year, and maybe even the summer afterward, but I don’t remember exactly. It was
very lonely, and I felt very hopeless, and my parents and my teacher reinforced
those feelings daily.
In fifth grade, my teacher suggested that I had ADD, and
that’s when I started with the meds. I know my mom took me to the doctor, and
gave me my meds, and she also made things like spaghetti o’s for breakfast so
that I would eat something that I could keep down. For a while I got chocolate
shakes, and I think there may have been a baloney-for-breakfast period as well.
Looking back on it, my mom did work at helping me not to be
too nauseous to go to school everyday.
When I was in high school and decided I wanted to leave the
mainstream school and do this kind of homeschool/distance learning thing, my
mom set that up and paid for it, but when I went back to regular school to
re-enroll, I went by myself and got laughed at by the administration.
My mom found out that I could take this test to get back in
to regular school, and she arranged that, and then after I missed a bunch of
days, she went in and straightened it out so I could get credit for that
semester. After I quit for good, she arranged for me to take the G.E.D., and if
it wasn’t for her, I probably would not have even gotten it at all.
My mom did start finding out all she could about ADD, and I think
that may have been what got her back into school and getting graduate degrees
and being a licensed clinical therapist.
Not long after I first told my mom about what my dad did
(almost five years ago), she wrote me this letter telling me how hard it was
for her to not know what was wrong with me, and when the ADD thing came along,
she was so relieved to have some kind of name to put on it, and from then on,
she attributed anything disturbing to that diagnosis.
Um, that’s all of the ways my mom went to bat for me in
public school that I can think of for now. So other than that, my mom (or
anyone else) didn’t fight to get me to where I needed to be. I am kind of
bummed out now, thinking about it.
But here is the thing – I am able to do that for my kid now.
And some people in the local public school system may consider me “uncooperative,”
but I’ve been doing what needs to be done to get him where he needs to be.
Today was great. It was fantastic. I’m not completely
convinced that my son will be getting everything he needs, and will most likely
have to see it happen before I have much faith in it, but today was fantastic. People
listened to me and acknowledged that my concerns were real and reasonable, and
let me know about the options available, and gave me contact numbers for resources,
and didn’t minimize my concerns or blow me off or try to bully me into anything
– it was really, really great.
Now I feel better again – I feel really, really good about
being able to be the mom to my kids that my mom never was for me, and
hopefully, when my kids are thirty-something, they won’t have to suppress a
continuous urge to call me up and tell me to go fuck myself.
