the voices in his head
Rough day.
The Kinglet attacked me with a pillow. Sounds like not a big thing - it's only a pillow, after all. But the thing is, he made a choice to do it, crossed a room in anger and made a deliberate act of violence for something that was not my fault.
I'd been trying to talk him through a math problem that was frustrating him. Place values - we did a unit in this during the winter, he mastered it, we moved on. But now he doesn't remember, so we're reviewing. He's confused, and that makes him belligerent. I get it. I calm my voice, try to explain it - he puts his hands over his ears, growls and mumbles, bangs on things, wields his pencil like a weapon. The more I try to talk him down, the worse he gets. I give him a choice - get angry and separate yourself, or calm down and we work together. He chooses non-answer, which equals separation. I walk away. He deliberates, crosses room, violence.
This is not good. But it gets worse.
Later, he is calmer. He tells me he's sorry. Then he tells me it's the voice in his head that makes it happen. The one that repeats, over and over, "don't help Mom. Don't help Mom," until his head feels like it's spinning and he goes crazy.
My child has just pushed me further off the cliff of believing it's early-onset bipolar disorder, and he doesn't have any idea that what he's said is a big deal.
MEANWHILE. I have stumbled into an argument with my long-term, idiot friend who can't see past his own nose. He asks me to tell him about the private school's we're considering for the Kinglet, and why don't I want to consider public school? - knowing full well what we've been through. I explain but he keeps pushing. Public school worked fine for his sister's kid. Do I realize how much I'm limiting myself? His Dad worked for public schools. He worked hard to save lots of kids - Apparently my decision that it's not right for the Kinglet's is a personal insult against his family and his own evolution as a person - as if I didn't have a frontrow seat to said evolution and every good reason to wonder whether public school had anything to do with it. But I'm the jerk for not wanting to have to keep justify my parenting choices when really we're not talking about my kid at all. Jesus.
I wish I could call my Mom. I want to call my Mom. Mommy, my baby is hearing voices. The bottom is dropping out of my world.
But I can't talk to my Mom.
I wish I could talk to someone who knows what to do, but I don't know who to talk to. The search for services for child behavioral and mental health is a freaking journey into the underworld.
I wish this child didn't take up so much of my emotional reserves. I don't have energy to put into anything else - and at this rate, I'm going to be utterly friendless.
So, yeah. Rough day.
The Kinglet attacked me with a pillow. Sounds like not a big thing - it's only a pillow, after all. But the thing is, he made a choice to do it, crossed a room in anger and made a deliberate act of violence for something that was not my fault.
I'd been trying to talk him through a math problem that was frustrating him. Place values - we did a unit in this during the winter, he mastered it, we moved on. But now he doesn't remember, so we're reviewing. He's confused, and that makes him belligerent. I get it. I calm my voice, try to explain it - he puts his hands over his ears, growls and mumbles, bangs on things, wields his pencil like a weapon. The more I try to talk him down, the worse he gets. I give him a choice - get angry and separate yourself, or calm down and we work together. He chooses non-answer, which equals separation. I walk away. He deliberates, crosses room, violence.
This is not good. But it gets worse.
Later, he is calmer. He tells me he's sorry. Then he tells me it's the voice in his head that makes it happen. The one that repeats, over and over, "don't help Mom. Don't help Mom," until his head feels like it's spinning and he goes crazy.
My child has just pushed me further off the cliff of believing it's early-onset bipolar disorder, and he doesn't have any idea that what he's said is a big deal.
MEANWHILE. I have stumbled into an argument with my long-term, idiot friend who can't see past his own nose. He asks me to tell him about the private school's we're considering for the Kinglet, and why don't I want to consider public school? - knowing full well what we've been through. I explain but he keeps pushing. Public school worked fine for his sister's kid. Do I realize how much I'm limiting myself? His Dad worked for public schools. He worked hard to save lots of kids - Apparently my decision that it's not right for the Kinglet's is a personal insult against his family and his own evolution as a person - as if I didn't have a frontrow seat to said evolution and every good reason to wonder whether public school had anything to do with it. But I'm the jerk for not wanting to have to keep justify my parenting choices when really we're not talking about my kid at all. Jesus.
I wish I could call my Mom. I want to call my Mom. Mommy, my baby is hearing voices. The bottom is dropping out of my world.
But I can't talk to my Mom.
I wish I could talk to someone who knows what to do, but I don't know who to talk to. The search for services for child behavioral and mental health is a freaking journey into the underworld.
I wish this child didn't take up so much of my emotional reserves. I don't have energy to put into anything else - and at this rate, I'm going to be utterly friendless.
So, yeah. Rough day.