it's not you, it's me. except when it's you.
Bad day at homeschool yesterday. I meant it to be a light day, just a few brief things on the agenda, but after several hours of time-outs and verbal abuse it ended with the Kinglet banished to his room and me weeping at the table.
In these weaker moments, I begin to think packing him off to public school is a viable option again, and if he can't hack it, well, let the chips fall where they will. These past seven months have been important in figuring out just what the hell is going on with my son, but nothing I'm doing is making him any better able to function in a classroom or group setting. The only good thing that might be coming out of prolonged homeschooling is an education at his pace and ability level - but on the other hand he's learning a set of skills that only make sense at our kitchen table. And, frankly, he ain't doing so well at the kitchen table, either, if it takes him three hours to complete a task he's capable of doing in three minutes, but for the direction the anger winds are blowing that day.
I got so far as to call PIC, a support group that helps parents of special-needs kids navigate the school system. I'd hoped to get answers to some "what-if questions": what if we decide to re-enroll him? Is there a deadline? How do you UN-enroll from homeschooling? Could he have an IEP at the starting gate - cuz, really, he'd need one.
The PIC deferred me to an "intake-form" to complete, email back, and then wait for a follow up on, even though technically I've already been "intaken" from previous calls. Not wanting to wait, I contacted the Special Services office of our school district, but as it happens they're closed on Fridays during the summer.
I brought up to my feelings to the God-King (everything I said here plus the "This is killing me and I don't know how much more I can take" part of it, but we are not of marital consensus on the matter. The God-King still feels that educational level part is an important part, and after watching a co-worker fight the district on behalf of his severely disabled child, the God-King is adamantly skeptical about the district's ability to do anything for our son short of plop him in front of a computer in an isolated room. Short of seeing a complete transformation on the Kinglet's part, through meds, the God-King can't see public school as an option.
I'm in the rock vs hard place.
Meanwhile, we are three and a half weeks into the Kinglet's new meds, and we are not seeing any improvement. If anything, things are getting worse. Though it's hard to quantify, he seems to be more agitated for longer periods - full of nervous energy all day, engaging in repetitive and obnoxious behaviors and doing things that are deliberately and/or compulsively oppositional - and it's harder (if not impossible) to bring him back down, short of getting him to finally go to sleep at night, which is becoming an hours-long battle every night. He also appears to be backsliding, getting in trouble for things that he knows better than to do, like drawing on furniture and carpets and putting things in his mouth.
According to our new therapist and the consensus on the online support group I subscribe to, anti-depressants can have an adverse effect on bipolar individuals; as in, it can lead to heightened irritability, hyperactivity and all the other fun-time symptoms (aggression, hallucinations...). Technically we need to give it 4-6 weeks before it's clear the current meds aren't working, but it seems to me we're seeing a downward trend and not an upward one. It's got me ready to make a call to the psychiatrist to talk about taking him off, and possibly switching to a mood *stabilizer*, a class of drugs that might be more advantageous if the Kinglet truly does have bipolar disorder.
I tried, actually, but as it happens (again), the doc's office closes early on Fridays. As if the universe really didn't want me making any progress towards anything Kinglet-related yesterday.
The God-King and I decided to watch him closely over the weekend and call the doc on Monday. So far, the Kinglet openly defied his father, broke into a shrieking fit (yes, shrieking), and dissolved in tears when asked to pick up some papers and writing materials from the living room. Noted.
OT... though not really: The upshot of this life is that my tolerance for any kind of stress or tension outside of my household is pretty much nil. I have lost some pretty important friendships in the last year because I simply don't have the stamina to deal with hurt and drama and the general bullshit of human beings who aren't my biological responsibility. Literally everything I have is devoted to keeping my head above water, emotionally, and trying to do right by the Kinglet.
This is not a new development, but it comes up again and again because the milk of human bullshit is overflowing. A lot of it festers on facebook, I find. Like the "friend" who made me out to be a big hostile meany because I questioned her highly-charged political status updates. Sad, to lose a long-term relationship over politics (especially when we're technically on the same side), but - Really? Watch that door, ass, you know the spiel.
Some of it's spilling over in my work life, too. I'm too old to play the pettiness game, and the negativity there feels like little electric shocks to an already overloaded threshold of pain (guess who just had an EMG? Ever had one of those? Bitch of annoying, they are. They send jolts down your individual nerves and watch the readout on a machine. There are needles, too. No fun.) It's not like I work for money, and it's making me question why I bother when I no longer love what I do.
I keep trying to practice living life as if I were not in a constant state of emotional crises, but it doesn't take much to remind me that, nope, this shit at home, at my heart, is real, and it makes everything else out there seem just... so not worth it.
So let me apologize in advance for my shortness, for whatever. It's not you, it's me - except when it's you and I just can't keep giving a crap.
Gah. Happiness.
In these weaker moments, I begin to think packing him off to public school is a viable option again, and if he can't hack it, well, let the chips fall where they will. These past seven months have been important in figuring out just what the hell is going on with my son, but nothing I'm doing is making him any better able to function in a classroom or group setting. The only good thing that might be coming out of prolonged homeschooling is an education at his pace and ability level - but on the other hand he's learning a set of skills that only make sense at our kitchen table. And, frankly, he ain't doing so well at the kitchen table, either, if it takes him three hours to complete a task he's capable of doing in three minutes, but for the direction the anger winds are blowing that day.
I got so far as to call PIC, a support group that helps parents of special-needs kids navigate the school system. I'd hoped to get answers to some "what-if questions": what if we decide to re-enroll him? Is there a deadline? How do you UN-enroll from homeschooling? Could he have an IEP at the starting gate - cuz, really, he'd need one.
The PIC deferred me to an "intake-form" to complete, email back, and then wait for a follow up on, even though technically I've already been "intaken" from previous calls. Not wanting to wait, I contacted the Special Services office of our school district, but as it happens they're closed on Fridays during the summer.
I brought up to my feelings to the God-King (everything I said here plus the "This is killing me and I don't know how much more I can take" part of it, but we are not of marital consensus on the matter. The God-King still feels that educational level part is an important part, and after watching a co-worker fight the district on behalf of his severely disabled child, the God-King is adamantly skeptical about the district's ability to do anything for our son short of plop him in front of a computer in an isolated room. Short of seeing a complete transformation on the Kinglet's part, through meds, the God-King can't see public school as an option.
I'm in the rock vs hard place.
Meanwhile, we are three and a half weeks into the Kinglet's new meds, and we are not seeing any improvement. If anything, things are getting worse. Though it's hard to quantify, he seems to be more agitated for longer periods - full of nervous energy all day, engaging in repetitive and obnoxious behaviors and doing things that are deliberately and/or compulsively oppositional - and it's harder (if not impossible) to bring him back down, short of getting him to finally go to sleep at night, which is becoming an hours-long battle every night. He also appears to be backsliding, getting in trouble for things that he knows better than to do, like drawing on furniture and carpets and putting things in his mouth.
According to our new therapist and the consensus on the online support group I subscribe to, anti-depressants can have an adverse effect on bipolar individuals; as in, it can lead to heightened irritability, hyperactivity and all the other fun-time symptoms (aggression, hallucinations...). Technically we need to give it 4-6 weeks before it's clear the current meds aren't working, but it seems to me we're seeing a downward trend and not an upward one. It's got me ready to make a call to the psychiatrist to talk about taking him off, and possibly switching to a mood *stabilizer*, a class of drugs that might be more advantageous if the Kinglet truly does have bipolar disorder.
I tried, actually, but as it happens (again), the doc's office closes early on Fridays. As if the universe really didn't want me making any progress towards anything Kinglet-related yesterday.
The God-King and I decided to watch him closely over the weekend and call the doc on Monday. So far, the Kinglet openly defied his father, broke into a shrieking fit (yes, shrieking), and dissolved in tears when asked to pick up some papers and writing materials from the living room. Noted.
OT... though not really: The upshot of this life is that my tolerance for any kind of stress or tension outside of my household is pretty much nil. I have lost some pretty important friendships in the last year because I simply don't have the stamina to deal with hurt and drama and the general bullshit of human beings who aren't my biological responsibility. Literally everything I have is devoted to keeping my head above water, emotionally, and trying to do right by the Kinglet.
This is not a new development, but it comes up again and again because the milk of human bullshit is overflowing. A lot of it festers on facebook, I find. Like the "friend" who made me out to be a big hostile meany because I questioned her highly-charged political status updates. Sad, to lose a long-term relationship over politics (especially when we're technically on the same side), but - Really? Watch that door, ass, you know the spiel.
Some of it's spilling over in my work life, too. I'm too old to play the pettiness game, and the negativity there feels like little electric shocks to an already overloaded threshold of pain (guess who just had an EMG? Ever had one of those? Bitch of annoying, they are. They send jolts down your individual nerves and watch the readout on a machine. There are needles, too. No fun.) It's not like I work for money, and it's making me question why I bother when I no longer love what I do.
I keep trying to practice living life as if I were not in a constant state of emotional crises, but it doesn't take much to remind me that, nope, this shit at home, at my heart, is real, and it makes everything else out there seem just... so not worth it.
So let me apologize in advance for my shortness, for whatever. It's not you, it's me - except when it's you and I just can't keep giving a crap.
Gah. Happiness.