Now what.
I want to update and explain. Archive where we are now so when I write about it someday it's here, fresh, to remind me.
But I'm so fucking tired.
He's not good. At home's he's my boy, frustrating at times but charming, sweet, earnest. I put him on a bus and make a stab at the day and then the phone calls come. He trudges back in the house deflated, sullen, folders stuffed with notes about what happened, what he did or refused to do. What they had to do to keep him safe.
He tears apart rooms. Flips desks. Runs away. Terrorizes his friends. Goes after women with angry hands. Snores at his desk, lies down on mats, tells them he'd rather live where there are no people, or not live at all.
Yesterday we had to bring him home, because apparently now he has a speficic plan for how he'd do it. That's a different checkbox on the paper work, a tick towards urgency that doesn't actually change how they service him, just how I feel, hearing about it, a little pocketknife in a mother's heart.
"Why did you say that?" I ask him at the Chick-fil-A that night. His father takes us all out for something easy, something nice. Mouthful of fried chicken and ketchup, I'm hoping he'll say "because someone put the words in my mouth," someone gave him the idea, but instead it's "because then I wouldn't have to be angry anymore."
I can't breathe. I'm choking on grief as I type this. My house is littered with toys and papers and I can't find anything I need, used dishes in the sink, my hair unwashed, I can barely move through my day. It's all so dirty and heavy and exhausting.
We've been holding our breath since the fall, our one meeting with the lawyers. Now they won't answer my questions. How do you shrug off a mother whose nine-year-old wants to die?
The doctors, the fancy ones that the district paid for, tell us our son is unwell. Well, that's swell. Now what?
Now what.
But I'm so fucking tired.
He's not good. At home's he's my boy, frustrating at times but charming, sweet, earnest. I put him on a bus and make a stab at the day and then the phone calls come. He trudges back in the house deflated, sullen, folders stuffed with notes about what happened, what he did or refused to do. What they had to do to keep him safe.
He tears apart rooms. Flips desks. Runs away. Terrorizes his friends. Goes after women with angry hands. Snores at his desk, lies down on mats, tells them he'd rather live where there are no people, or not live at all.
Yesterday we had to bring him home, because apparently now he has a speficic plan for how he'd do it. That's a different checkbox on the paper work, a tick towards urgency that doesn't actually change how they service him, just how I feel, hearing about it, a little pocketknife in a mother's heart.
"Why did you say that?" I ask him at the Chick-fil-A that night. His father takes us all out for something easy, something nice. Mouthful of fried chicken and ketchup, I'm hoping he'll say "because someone put the words in my mouth," someone gave him the idea, but instead it's "because then I wouldn't have to be angry anymore."
I can't breathe. I'm choking on grief as I type this. My house is littered with toys and papers and I can't find anything I need, used dishes in the sink, my hair unwashed, I can barely move through my day. It's all so dirty and heavy and exhausting.
We've been holding our breath since the fall, our one meeting with the lawyers. Now they won't answer my questions. How do you shrug off a mother whose nine-year-old wants to die?
The doctors, the fancy ones that the district paid for, tell us our son is unwell. Well, that's swell. Now what?
Now what.