And Now, From the "You're Going To Eat Your Words" Dept., This Just In

You know how I wrote something like "things are going great around here" in my last post? Well, they were.

But twenty minutes after I posted those words, Benjy broke down. It was over boredom. For Ben, boredom is a catastrophe of the highest degree. When he is bored he is empty. And there is nothing in life that will fill him.

"I have nothing in my life but video games," he told me bitterly, "and I'm bored."

"Well, what about those other things I always suggest you do?"

His face was a mask. Finally he mumbled, "What are they?"

"Drawing. Origami. Making the dinosaur plaster cast you got for Hanukkah. Setting up your Mp3 player/camera-binoculars/computer microscope so you can use them first thing tomorrow morning. Working on your java programming. Watching a movie."

He was unmoved. "I am so empty!" he cried, thrashing about on his bed, smacking the wall with a hand, which I feared might be followed by head banging.

"Why don't we make a plan for tomorrow," I said, grasping wildly.

"I'm not four years old!"

I tried to stroke his back but he wrenched his body away from me. He was tight and tense, his face wet and contorted.

Readers, I did not know what to do for him. I have been doing this for at least seven years, and sometimes I am still flummoxed. So I called in Lars. And then I went and got an Ativan.

When I came back, Benjy was lying prone in a depressed silence. Lars lay next to him, his arm around him.

When I asked him to sit up and take his med he sat obediently and took it. Then he laid back down and tried to sleep. I checked on him five minutes later and he murmured some soft thing -- goodnight, or I love you -- and sighed.

He slept through the night and so did I. It's morning, now, and he is still asleep. It's a new day, likely to bring new things. I hope it's going to be a good one.

Boredom

I've never met a child for whom boredom is such a catastrophe as it is for Benjy. It carves a deep, aching hole out of his core. (Gruesome, I know. And yet, appropriate.)

Boredom means, I have nothing in my life.

Boredom means, I have no friends.

Boredom means, Life is not worthwhile.

According to Benjy's psychiatrist, Dr. D--, what boredom actually means is, I am depressed. If boredom were simply boredom, then the many things that Ben could do -- origami, X-Box or Wii, reading, drawing, jumping on his trampoline (lucky guy!), playing Frisbee, watching the sometimes captivating YouTube videos about animals, and so on -- would be enough. But these things do not begin to fill him. When I trot out the list he grows agitated. He paces. Wrings his hands. And buries his face in the sofa pillows. Sometimes he goes to bed and draws his comforter over his head.

"I'm going to sleep," he announces, "and I hope I don't wake up!" But sleep rarely obliges. Boredom invades even his bed, and after five minutes he is pacing again. Anguished. Lonely.

I have not yet figured out this knotty problem. Maybe you, Readers, can tell me what to do about this boredom. All I know is that Benjy's boredom, or depression, or whatever you want to call it, is usually followed by a period, however brief, of gladness. And when my boy is glad, so am I.