Well I'm not. I'm here, Readers. Sitting by Lars on the butterscotch couch. The Hellacious Hound is snoozing nearby, on the red rug, and Saskia is upstairs pretending to do homework but almost certainly doing other, more interesting things. (Trying on outfits that will not be warm enough when she leaves for school at 7:40 tomorrow morning, for example, or watching something like Parks and Recreation on Hulu, or maybe engaging in acts of Facebookery.)
The fact that I do not know and do not care overmuch tells you something about me right now.
It tells you I am tired.
I did talk to my boy tonight, after a three-day phone call hiatus that was not my choice but which we all survived just fine. My mother reminds me on a regular basis that no news is good news. And usually she is right.
He sounds a bit low these days but he is not in crisis -- yet. Maybe this will the first autumn in four years without a breakdown. Funnily enough, we'd forgotten that this is hospital season, that short days and long darknesses are incompatible with happiness -- in our boy, at least. It's because he has come closer than ever to happiness since I stopped being CEO of his life, that we'd forgotten about hospital season.
But here it is, and all we can do is cross fingers and act all German by pressing thumbs and shouting toi-toi-toi!, and hope he will be OK.
In other news, my short story "Hello, Kitty" will be published at some point (soon, I hope, but you never know) in the online journal YARN (Young Adult Review Network). I did not realize I'd written a YA story. I have never really written for children or adolescents. But my good friend and writing group buddy, Diana Renn, publishes for the young adult market and she told me that I had, in fact, done so.
And I said, "cool."
My other good friend and writing group buddy, Eileen Donovan-Kranz, has a wonderful story out on YARN right now, and if you read it you won't regret it.
Also, I registered Saskia tonight for the 2014 Classical Singer Competition. This is a biggie. She will compete in the first round of the high school division at Boston Conservatory (there are regional first-round venues across the country), and if she makes the semi-finals or beyond she will compete in San Antonio, TX in May. Her teacher thinks she will make it to semi-finals (probably not finals as she is on the younger side and singing art songs rather than arias -- and if you don't know the difference you are in very good company;). So we are excited but also terrified by the implications for our traumatized checking account.
(To be honest, I'm a bit annoyed by the fact that two out of the three composers whose work Saskia will be performing are people I'd never heard of. This challenges my inflated opinion of my own classical music intelligence. Oh well.)
And that, Readers, is that. Glad you didn't give up on me. :)
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
Little Darlin', It's Been a Long, Cold, Lonely Winter...
I think spring is finally here.
Benjy found some crocuses in our yard last week. Brave little pale-purple blossoms, poked out of the cold ground. That was one thing.
We have been waking to bird-song. That is another.
The sun is beaming today, a great big solar grin. That makes for a good day around here.
I hope the winter is behind us. That was a bad winter for this boy and his mother. A winter of hospitals and scary medical tests and scary symptoms like memory loss and loss of things he once knew. Things he learned in kindergarten.
That was a winter of other losses. Losses of friends and bodily control and dignity.
It was also a winter of gains, but not good ones. Weight gain, for example (hello, Abilify!).
But the sun is here, and so is a new medication, Lamictal, that seems to help. He has not developed a fatal rash, and he has not succumbed to despair. We've seen no mania in the past couple of weeks. Overall, he seems brighter. Like the enormous weight he has carried on his back for so many years has lightened just a bit.
He still has his obsessions. Right now it's tennis and basketball. That alone is something to celebrate: it's not video games, not guns, not paintball or bows and arrows.
The sun is coming, but it's not all better. His memory does not really work. In the space of two hours he completely forgot an encounter he had with the school nurse last week, which included a physical exam. Two hours later he simply could not recall meeting with her, in spite of the fact that they conversed about which ankle was giving him trouble and the bite marks on his lip.
He is still having urinary accidents. (We have an appointment with urology next week.)
According to his recent neuropsychological evaluation he has lost skills, lost knowledge. His functionality is not terribly good.
Right now, the primary task at hand is to determine whether the mild psychotic symptoms he's having are secondary to bipolar disorder (yes, severe depression can cause psychosis) or a primary psychiatric illness (as in, early stages of schizophrenia). We are hoping beyond hope it's the former. That would be the less shitty of the two options.
Oh, and his neurologist is still on the case. Just in case there is some rare neurological issue she's overlooked. (I guess that memory loss last week freaked her out. I know it freaked me out.) So next week she is presenting him at some sort of conference of all her neurology colleagues at MGH. I'll have to trot him out to be poked and prodded (metaphorically, at least) in front of the whole department, and then they will discuss the case (without us present, thank goodness!).
I know this will be a hard thing for him. I only agreed to it because we are desperate for answers, and this seems the best way to get some. If the doctors at Mass General can't figure this out, then who the hell can?
So there it is. I'm trying to hang onto the good stuff. He's happier than I've seen him in a long while. I think the new med is going to help, and he's getting a dose increase tomorrow.
Little Darlin', here comes the sun.
Benjy found some crocuses in our yard last week. Brave little pale-purple blossoms, poked out of the cold ground. That was one thing.
We have been waking to bird-song. That is another.
The sun is beaming today, a great big solar grin. That makes for a good day around here.
I hope the winter is behind us. That was a bad winter for this boy and his mother. A winter of hospitals and scary medical tests and scary symptoms like memory loss and loss of things he once knew. Things he learned in kindergarten.
That was a winter of other losses. Losses of friends and bodily control and dignity.
It was also a winter of gains, but not good ones. Weight gain, for example (hello, Abilify!).
But the sun is here, and so is a new medication, Lamictal, that seems to help. He has not developed a fatal rash, and he has not succumbed to despair. We've seen no mania in the past couple of weeks. Overall, he seems brighter. Like the enormous weight he has carried on his back for so many years has lightened just a bit.
He still has his obsessions. Right now it's tennis and basketball. That alone is something to celebrate: it's not video games, not guns, not paintball or bows and arrows.
The sun is coming, but it's not all better. His memory does not really work. In the space of two hours he completely forgot an encounter he had with the school nurse last week, which included a physical exam. Two hours later he simply could not recall meeting with her, in spite of the fact that they conversed about which ankle was giving him trouble and the bite marks on his lip.
He is still having urinary accidents. (We have an appointment with urology next week.)
According to his recent neuropsychological evaluation he has lost skills, lost knowledge. His functionality is not terribly good.
Right now, the primary task at hand is to determine whether the mild psychotic symptoms he's having are secondary to bipolar disorder (yes, severe depression can cause psychosis) or a primary psychiatric illness (as in, early stages of schizophrenia). We are hoping beyond hope it's the former. That would be the less shitty of the two options.
Oh, and his neurologist is still on the case. Just in case there is some rare neurological issue she's overlooked. (I guess that memory loss last week freaked her out. I know it freaked me out.) So next week she is presenting him at some sort of conference of all her neurology colleagues at MGH. I'll have to trot him out to be poked and prodded (metaphorically, at least) in front of the whole department, and then they will discuss the case (without us present, thank goodness!).
I know this will be a hard thing for him. I only agreed to it because we are desperate for answers, and this seems the best way to get some. If the doctors at Mass General can't figure this out, then who the hell can?
So there it is. I'm trying to hang onto the good stuff. He's happier than I've seen him in a long while. I think the new med is going to help, and he's getting a dose increase tomorrow.
Little Darlin', here comes the sun.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Early Morning Worries
I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've blogged. I've been sick as a dawg these two weeks, with bad reactions to some new meds. I mean, some really crappy and icky stuff. I won't oppress you with the details. It all culminated with a five-hour sojourn in the ER yesterday. All they could do for me was repeat the tests my PCP had already done and inform me it's a bad reaction to my meds.
Well, fuck you too.
And now I'm actually feeling physically better but was lying awake since 2 a.m. worrying about money, so I came downstairs to make a list of ways I can spend less this week and forever.
First thing I noticed was that some person in my immediate or extended family had set the thermostat to HOLD at 73 degrees Fahrenheit. !!!!! So who knows how long we've been keeping the downstairs toasty all night. I bet the paper whites have been loving it. On the other hand they've totally wilted over onto the lamp beside them, so maybe not.
The fish would have loved it but they all died.
So anyway, I made a few lists. The first one had money saving tips on it like:
***** Here is why I can't. Benjy is going down again. Eight weeks in the hospital this fall and winter, countless med changes, and he is slipping into deep depression again. Restless and seeking. Bankrupting us with his need for more and more video games. I say no, hold firm as long as I can. But when I am sick and exhausted as I was last night, and he is depressed and anxious and lonely and pacing around the house and lying pale and despondent in his darkened room there is nothing else I can do. If only I weren't sick, didn't have to attend, sometimes, to things other than Benjy (the tutoring, for example, that brings a little extra money into our house, my other child, who needs me too, even if she does not like to admit it) I could simply devote myself to keeping him busy and happy, keeping the emptiness at bay. But how the hell do you manage THAT with no spare money? There must be a way. I know some moms have figured it out. But my kid does not like the outdoors (except fishing, but in spite of what he told me yesterday evening when he begged me to take him, you cannot easily do that when it's ten degrees out). He does not want to read or watch DVDs. Tennis he likes but again, not so much when it's 10 degrees out.
So how can I POSSIBLY work when every year his seriously dysregulated periods grow longer and closer-set?
All I can do is hope for a tax refund this year, that my O essay comes out soon (payment upon publication), and that I sell a couple more, pronto. And just keep swimming.
Well, fuck you too.
And now I'm actually feeling physically better but was lying awake since 2 a.m. worrying about money, so I came downstairs to make a list of ways I can spend less this week and forever.
First thing I noticed was that some person in my immediate or extended family had set the thermostat to HOLD at 73 degrees Fahrenheit. !!!!! So who knows how long we've been keeping the downstairs toasty all night. I bet the paper whites have been loving it. On the other hand they've totally wilted over onto the lamp beside them, so maybe not.
The fish would have loved it but they all died.
So anyway, I made a few lists. The first one had money saving tips on it like:
- Postpone Saskia's oral surgery (before you call DSS on me, this is not URGENT oral surgery. Yet. And Grandpa, who is a dentist, has a colleague who will do it for free if we go to NY. Good enough for me).
- Apply for grant to pay for the 1K self-pay part of Benjy's upcoming neuropsychological evaluation. These are done every four years or so on kids like Ben and at the price of five thousand or your first born. If you are lucky enough to be insured, as we are, you get away with paying only a thousand out of pocket.
- Eat only food we have in the house this week, even if gross. (Lars can eat the gross stuff, he doesn't care.) Stuff with freezer burn can surely be resuscitated. Google on how to do this.
- When (edible) food we have in house runs out, purchase pasta, mac and cheese, and other toxic but cheap food items at Aldi or Market Basket, our two local cheapie stores (by "local" I mean 15 miles away. Nearby us you get to choose between pricey, pricier, and upper-crusty. I'm talking about you, Whole Foods).
- Tell Bestie that I was in the throes of MADNESS when I agreed to put down a $300 deposit on a vacation house in VT to share with her and her son this for a week this summer. Make her inform the rental agent who is holding that week for us that we have changed our minds (because I am too embarrassed to do it).
- Hold off on non-essential bills.
- Keep heat at 67 during day. Wear sweaters. Scold whoever did that "hold" thing on the thermostat. (Who knew you could even do that?)
GET A JOB.******
***** Here is why I can't. Benjy is going down again. Eight weeks in the hospital this fall and winter, countless med changes, and he is slipping into deep depression again. Restless and seeking. Bankrupting us with his need for more and more video games. I say no, hold firm as long as I can. But when I am sick and exhausted as I was last night, and he is depressed and anxious and lonely and pacing around the house and lying pale and despondent in his darkened room there is nothing else I can do. If only I weren't sick, didn't have to attend, sometimes, to things other than Benjy (the tutoring, for example, that brings a little extra money into our house, my other child, who needs me too, even if she does not like to admit it) I could simply devote myself to keeping him busy and happy, keeping the emptiness at bay. But how the hell do you manage THAT with no spare money? There must be a way. I know some moms have figured it out. But my kid does not like the outdoors (except fishing, but in spite of what he told me yesterday evening when he begged me to take him, you cannot easily do that when it's ten degrees out). He does not want to read or watch DVDs. Tennis he likes but again, not so much when it's 10 degrees out.
So how can I POSSIBLY work when every year his seriously dysregulated periods grow longer and closer-set?
All I can do is hope for a tax refund this year, that my O essay comes out soon (payment upon publication), and that I sell a couple more, pronto. And just keep swimming.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
I am FLUMMOXED
I would think that after 8, 10, 12 years on the job -- any kind of job -- most people know how to do it. Wouldn't you?
I mean, after a couple months helping my Dad put braces on kids -- that was my summer high school job, "Orthodontic Chair-Side Assistant and Occasional Front-Desk Chair Warmer -- I pretty much had it down. Sure, if some twelve year old had thrown up all over the place while getting an impression done (a classmate of mine once DID throw up in my father's chair but thankfully I was not present) I'd have shrieked and run away, but overall I got the suction, the water sprayer, the bibbing of patients and the handing over of instruments. It was not brain surgery.
And after a month of sellingwell-heeled women's clothing clothing for well-heeled women* at The Talbot's in downtown Boston -- to impatient businessmen who needed birthday presents for their wives and were willing to devote four minutes and a hundred bucks to the process -- I more or less figured out the cash register and the fake smile. (I did not EVER perfect the folding-and-inserting-in-bag-while-impatient-dude-taps-foot-and-frowns part of the job, however.)
And after, oh, I don't know, three or four years of teaching college English I was pretty good at it. Of course, there were always new courses and new material to master well enough that I remained smarter than my students (this is harder to pull off with graduate students) but overall I learned how to do that job and do it well.
So why the hell haven't I figured out how to be a parent? Because it's going on fifteen years and once again I am simply flummoxed.
Okay, I'm exaggerating. It's only EIGHT years since I've been parent to an off-kilter child (Benjy's mental health issues began at age four). But still.
EIGHT YEARS? I hear you thinking. AND YOU STILL DON'T GET IT?
Well, no. The thing is, I thought Benjy was doing SOOO well. He seemed happy enough, had made some new friends, was (mostly) making it to school. Then there was that dysregulated day in Connecticut I recently blogged about. And then Saskia told me he "doesn't seem right." And then -- because I am impressively inattentive these days -- I realized, retrospectively, that he's been kind of downcast, and withdrawn, and unsmiling for quite a while. And now, once again, he is begging me to keep him home from school (the Joy School runs a summer program that is school, not camp).
The past two weeks it's been a struggle to get him to go. Now, I can't say I blame him. Go to school in the summer? that's not fair!
But he can't manage camp, and if he doesn't go to school he will literally sit in front of his computer ALL DAY LONG. And if I complain and ask him to do something else he will tell me, bitterly, that there is NOTHING else to do and his life is empty. Then he will suggest some impossibly expensive thing, like buying electronic stuff or inviting a friend to the aquarium, or some impossibly inadvisable thing, like finding a gun shop where he can fondle the Glocks.
So my question is: what do I do? Does this depression mean he needs a med change? More therapy? (We've taken a summer hiatus because he was simply refusing to go.) Should I be calling his psychiatrist or is that over-reacting? I do not know. If he would only talk to me maybe I could figure it out. But he is resolutely close-mouthed. He resists all of my questions, even benign ones. His affect is flat, his face unreadable, except for the sadness there. I cannot reach my boy, and I am at a loss for what to do.
Inevitably, in life, things cycle back. We might think we're done with this or that conflict, but we almost certainly are not. The repressed always returns, as does winter darkness and the full moon. Often there is comfort in these cycles -- thank GOODNESS the days will get longer again in spring, and stone fruits will come back just when we've forgotten their particular species of firm sweetness.
But this return, the return of my off-kilter boy, I find unnerving. And even though depression and anxiety have always waxed and waned around here, they throw me for a loop when they re-emerge.
So here we are again, and not for the last time I am flying by the seat of my pants, as Lars would say.
* English grammar was obviously not on my graduate school curriculum. My German grammar is far, far worse.
I mean, after a couple months helping my Dad put braces on kids -- that was my summer high school job, "Orthodontic Chair-Side Assistant and Occasional Front-Desk Chair Warmer -- I pretty much had it down. Sure, if some twelve year old had thrown up all over the place while getting an impression done (a classmate of mine once DID throw up in my father's chair but thankfully I was not present) I'd have shrieked and run away, but overall I got the suction, the water sprayer, the bibbing of patients and the handing over of instruments. It was not brain surgery.
And after a month of selling
And after, oh, I don't know, three or four years of teaching college English I was pretty good at it. Of course, there were always new courses and new material to master well enough that I remained smarter than my students (this is harder to pull off with graduate students) but overall I learned how to do that job and do it well.
So why the hell haven't I figured out how to be a parent? Because it's going on fifteen years and once again I am simply flummoxed.
Okay, I'm exaggerating. It's only EIGHT years since I've been parent to an off-kilter child (Benjy's mental health issues began at age four). But still.
EIGHT YEARS? I hear you thinking. AND YOU STILL DON'T GET IT?
Well, no. The thing is, I thought Benjy was doing SOOO well. He seemed happy enough, had made some new friends, was (mostly) making it to school. Then there was that dysregulated day in Connecticut I recently blogged about. And then Saskia told me he "doesn't seem right." And then -- because I am impressively inattentive these days -- I realized, retrospectively, that he's been kind of downcast, and withdrawn, and unsmiling for quite a while. And now, once again, he is begging me to keep him home from school (the Joy School runs a summer program that is school, not camp).
The past two weeks it's been a struggle to get him to go. Now, I can't say I blame him. Go to school in the summer? that's not fair!
But he can't manage camp, and if he doesn't go to school he will literally sit in front of his computer ALL DAY LONG. And if I complain and ask him to do something else he will tell me, bitterly, that there is NOTHING else to do and his life is empty. Then he will suggest some impossibly expensive thing, like buying electronic stuff or inviting a friend to the aquarium, or some impossibly inadvisable thing, like finding a gun shop where he can fondle the Glocks.
So my question is: what do I do? Does this depression mean he needs a med change? More therapy? (We've taken a summer hiatus because he was simply refusing to go.) Should I be calling his psychiatrist or is that over-reacting? I do not know. If he would only talk to me maybe I could figure it out. But he is resolutely close-mouthed. He resists all of my questions, even benign ones. His affect is flat, his face unreadable, except for the sadness there. I cannot reach my boy, and I am at a loss for what to do.
Inevitably, in life, things cycle back. We might think we're done with this or that conflict, but we almost certainly are not. The repressed always returns, as does winter darkness and the full moon. Often there is comfort in these cycles -- thank GOODNESS the days will get longer again in spring, and stone fruits will come back just when we've forgotten their particular species of firm sweetness.
But this return, the return of my off-kilter boy, I find unnerving. And even though depression and anxiety have always waxed and waned around here, they throw me for a loop when they re-emerge.
So here we are again, and not for the last time I am flying by the seat of my pants, as Lars would say.
* English grammar was obviously not on my graduate school curriculum. My German grammar is far, far worse.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Six Months...
Six months ago tomorrow, I started this blog. October 21, 2011. It was a week, maybe two, after Benjy entered an inpatient psychiatric unit, because his hankering for death had become so strong I no longer felt I could keep him safe on my own. That was a dark, dark time.
Benjy has flirted with suicide, off and on, for a long time. He has had periods, brief and extended, of dysregulation so severe they have thrown our entire household into despair. His disability has challenged my parenting abilities, disrupted my equanimity -- what little I had -- again and again. How do you parent a child who is so frightened of vomiting he literally shakes every time he gets a stomach ache? Who is convinced the word will end, very soon, and we will all be plunged into icy darkness? Who believes said world is filled with miscreants and evil-doers, and that none of us are safe -- no matter how many times you tell him about the doctors and teachers and social workers, and so on, who strive every day to make our world better?
How do you parent a child who does not smile, or laugh, for months on end? Whose despair curls him up in a fetal position on his bed, when he ought to be out riding his bike or shooting hoops? Who cries out in his agony of loneliness, I'm lonely! Help me to not be lonely! and you know there are no kids who would want to be with him, so you can't help him?
Readers, it's hard. It's a heart-rending business, this Asperger's-anxiety-depression-suicidality. Parenting Benjy -- if it all works out -- will be my great work, my magnum opus, the one real achievement in my life. Sure, I've completed a PhD, published in some good places. But those pale in comparison to guiding Ben through life and keeping him safe. I think I've done a decent job of it so far -- and I know my limits, will call in the reinforcements when I need to -- and I hope that will continue.
But here's the beautiful thing: our lives, Ben's and Lars's and Saskia's and mine, have gotten so much better! Maybe it's being on the right meds. I know FOR SURE that being at the right school helps a lot. And finding -- finally! -- some good friends, not many but a few, which is enough. These things have bred optimism in my boy. He smiles now, laughs, is sometimes silly. How happy that makes the rest of us!
A lot has happened in the six months since I started this blog. We hit rock bottom and began our ascent. I stopped working and opened my life up to a measure of peace. We got more information about Saskia's illness -- not enough, but more -- and she had her ups and downs. Wow. What's in store for the next six months?
I don't know, but I've got some stuff to look forward to. I've got a whole bunch of essays and stories out on submission; I suspect there will be good news and bad on those. We have Saskia's voice recital coming up, and I love hearing her sing -- she's a lyric soprano, has a gorgeous classical voice. If she becomes an opera singer someday, which is what she thinks she would like, I will not be remotely surprised. That kid has talent! Things will continue to go swimmingly between Lars and me, of that I am sure. More late-night walks with the Hellacious Hound to look forward to -- I love those!
And then there's Ben. I hope he will continue to get stronger and happier, and fill our lives with his own special radiance. And lots of arcane knowledge, which is his specialty.
Readers, what's changed for you in the past six months, and what are your coming delights?
Benjy has flirted with suicide, off and on, for a long time. He has had periods, brief and extended, of dysregulation so severe they have thrown our entire household into despair. His disability has challenged my parenting abilities, disrupted my equanimity -- what little I had -- again and again. How do you parent a child who is so frightened of vomiting he literally shakes every time he gets a stomach ache? Who is convinced the word will end, very soon, and we will all be plunged into icy darkness? Who believes said world is filled with miscreants and evil-doers, and that none of us are safe -- no matter how many times you tell him about the doctors and teachers and social workers, and so on, who strive every day to make our world better?
How do you parent a child who does not smile, or laugh, for months on end? Whose despair curls him up in a fetal position on his bed, when he ought to be out riding his bike or shooting hoops? Who cries out in his agony of loneliness, I'm lonely! Help me to not be lonely! and you know there are no kids who would want to be with him, so you can't help him?
Readers, it's hard. It's a heart-rending business, this Asperger's-anxiety-depression-suicidality. Parenting Benjy -- if it all works out -- will be my great work, my magnum opus, the one real achievement in my life. Sure, I've completed a PhD, published in some good places. But those pale in comparison to guiding Ben through life and keeping him safe. I think I've done a decent job of it so far -- and I know my limits, will call in the reinforcements when I need to -- and I hope that will continue.
But here's the beautiful thing: our lives, Ben's and Lars's and Saskia's and mine, have gotten so much better! Maybe it's being on the right meds. I know FOR SURE that being at the right school helps a lot. And finding -- finally! -- some good friends, not many but a few, which is enough. These things have bred optimism in my boy. He smiles now, laughs, is sometimes silly. How happy that makes the rest of us!
A lot has happened in the six months since I started this blog. We hit rock bottom and began our ascent. I stopped working and opened my life up to a measure of peace. We got more information about Saskia's illness -- not enough, but more -- and she had her ups and downs. Wow. What's in store for the next six months?
I don't know, but I've got some stuff to look forward to. I've got a whole bunch of essays and stories out on submission; I suspect there will be good news and bad on those. We have Saskia's voice recital coming up, and I love hearing her sing -- she's a lyric soprano, has a gorgeous classical voice. If she becomes an opera singer someday, which is what she thinks she would like, I will not be remotely surprised. That kid has talent! Things will continue to go swimmingly between Lars and me, of that I am sure. More late-night walks with the Hellacious Hound to look forward to -- I love those!
And then there's Ben. I hope he will continue to get stronger and happier, and fill our lives with his own special radiance. And lots of arcane knowledge, which is his specialty.
Readers, what's changed for you in the past six months, and what are your coming delights?
Monday, January 23, 2012
They're Back
They're back. Anxiety and depression. With the short, cold, and dark days they always come. We had been so hopeful those days were over. Naive? Sure. But we wanted to believe that better times were here.
These days, more often than not, Ben cannot leave his bed and face the world without cajoles, promises, assiduous offers of help. These days even the Joy School is a scary place, albeit one he still professes to love.
Benjy is a mass of contradictions. Some of you, Readers, have your own experience with contradictory kids. Kids who are one way on Wednesday morning and completely different people by Wednesday afternoon. Whom you are sure love chicken noodle soup -- they did last night -- but actually hate it and cannot get it down without gagging. Who love school hate school love school. Who have a friend, who are friendless.
It's dizzying, keeping it all straight. It's hard as hell to figure out parenting a child who is a moving target. Sure, all kids are variable, all of them grow and change -- and forget about teenagers. Saskia is a storm cloud in the morning and sheer sunlight in the afternoon. But kids like Benjy can't settle into themselves, can't rest. They are always roiling, always in (sometimes painful) flux. It must be HARD being Benjy. And in many ways, although I love him beyond comprehension, it is hard to be his mother. I want to help him. To cure his pain. make life easier for him. And those are things I cannot do.
I can love him and be there for him. Get him his meds, and make sure they are the right ones. I can take him to therapy and his psychiatrist, try to help him maintain his few friendships. Look ceaselessly for opportunities for him. Things he can do and be successful at. Things he can do and enjoy. There are not a whole lot of those, but I keep trying.
So now he's off to school. Lars took him -- late, because he was struggling, and needed to sit under his SAD light for a while -- and I'm just waiting for the call I know is coming. They won't make me pick him up
unless he is deeply dysregulated and has to get out of there, but they'll call me to let me know he's fragile and falling apart. And then my day will be about him. Worrying and thinking desperately about how I can make things change.
Sometimes I think true maturity is accepting that there are things you do not have the power to change, and maintaining your equanimity in the face of that. I'm trying, Readers, I'm trying.
These days, more often than not, Ben cannot leave his bed and face the world without cajoles, promises, assiduous offers of help. These days even the Joy School is a scary place, albeit one he still professes to love.
Benjy is a mass of contradictions. Some of you, Readers, have your own experience with contradictory kids. Kids who are one way on Wednesday morning and completely different people by Wednesday afternoon. Whom you are sure love chicken noodle soup -- they did last night -- but actually hate it and cannot get it down without gagging. Who love school hate school love school. Who have a friend, who are friendless.
It's dizzying, keeping it all straight. It's hard as hell to figure out parenting a child who is a moving target. Sure, all kids are variable, all of them grow and change -- and forget about teenagers. Saskia is a storm cloud in the morning and sheer sunlight in the afternoon. But kids like Benjy can't settle into themselves, can't rest. They are always roiling, always in (sometimes painful) flux. It must be HARD being Benjy. And in many ways, although I love him beyond comprehension, it is hard to be his mother. I want to help him. To cure his pain. make life easier for him. And those are things I cannot do.
I can love him and be there for him. Get him his meds, and make sure they are the right ones. I can take him to therapy and his psychiatrist, try to help him maintain his few friendships. Look ceaselessly for opportunities for him. Things he can do and be successful at. Things he can do and enjoy. There are not a whole lot of those, but I keep trying.
So now he's off to school. Lars took him -- late, because he was struggling, and needed to sit under his SAD light for a while -- and I'm just waiting for the call I know is coming. They won't make me pick him up
unless he is deeply dysregulated and has to get out of there, but they'll call me to let me know he's fragile and falling apart. And then my day will be about him. Worrying and thinking desperately about how I can make things change.
Sometimes I think true maturity is accepting that there are things you do not have the power to change, and maintaining your equanimity in the face of that. I'm trying, Readers, I'm trying.
Friday, November 11, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
10 signs your 10 year old is depressed
You didn't think ten-year-old people could be depressed, did you? They're too busy watching Cartoon Network and scootering and making snow angels and eating Oreos to be depressed -- right? Wrong. Benjy was only four the first time he expressed the desire to end his life.
Here are 10 signs, most culled from my own experience, that your child may be depressed:
Here are 10 signs, most culled from my own experience, that your child may be depressed:
- She's not sleeping
- She's sleeping all the time
- He's lost interest in his all-time favorite sport
- He's gained (or lost) a significant amount of weight
- She's withdrawn from friends, or from the desire of having friends
- She is hurting herself or talking about doing so
- He complains frequently of stomach aches or has other somatic complaints
- His school work is suffering
- She's unusually angry
- She is passively (my life is not worth living) or actively (I want to kill myself and know how I would do it) suicidal
- He or she experiences symptoms like these for an extended period of time -- more than two weeks. (I know, that was 11.)
Thursday, October 27, 2011
A day of dark and light
Today was mostly a dark day at chez Delaunay. As a matter of fact, all of Boston was dark today: cold rain, charcoal sky, a sharp wind. But our darkness was twofold.
First Darkness: When Lars and I woke at six, it was dark as midnight, outside and in. Lars turned on our bedroom light, and just then we lost power.
"How am I going to get dressed for work?" I demanded, groping around in my underwear drawer and coming up with a pair of socks of indeterminate color.
"Oh," said Lars, "Do like I do. Just put on any old thing."**
** Editorial note: Lars is a habitual wearer of frayed, shabby, and slightly-less-than-clean clothes. I take his advice with a grain of salt.
Then the lights came on and I did a little happy dance and found some clothes. Then the power went out again and we were plunged back into darkness. Lars went downstairs to attempt making coffee and I woke Saskia, who groaned and told me to come back in an hour.
Benjy slept.
The lights came on, the sun rose, Saskia went to school, my work came and went. Lars left for his work and Benjy woke at ten.
Second Darkness: Benjy is a person of leisure. He is still without a school, and he is BORED out of his mind. Boredom rides tandem with sadness. He started his day with Prehistoric Park on Netflix. (VERY cool show, by the way. Any pre-teen boy will love it.) He moved on to My Pet Fennec Fox videos. Then he got restless, which escalated into agitation. And then he resumed the lobbying for an X-Box that has been his mission for the past month.
I am spineless, so I said, "We'll see..." And then I tried to go back to my grading. I have precisely two days (which is realistically about three and a half hours, when you consider everything else I have to do on those two days) to comment on twenty 6-page essays. And Gentle Readers, it is Not Going to Happen.
Ben left me alone for a few minutes. Slid into a posture of despair. Picked his fingers and buried his face in the sofa pillows. So of course I had to stop working.
Ten minutes before we left to pick up Saskia, I told him I'd buy him the X-Box. We absolutely cannot afford this. The bank will own that X-Box because it's going straight on our overdraft. But if I refused to buy it for him I was not going to get my papers finished, Unhappy students = bad evaluations, and bad evaluations, for the underemployed like me, = no job. I need that job. No matter that I learn poverty wages. Every cent of my paltry income is spoken for. More importantly, if I bought the X-Box there was a middling chance the darkness might break, the clouds disperse. I was ready to do anything for a little sun.
As we waited for Saskia in the car, Benjy asked me about Wall Street, and the occupation of it."What exactly IS Wall Street," he wondered, "and why does it need to be occupied?"
Oh, why didn't I make some silly story up? Why don't I ever learn? Instead of making a silly story up, I told him the truth about Wall Street. (You might have guessed we're Occupy sympathizers around here. If Benjy were not so off-kilter right now we'd be down there with the Occupy Bostonians every so often.)
The truth about Wall Street threw Ben into despair. He draped my jacket over his face and curled into a fetal position. His face went white and blank, as it always does when he is breaking down. When he is sad and broken. He told me life is not worthwhile, that it holds no treasures. And nothing I could say would bring him peace.
But things change, and fast. We braved the icy rain and acquired an X-Box. The darkness lifted. And now, as I write, Ben and Saskia are in the basement racing cars or flying planes or walking on the moon, for all I know. And they are happy together.
Let the grading begin!
First Darkness: When Lars and I woke at six, it was dark as midnight, outside and in. Lars turned on our bedroom light, and just then we lost power.
"How am I going to get dressed for work?" I demanded, groping around in my underwear drawer and coming up with a pair of socks of indeterminate color.
"Oh," said Lars, "Do like I do. Just put on any old thing."**
** Editorial note: Lars is a habitual wearer of frayed, shabby, and slightly-less-than-clean clothes. I take his advice with a grain of salt.
Then the lights came on and I did a little happy dance and found some clothes. Then the power went out again and we were plunged back into darkness. Lars went downstairs to attempt making coffee and I woke Saskia, who groaned and told me to come back in an hour.
Benjy slept.
The lights came on, the sun rose, Saskia went to school, my work came and went. Lars left for his work and Benjy woke at ten.
Second Darkness: Benjy is a person of leisure. He is still without a school, and he is BORED out of his mind. Boredom rides tandem with sadness. He started his day with Prehistoric Park on Netflix. (VERY cool show, by the way. Any pre-teen boy will love it.) He moved on to My Pet Fennec Fox videos. Then he got restless, which escalated into agitation. And then he resumed the lobbying for an X-Box that has been his mission for the past month.
I am spineless, so I said, "We'll see..." And then I tried to go back to my grading. I have precisely two days (which is realistically about three and a half hours, when you consider everything else I have to do on those two days) to comment on twenty 6-page essays. And Gentle Readers, it is Not Going to Happen.
Ben left me alone for a few minutes. Slid into a posture of despair. Picked his fingers and buried his face in the sofa pillows. So of course I had to stop working.
Ten minutes before we left to pick up Saskia, I told him I'd buy him the X-Box. We absolutely cannot afford this. The bank will own that X-Box because it's going straight on our overdraft. But if I refused to buy it for him I was not going to get my papers finished, Unhappy students = bad evaluations, and bad evaluations, for the underemployed like me, = no job. I need that job. No matter that I learn poverty wages. Every cent of my paltry income is spoken for. More importantly, if I bought the X-Box there was a middling chance the darkness might break, the clouds disperse. I was ready to do anything for a little sun.
As we waited for Saskia in the car, Benjy asked me about Wall Street, and the occupation of it."What exactly IS Wall Street," he wondered, "and why does it need to be occupied?"
Oh, why didn't I make some silly story up? Why don't I ever learn? Instead of making a silly story up, I told him the truth about Wall Street. (You might have guessed we're Occupy sympathizers around here. If Benjy were not so off-kilter right now we'd be down there with the Occupy Bostonians every so often.)
The truth about Wall Street threw Ben into despair. He draped my jacket over his face and curled into a fetal position. His face went white and blank, as it always does when he is breaking down. When he is sad and broken. He told me life is not worthwhile, that it holds no treasures. And nothing I could say would bring him peace.
But things change, and fast. We braved the icy rain and acquired an X-Box. The darkness lifted. And now, as I write, Ben and Saskia are in the basement racing cars or flying planes or walking on the moon, for all I know. And they are happy together.
Let the grading begin!
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