And the Party's Over

Oh, I should have known it was too good to last. Even though the director of the school told us about that month-long "honeymoon" period, in which students love everything about their new lives, followed by a big dose of end-of--vacation blues, I thought we were in the clear.

I thought I could start worrying about myself, taking care of my own, increasingly significant needs. I thought I could try to relax. To sleep more and better. To exercise (as much as I could swallow -- unfortunately, exercise and I do not get along very well). I thought Benjy was all settled, with friends and activities and good food in his beautiful green-meadow-and-dry-stone-wall corner of New England.

I guess I thought wrong, once again.

The sad phone calls have returned. We'd only had two of those at the very beginning of his stay. Three at most. But they're back.

Fuck.

They always start out OK. With a forced optimism that makes me think (fool that I am!) that this time I've dodged the bullet. That he really is happy.

Benjy: Hi Mom!

Me: Hi Ben! How ARE you?

Ben (slightly flat in affect, but that is his usual mode): I'm good.

Me (all bouncy): What did you do today?

Ben: Uh, I played Mumbleply.

Me: I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

Ben: I played Monopoly. And mumblemumble with credit cards and you can mumble stuff.

(Benjy has developed a habit of rushed, slurred, and mumbled speech. I guess it's from all those pills he knocks back every day.)

Me: Wow, that sounds like FUN! A new version of Monopoly with credit cards? And did you play with your FRIENDS in your house?

Ben: Uh, I guess. Oh, and I have earned $20 in allowance. Tonight when we went to the store I spent half on a card game.

Me: Awesome! Good work! And you can play it with your FRIENDS?

Ben: Uh, yeah. Whatever.

Readers, I think you know where this is going.

Me: So, what else, Honey?

Ben (in a lowered voice): Look, can I just tell you something?

Me (heart sinking): Sure!

Ben: This place is not for me. I miss you,. I want to come home. No one will be friends with me here.

Me: Honey, I heard you've made a great connection with C.

Ben: C is leaving end of August. I want to be a day student. Can't you help me? Can't you get me out of here? I will go as a day student. I just miss you and want to be home.

And then, Readers, the tears fell. His tears and mine, although mine were, and must always be, secret. As hard as it is, I have to be strong.

I told Benjy that he cannot be a day student at a school that's an hour and a half from home. It just will not work. Of course he did not believe me. I am so afraid he thinks we don't want him with us. That we've thrown him away. Oh god, that thought is killing me.

I tried my best to remind him of his sadness and loneliness at home. Of how little there is to do, and how our lack of expendable income rules out most of the little there is. (Benjy is not a fan of free stuff, like strolls along the river, unless he can bring his fishing pole. But I don't feel qualified to supervise fishing.)

I tried to remind him about the revolving door into the hospital, how that is no life for a boy of 13.

It didn't work. He tried so hard not to cry but I suppose in the relative privacy of the porch of his house, with my familiar voice in his ear, he let himself go. It's what happens now.

I asked him to get the house mother on the phone. He said no at first, because he thought he would get in trouble for having a negative conversation. I promised him that would not happen.

"This was not negative," I told him. "You are feeling sad, and you shared your feelings. That is OK, and I will tell her so."

So he fetched the house mother and we talked about Ben. He is having trouble connecting with the other kids -- especially on weekends, because on weekends his house closes up and he goes to stay in another house, where the kids are less familiar and older.

This is one of the few things I don't like about the school. Most other kids in his house have been there long enough to have earned home privileges every other weekend. So with only one or two kids around, they close up Ben's house every weekend and consolidate with another. This would be hard for any kid, but for a kid with Aspergian social skills?

Argh!!

I can see I need to get to work on this. The next thing I do this morning will be to compose an email to Ben's therapist. Someone has to help him figure out this weekend stuff, fast. I don't know how many more sad phone calls I can take. And as I am trying to climb my way out of this well of pain and fatigue I now dwell in, I need to try to fix this fast. Because each time he asks me for help and I have to say no, I get a little sicker.

Today, at least, he's going to the beach. Sea-gods (or lake-gods, more likely), be kind to my boy! Let him have some joy and some fun. And maybe, if he does not find a friend today, he'll find some cool fish or crabs to observe. Ben has always loved poking around for those little constituents of the shallow waters.

School House Rocks!

Remember that old show, School House Rock? I'm dating myself, I know. Well, I just wanted to say: Benjy started the Joy School today, and it totally rocked! He came out happy. He enjoyed the academics. He enjoyed the multiple breaks even more. He claimed one of the fidget toys that almost all the kids have on their desks almost all the time. He ate Italian wedding soup for lunch, and liked it. He forgot he is allowed to request a snack when hungry and climbed into my van starving to death at the end of the day. He did not shred his fingers. The staff loved him. He loved them. The only downside was a briefly anguished interlude at the Wii (did I mention they have a Wii??).

Oh, and readers? Tomorrow he wants to wake up bright and early so he won't be ten minutes late!

Joy School Redux

Remember that small, quiet, sensory-based school I mentioned in an earlier post, the one that is PERFECT for Benjy, and was deciding whether Benjy is perfect for them? Well, guess what?

BENJY IS PERFECT!!!!

He starts on Tuesday. Tonight is a night for champagne, cupcakes, and capers! Oh, Joy!

Joy School

No, I'm not blogging about Elizabeth Berg's wonderful novel (although maybe I should be). I'm blogging about the school we THINK is about to become Benjy's anchor.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Ben is currently without a placement. He is a boy who has never made it in a less restrictive setting. Mainstream schools and classrooms make him want to end his life. They make him a bloodied (literally, as in mutilated fingers and fiercely bitten lips), depressed boy. Although he is super bright (ask him about some crazy-arcane thing, like WWII German tanks or coding in Java, and prepare to be amazed), he has mostly learned on his own. Classrooms are way too stressful for learning. Sensory nightmares for a guy who can't take noise, chaos, and the unpredictable.

So, this new school, which is on the campus of perhaps the preeminent psychiatric hospital in the country, is like a dream come true. For Ben, and for Lars and me. Now I know what you're thinking. "Gasp! A psychiatric hospital? REALLY??" And my answer to that is: "Really." Benjy is a seriously psychiatrically involved kid. And this school totally gets him. We are waiting for a final acceptance, but based on the way things went today, I think he's in. And I am celebrating with a Diet Coke and four squares of Trader Joe's dark chocolate. Yum.

What was so wonderful today, apart from the sensitive, child-focused, and kind staff we hobnobbed with (we loved them all!), and the tranquil school setting, was Ben's way of being when he rejoined us after a couple of hours as a pupil there. There was a lightness about him. He was chatty -- we could hear him talking to the head administrator all the way down the hall. His body was relaxed. He'd had -- wait for it -- FUN! He'd played a MATH GAME that involved a lively and rapid calling out of answers, and he LIKED it. (You must understand, in our family we don't take kindly to math. We do it if we must, but we do it grudgingly. Lars maybe a bit less grudgingly than the rest of us.)

I tried to figure out the last time Ben had experienced joy, or something like it, in school, and the answer I came up with was: never. Not once. Not even a hour of it. There might have been minutes or even hours of okay, but never joy. Today I think he felt it. He's bummed out that he can't start tomorrow. (What??) And I, my friends, am waiting for that email telling me all systems are go. I think I will get it tomorrow or Thursday. I hope I will. I'll accept gratefully any and all third-party prayers that this will happen. And when it does, we are going to party (quietly) until the cows come home.