Evaluation Time

I took the day off from work today, which is a rarity for me, but needed. My son has been waging a battle all year, sometimes silently and sometimes in deep heaving sobs. I have written a lot about him on this blog because I think mental health is important, but I also have connected with many a parent who holds onto their child’s diagnosis like a diary secret or a heavy unhappy anchor and I plan on doing neither of those things. I am writing this, because I think anytime you have to go into a room and have a stranger evaluate and observe your kid and speak openly and honestly about all the behaviors that you see that society deems as wrong, it’s fairly heart breaking and today I did that, and also asked to do it.

To be clear, I am not embarassed nor am I ashamed of anything he is undergoing, but I also know deep in my heart of hearts, that it isn’t normal, or typical or whatever word you want to choose. I know that when he called me at midnight because he couldn’t stay the night at a birthday party, or when he gets ready to board a rollercoaster at Universal and tells me he is scared of never seeing Joe or I again, or when he gives me a hug and kiss goodbye and tells me I can do it right Mom, don’t gotta worry Mom? and he does this all. year. long. I know these things are not typical. Nor is crying yourself to sleep at night, crying before school at the start of the day. On Saturday, he had a lacrosse game and Joe and I left in the middle of the last game, to catch his sisters last basketball game and he said he stood in the goal area and cried, using self talk from Mrs. Pooler. “You can do this Payson. You will see them before bed Payson”. He was leaving with a good friend of his I might add, one he has hung out with several times before. But it seems to make no difference, he worries, he frets, he struggles, he can’t decide, punishes himself for all of it, apologizes to me when my face looks sad. All of it has been making deep rifts in my heart, and taking up my mind space so much that I have given less time to friends, co-workers, my other kid. All to solve this puzzle, of what is eating him.

So enter this day. Evaluation day. I have been chasing this appointment forever and wouldn’t you know I got the time wrong. Of course I did. The doctor called while we were driving. We were almost an hour late. Not a good omen for an appointment that you have been begging for. We blew in through the door, and I could tell instantly I liked him. This judger of my kid, hell this judger of me and my husband and the way we parent and interact. Its all a lot of judgment. But he had a gentle voice, like that doctor in Everwood, the evaluator on Parenthood. The one where they sit in the room and discuss Max and how he won’t take his pirate costume off. Well we don’t have a pirate costume, but the sword still feels the same in the back. We talked for a long while. Payson at the medieval table, Joe and I on the uncomfortable couch. I described him and all his anxious issues. It’s odd to give a description to a stranger and not start with, he was born this perfect little baby and I swore to protect him and now I don’t know what the hell I”m doing. I think I read the wrong baby books, but I just tried my best to give insight. Snippets into his behaviors, his compulsions, his hair pulling at math, the lay up gestures that he can’t help but do at basketball when he is nervous, the blinking he did in the fall when another kid called him retarded (which by the way who uses this word other kid!). The trouble he doesn’t want to be in, the trouble he doesn’t want to make for me.

At the end of it, the doctor looked at us and smiled and I thought that was weird. Why wasn’t his expression terrified? I know mine sometimes is. I know I am exhausted by constantly reassuring him, by telling him sometimes my heart races too, by saying he can DO HARD THINGS and then wishing they weren’t so hard for him. So yes this smile was a real puzzler.

He followed it up by saying that the fact that Payson is overly empathetic does not mean there is anything wrong with him, that he notices what 99 percent of people don’t notice in others and it is not a disservice, it is a gift. He brought Payson over to the couch with us and I looked on in awe as Payson described to him what he experiences on the day-to-day, how he and his teacher have a system with a card and he puts it on his desk if the “stress” gets too much, and she let’s him take a walk, because nothing is worth all that stress. He told him how when his mind get’s bored, he worries about not living with Joe and I, about not having his space and his bedroom, about being at college and being lonely. He said he hates the masks, and Covid and that sometimes feels like he can’t breath even though he is breathing. It was like a grown-up Payson, advocating for himself, trusting himself, saying this doesn’t feel right in my head and then it doesn’t feel good in my body.

At the end of it, we all felt better, unburdened. We had given all the information that we could to the doctor. Now he will write that report that tells us what all of this means and what skills and strategies, medicines or miracles will help my big guy. We waited a long time for this appointment, now we will wait a little bit longer, but I’m hoping that this wait will lead to doors that have answers behind them.