Some Help and Some Sunshine
When I last posted about this I was in search of a counselor for my nine-year-old. Now he is almost ten and the summer is almost done. To catch readers up who don’t partake in every single blog post. He had a HARD fourth grade year. I could think of some other adjectives but hard is basic and basic is okay sometimes. I have been pushing for him since the beginning of fourth grade to get some much needed help. His anxiety is an uphill battle and he works on it every day. I work on my own and then I work on his and also try to parent my pre-teen and be a good dog Mom, teacher and wife.
Luckily, in summer, I can take teacher off of that list. I have done nothing for school all July and I mean nothing. No professional reading, no Pinterest, no peaking at classrooms on Instagram, no buying books off Amazon. Nothing. I deemed July mental health month and surprise surprise August is looking that way too.
When I got a diagnosis for Payson, I wasn’t sure what that would really mean. It was scary, but also relieving to rip open that envelope and read Adjustment Disorder. Adjustment Disorder? WTF is that? But I have learned a lot about that on these long summer days. It turned out that me making calls and sending emails was getting me zero steps closer to an actual counselor for him and so I turned to his evaluator, Dr. Curliss, who is if you recall, a lot like that Everwood doctor. He told me to try LIfestance, a company that “finds” a counselor for Payson. This seemed a lot like Tinder, but for mental health, so I was real freakin skeptical, but he was matched. We were matched and dude is a god damn God send.
The only part that sorta sucked was that we couldn’t see him in person. Only on the zoomy zoom. I really wanted Payson to sit on a couch, be handed the modeling clay, scented pumpkin tissues at the ready. I don’t really know what the protocol is these days. But instead, in true 2021 fashion, we got to know his counselor through the computer.
We meet with him every Monday and I usually start the meeting in uncomfortable, but also excited commitment to get all the help we need. I tell him what is going on with Pay man and he listens and takes notes and sometimes offers parenting advice in which I take absolutely no offense, because I really feel like I don’t know what I am doing at all.
Sometimes our discussions make me feel terrible and vulnerable and weird. I tell him about how Payson can wake up in the night and say he is scared of his Dad and myself dying. That he never wants to grow up or leave this house. He asks what he will do if something happens to me and he can’t talk to me anymore.
I am always super calm and reassuring in these moments, but I finally asked his counselor what the hell is this? Is something wrong with my kid? Why is he so morbid. His counselor gently smiled and said these conversations have nothing to do with death really, but more to do with separation from you and your husband and how he is struggling with that. He is trying to figure out how to do it and it is terrifying for him.
I felt so stupid after that. Of course that is what that means.
Another time I told him how he ran a race in track and was losing glaringly and sobbed coming off the track, ranted and raved the whole way home. It was terrible I lamented. So humiliating! Why can’t he just act like a normal kid when he loses? Empaths don’t do that, his counselor went on to tell me. Plus he is on the cusp of puberty where boys compare themselves and decide where they fit in. If you have anxiety that makes it ten times harder. Add in a track meet or a football game and it can really be a recipe for disaster.
Whelp.
So we have some stuff to work on as you can see. But he is working so hard. He has done summer track, football camp, basketball camp, a 350 person wedding, he has down a week of vacation with friends, swimming pools and beaches. Each of these things he fights me 100 percent on doing. His anxiety tells him he can’t, he isn’t good enough, other people will laugh, his heart is beating too fast and couldn’t he just stay in his bedroom? And so I am so proud of my kid and his bravery, because he has not let this stop him. He is finding ways to navigate himself.
Did he text me at 6:30 on a Thursday night when he was spending the night at my Moms, with messages that read I can’t do this, pick me up, I can’t breathe. Sure. He did. Did that make a carefree evening hard? Absolutely, but he is worth it. He’s a special kid, he’s special as hell. I wish the world weren’t so hard for him, but I also wish the world were more like him too. He’s been invited on very few playdates all summer, which are both a blessing and a curse. He misses other kids, but needs me to donkey kick him to get out of the car when it is a new experience. I have a touch of sadness when I see social media with other kids getting together every other day, but I also experience true joy when he does something he was hysterical about doing twenty minutes before because he set his mind he could.
When his counselor told me he had no after school appointment this fall, I felt super discouraged. Now we have just made this great connection and we will have to give it up? Hell no. That was me last year. The me that put other people and other kids above him because he could tough it out. A few days ago, I emailed his teacher and all his fantastic people at school and said he will be late one day a week, because he NEEDS this and it’s not convenient and it’s not cheap, but I just don’t have it in me to give a shit about those things anymore. I have to give all my shits to making him more empowered, like he is starting to this summer. I need him to know that work he is doing now, will help him to do all the hard things later and if you are just starting on the journey of helping your kid or your spouse get the help they need, DON”T GIVE UP. I don’t care if everyone closes the door, if you have to Pretty Woman someone’s office and yell big mistake HUGE! IF you have to go online. If you need a diagnosis to get Anthem to pay for it, if you have to forgo other luxuries to pay for it out of pocket. If you have a spouse that won’t believe you that your child has an issue. If you have a doctor that won’t listen, or a teacher who won’t hear of it. If you know in your heart that your kid needs the work. Get them the work and get the work for you too if it comes down to it. You are both so worth it.