It Stung A Little

After 4.5 months, Isaac is about to be discharged from day therapy. I don't think I can express how much it has helped us. He is balanced and stabilized on medications, he's had intensive therapy 5 days a week to teach him, diagnose him, and do therapy with him, and with us as a family. We are no longer in crisis mode, and *sigh* I feel like I can take on the world again.

That is, until I had a call this afternoon.

These were some of the things mentioned on the call:

"Oh, you finally put him in the nuthouse!"
"How is the schizo?" (He is not schizophrenic, thank you!)
"You better be prepared to take him down like a bad habit on a Sunday morning when he wigs out again, because trust me, it's gonna happen."
"Don't even get me started on the meds. They make you crazier than you already are. They're just no good."(Nevermind I just told you that he has stabilized and is doing so much better on the medications.)
"If you ever watch Drawing Strings (some kind of movie), this guy Ling Ling reminds me of Isaac. He's a sociopathic killer that likes to cause kids to have seizures."

At that point I made up some excuse to get off the phone. I think I might have handled it better if it had come from a stranger, but this wasn't a stranger.

Up to this point, most of the friends and family that knew about Isaac's situation were nothing but supportive and caring. I'm sure Isaac's behavior in the past has caused some concern, but again, we were shown nothing but love, support, and concern. Maybe it was good I heard this all in the space of five minutes. It just confirms the world can be really cruel, and maybe I can use this kind of reaction to prepare Isaac somehow. How do you do this in a non-hurtful way (even if my heart was hurting for it to just be said to me)? It also made me realize just how ignorant the general population is about mental health problems.

Isaac finally got an official diagnosis for Autism. Add this to the list of stuff he also has: 22q11.2 duplication (22nd chromosome duplication), ADHD, dyslexia, pectus excavatum, and bipolar disorder not yet specified. He is 15 years old and he already has this all on his plate. I'm sure his life is really going to be a lesson in the road not taken. We already have to prepare that he may not do college like his peers, won't be able to serve a traditional mission like most of his friends, won't be able to live independently as soon as his peers. His life is just going to look different than we expected it to. We are doing everything in our power to make sure he gets the help, support, training, and therapies he needs to become a functioning adult in this world. He has so much desire to be like a normal kid he will work tirelessly and endlessly to make sure he can be that way. He is a very sweet kid under all these diagnosis, and as his mom and dad, we get to see the best (and worst) of him, but in the last 5 months, we can now see the best of him more often than the worst.

If he was surrounded by people that constantly said these things that were said to me this afternoon, how in the world would he ever survive? Or thrive? Or make any progress at all? Yeah, Mama Bear is ready for a fight. I will certainly be more careful about who has contact with Isaac. I know he has to learn some of these lessons himself, and I can't protect my little snowflake all the time, but good grief, we just got him better! Why would anyone think they could run their mouth like this, about a kid, and about a kid with issues? This person acted as though Isaac had a choice in these things.

Sometimes I am guilty of isolating myself in my pink bubble, because it's easier to deal with all of this with my Pepsi and my Kindle. Here's a nice surprise: Mom's can't handle everything all the time either and will spiral into a depression of their own. This week I finally felt like we were getting all the loose ends tied up, felt like we were in control again, felt like I could do LIFE again. I didn't feel like all this was too big of a mountain to climb.

I got that call and I gotta say, it stung a little. Maybe more than a little. It stopped me in my tracks. This is the world we're up against? Maybe I'm too polite, or worried, or concerned I might have hurt his feelings, this guy running his mouth, but I couldn't think of one comeback or comment that would have stopped him in his tracks, or shook his world. Of course, I can think of a bunch now that it is midnight and my mind won't stop racing about this situation.

I know I can wave my hand and have nothing to do with this person again. I won't allow Isaac to be around this person either ever again. I've heard the saying, "you can't get hurt if you don't let it hurt", but isn't that kind of denying the situation and making yourself a doormat for the next person to come along running their mouth? I refuse to be a doormat and a victim. Maybe that anger and resentment I feel building up again will be a useful defense, but that's not exactly mature either.

At least I know that my kids will always find love, compassion, and service in our home. We aren't perfect, and we're loud, and we joke about things that may or may not be inappropriate, but we are usually happy and usually we have good things here, in our home, which is exactly what home needs to be. It's a soft place to land at the end of the day.

I hope that's enough for any one of our kids when the world gets too big, and mean, and scary. So in the end, I offer a prayer to this ignorant person. I hope they find peace without taking others' peace away. I hope they find compassion abundantly put upon them. I hope they find knowledge in things they don't  understand. I hope they learn about unconditional love by having it heaped upon them. I hope they find a soft place to land at the end of the day, and be mindful of those that may not have one. I hope they can be generous with kindness and service, and that someone can make their day a little bit better. I hope they can find fulfillment in the imperfect things in life. I hope and pray that I can be forgiving of these things that aren't so forthcoming for him, or others.