Where I Am

So yesterday was interesting.

We spent almost three hours locked in the bedroom and then drove him to his two hour session.

My mother asked me to buy her some fabric so off we went.   This place is just far enough away that it makes no sense to return home only to turn around 20 minutes later and go back, so we find things to do.   We hit the resale stores on Tuesday.  The supermarket on Wednesday.   Thursday it was the fabric store.

So we go into the fabric store, which I usually love, and peruse the material.  I was looking for non-fraying satin so Gammy can make Adam a pair of pajama pants.  Oh yes, satin pajama pants.  So he'll quit wearing his sister's.   At least it makes me smile.  Anyway, I find the satin and I can't figure out for the life of me what I should buy.  I was confused.   In a fog.  I couldn't even do the math.  I mean, I struggle with math, but this was elementary basics, I DO know how to do that.   So I decided the hell with satin, scrapbooking sounds fun.

Until the entire row of colorful goodness completely overwhelmed me.

So we went to the yarn.  That's it!  We'll knit.  Ummm…..couldn't even figure out the most basic of patterns.

And then we left empty-handed.

I got in the car and tried to remember if I had been drinking or maybe snuck a seven year old leftover vicodin in the middle of the night.   No.  It wasn't that.    Too much caffeine maybe?  Didn't have any.  Someone poured my iced coffee down the sink.  Did I eat breakfast?  No.  But I rarely eat breakfast and have never had this reaction…..

Except…..

Thirteen years ago when I had a screaming baby eighteen hours a day.

The shakiness, the fogginess, the stomach pain, the loss of appetite (which could be a good thing, I could lose 10 pounds), same stuff I encountered when a family therapist suggested I was struggling with post traumatic stress disorder.

Hmmmm……interesting.

Of course, it's very much the same this summer.   The screaming does go on almost all day and into the night.  The only difference this time is it's accompanied with words.  Very nasty, mean, ugly, disgusting words and names and phrases.

I was brought into a tiny room yesterday to pay the rest of our deductible for these services.  I explained to the lady then that I didn't think this was helping and could we move up to the next phase which will be SIX hours a day.  She didn't seem to care at all, said he was doing okay in the group and I could discuss it with his therapist at our family session NEXT WEDNESDAY at 4, here's the door, have a good day now.

No.  I am not going to have a good day.

My little kids have to wake up earlier than usual, spend three hours piddling around every single day when they'd rather be holed up in a fort in the living room in their pajamas.

I can't stay home and just chill which I really look forward to during the school year.  I love not having to get in the car, sometimes for whole weeks.

We never do get to go to the pool, our happy place.  It's too early in the morning to do a morning trip and too late in the afternoon to do it then.

I can't have a conversation with my oldest child or even be in the same room with him.   Not really what I would consider a "good" day.

Really, really hoping that something shifts and we can find that again.