All Things Hold Together

I feel like I am going crazy. My stomach is in knots. I am waiting for a call from the pediatrician about The D. I have been fearing this call almost his entire life. But this time, it is imminent, and therefore more fearsome.

See, The D has some… issues. When he was little, he was very active and, for lack of a better word, aggressive. Only, he wasn’t aggressive in a malicious way, he was just active and clumsy and kind of plowed through other people on his way to get something. Like he didn’t know his own strength and didn’t know other people were there, and didn’t feel it when he bumped something.

The daycare he was in recommended that someone come in and evaluate him there, and my insurance would cover it. She (the evaluator) recommended occupational therapy. And the occupational therapist said that he had sensory processing disorder, which was called sensory integration dysfunction back in those days (eight years ago, when he was almost 3).

She also said that we were lucky because he was exceptionally bright, which is not always the case for children with this disorder, so he would likely outgrow it, in the sense that he would be able to learn how to deal with it. In the meantime, the childcare center, which had another SID/SPD child, learned some techniques that would help the children get centered.

Right before he entered kindergarten, I had him re-evaluated by the OT and she saw improvement and said that he would not need any kind of assistance in school. This was huge. Just a year prior, I had experts telling me that it was inevitable that he would need an aid in school.

That was pretty much the last time we thought about The D’s sensory issues. Each year, he seemed better able to regulate himself. The OT was right; he was learning to deal with it.

He continued to have social issues, though. I worked with him at home and his kindergarten teacher and guidance councilor worked with him at school, and he slowly improved. The fact that he was so bright and so eager to learn new things did go a long way toward mitigating his social and emotional deficiencies, and the fact that he is a really fun kid kept him from being the class reject. He progressed along alright.

Unfortunately, The D had another parent involved, who did not so much have The D’s best interest in mind, unless it was convenient for him. During his kindergarten year, his bio-father decided to come in and out of his life without any semblance of consistency, until he ended up moving out-of-state altogether.

After that, The D went downhill fast. The school recommended therapy, but that did not help much. Things got pretty bad for him.

Things eventually evened out and improved. For first and second grade, he did pretty well, and his first year of homeschooling, he did excellent.

Then that summer, summer of 2006, I made a choice that I will regret until my dying day. I let The D go and visit his bio-father, believing that he had gotten his act together. Big mistake.

The D came home a wreck. He couldn’t even talk about it for months. I mean, like 6 months went by before he even breathed a word about what it was like there.

Apparently, it was just really chaotic. There were no rules. His father’s other three children, a girl the same age as Big E (imagine that), and two boys 2- and 4-years younger than her, are allegedly very out of control. They listen to rap music with bad language (something that for some reason The D is very sensitive to - he even gets upset with me if I swear). And they watch things on TV that are “not appropriate for children,” his words, not mine (bless his heart).

There was inconsistent discipline that ranged from some bad behavior being ignored completely to the opposite extreme, such as the then 4-year-old being spanked several times with a belt for not turning the TV off when told the first time.

And the latest thing that was revealed, yes - more than a year later there are still things trickling out, The D overheard his father on the phone several times getting into heated arguments with people that involved swearing and threatening.

The kid came home a total wreck and has only gotten worse as time has passed.

Then, when our neighbors, who we spent time with every day, moved away to Seattle, his whole world collapsed. He became depressed, aggressive, disobedient, defiant, and just plain awful to be around.

To make matters worse, he refused to go to his councilor. (The one he started going to in K.)

We did start going to a family counselor through the counseling center that was set up by our church. We couldn’t make him go to individual counseling, but we could make him come with us. That has helped, but not enough. He has been in a free-fall for months. There have been days where things begin to look up, but the downward spiral is still in motion.

Then someone suggested that I take him to his pediatrician. I had to bring Little E for his 4-year check anyway, so I called her and told her what was going on. I had no idea that a pediatrician could help diagnose a mental health problem, but I am so glad that someone knew because she has been awesome. And she has the same philosophy about medicating children that I do - she opposes it because of the potential negative effects on their developing brains, but recognizes that there is a very small percentage of children for whom it is necessary and who cannot be helped any other way.

Now, back to the reason I am anxious about her call. She had me fill out a questionnaire that is used in diagnosing mental health disorders in children and it was sent out to be analyzed. She should be calling me today or Monday with the preliminary results and we will go from there.

It has been absolutely gut-wrenching to sit here and wait for the doctor to call and tell me what is “wrong” with my little boy. I have feared this moment for so many years. In the back of my mind, I always knew that it could come to this. Even though we worked through issue after issue with him, and he always got better, I knew that he was fragile.

So, I sit and I wait and I pray that everything is going to be alright. I mean, I know it will be alright, but I don’t know what darkness we will travel through to get there.

This has tested my faith like I never thought possible. I have run to God. I have run from God. I have cried out to Him. I have screamed at Him. I have been amazed that even after I turned my back on Him, even after I selfishly rejected all that He did for me as if it was not enough because He is letting me go through this pain, He is always there to take me back into His arms when I am ready. I am amazed at what a truly loving and forgiving God we have.