21 February 2006

Psychological Over-Exercise

What I don't want.
  1. I don't want my Aspergers Son to have a bad day at school and decide to share for two hours solid in tones of doom.
  2. I don't want his mood to change from one day to the next.
  3. I don't want the yo-yo effect of switching from 'yeah great day' to 'no nobody likes me, nobody's ever liked me'
  4. I don't want all the 'but's that follow, all the assumptions (at 11) that I don't know what I am talking about, that nobody in the whole world understands him, me included, and that the world and his dog is to blame.
  5. I don't want the sight of his sister, younger by a year, keeping herself to herself for hours, bored stupid but hoping to be noticed and praised for not harassing mummy like her brother does.
  6. I don't want that sometimes Mr 'nobody listens to me' is so forceful that he gets the whole evening and she gets two minutes of my time and a kiss goodnight. That breaks my heart.
  7. I don't want the fear that on the days he says he feels like that, he might really feel like that.
  8. I don't want the fear that on the days he says he feels like that he may not actually feel like that, but feel instead that having 'issues' is a way to demand my attention even after I've told him to drop it. I must be transparent - emergencies and heartaches always, always take me from whatever I want or need to do.
  9. I don't want the occasional insight into his school life when all that does is prove how he takes the reality at home and twists it to his teachers in a most bizarre way, usually humiliating to me, to make himself feel more valid.
  10. I don't want the temptation to always assume he is pulling the same trick on me, just so I can rest easy that his life isn't really a living hell.
  11. I don't want the way that his sister has no friends either because of the way her brother is.
  12. I don't want my own imperfections, the way I feel jaded and exhausted and ultimately stressed when he just keeps droning on and on, refusing to take an answer or be proactive.
  13. I don't want the way I finally get snappy
  14. I don't want the way this seems to be the only cue he will take to shut up, anyway.
  15. Most, most of all, I don't want the memories of having gone through all this with his older brother. Even when I was ten years younger it was a killer and all the old emotions are dredged up in anticipation. I deserve to be exhausted for being a decade older, never mind for knowing what's happening. Its like having to put your feet back in the shoes that blistered them, before you've healed.
Here's the game. Today someone suggested I write a list of 'don't wants' and then convert them to their opposites, to find out what I do want. They were supposed to be one word things.

It doesn't matter anyway - four or five hours ago it was a whole other list.

7 comments:

Ally said...

*hug*

Cheryl said...

Thanks!
:-)

birdychirp said...

Blimey - hugs and chocolate this end too...

Angeline Rose Larimer said...

If I didn't know his age, I'd swear he was fifteen.

Do you perhaps need any wood chopping done? Tom says that's what worked best for him.

I'm sending you another hug...some love, a spare dose of patience (had to swipe it from Tom's supply, as I'm running low), and my strong belief that both son and daughter are going to grow up fantastic adults.

fineartist said...

Stimulus that cause our hearts to ache…((((((hugs)))))).

You are so articulate in expressing yours, and because of your ability to articulate what it is that you don’t want, you are aware, and therefore more prone to avoid what it is that you don’t want.

I so admire you Cheryl, you face things, you deal with things and you carry on.

I’m with Writer mom, those kids of yours, they are destined to be fantastic adults.

Unknown said...

Hang in there…even though we can’t listen to you, we are all reading you loud and clear.

Doris said...

Sounds like sh*t. I don't know how you do it, I know I couldn't.