Monday – Remember September? I Can't.
Oct. 11th, 2010 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
Sometimes, I can be slow on the uptake. For example, I was almost finished with my nervous breakdown before I noticed I was having one. I blame the DNA from my Swedish ancestors; we are just so subtle and quiet with our emotions, even when we are falling apart, that we have even been known to not notice them ourselves. In the meantime, the Scots-Irish DNA I got from my mother kept pointing out to me what a damn shame it is that I don't drink. That half of my DNA wishes that I did; those are my recessive genes, though, so I don't have to listen to them.
My first clue that something has been going on with me is that I can't remember much of what happened in the month of September. I have some memories, but I can't put them in sequence. The last thing I remember for certain was the phone call from my son's school on the last day of August when he had his sensory overload. The school receptionist reached me, and put me through to the principal's office. Twice. The first time there was no answer because the principal was busy restraining my son, and I rang back to the front desk. The second time it still took awhile for her to pick up, and when she did I could barely understand her over the sound of my son screaming. And what a scream it was.
There is a difference between the sound of a temper tantrum scream and a sensory overload scream. I mean, both are loud. But a temper tantrum has a purposefulness to it, for lack of a better term. It says, "I did not get my way and I am not happy." The scream I heard that day was of a child out of his mind with more emotion than he could possibly process. It was fear and anger cranked up to their highest level, a level so high that it exceeded whatever there was to fear or be angry about in the first place.
She put me on speaker phone so I could talk to him, and he calmed down a bit at the sound of my voice. She told me it wasn't him, it was the other kids. They were being mean to him. It wasn't his fault. I told him that was fine, it was okay, but that he needed to calm down. I told him I wasn't mad at him. I asked the principal if my husband or I needed to come down there. She said she thought it would be best. I told her I would call Jeff, since he was only a few minutes away. If I couldn't reach him, I would come down myself, but that it might take me 30 or 40 minutes to get there.
I was able to reach Jeff, who was home since his "weekend" falls in the middle of the week. He told me later that when he opened the front door of the school, he could hear our son screaming and he knew exactly where to go. When he opened the door to the principal's office, it looked like a tornado had hit. Two large heavy chairs were lying on their sides. Everything that had been on the desk was scattered about the room. The principal was on the floor with her arms wrapped around Sweet Pea, grasping his hands tight against his chest while he struggled against her. When he saw Jeff, he stopped screaming and she let go of him. He clung to his father while Jeff talked to the principal for about 45 minutes until school let out. He said that it took that whole amount of time for Sweet Pea to calm down; for his breathing and his color to return to regular, for his muscles to relax.
"If I had not known him," Jeff told me that night, "I would have assumed I was looking at a severely autistic child when I walked in there. You should have seen it."
I didn't need to see it; I heard it. For a month, I did not stop hearing that scream. It haunted me; it forced me to face that something about my son is not exactly typical. The word autism bothered me and still haunts me. How can he be autistic? He makes eye contact (at home, at least) and he doesn't flap his hands or "stim" like an autistic child. I still haven't resolved that, though there is a whole spectrum of disorders that fall under the label of autism. Something is not right, I agree. He can't transition from one activity to another as easily as other children. He can't stand to have anyone too close to him (unless it is someone like his father or me, and then he likes to be very close). His emotional responses are far more intense than other children's. The rules of social interaction seem alien to him.
There is also the "emotional disturbance" option that was suggested at the team meeting. When we took Sweet Pea to his Meet the Teacher Day, he was fine up until we reached his classroom door. At that point, he grew quiet and his expression turned guarded. I joked that it was almost like he had Post Traumatic Daycare Experience Disorder; that being back in a classroom took him back to the bullying and harsh treatment he endured in daycare before he was expelled. Perhaps it is some sort of Post Traumatic Stress response that is making him act out. Or maybe there are several factors working together, creating a unique pattern all their own; something so unique it can only be called Sweet Pea Syndrome.
I spent the month of September in a daze. I went through the motions, but I can't tell you what those motions were. I functioned, but barely. I couldn't really cry until after the Problem Solving Team meeting was over, and then I shed my first real tears. In the week since, I've shed some more, usually alone in my car and once this weekend at my son's birthday party, when I broke down on my cousin's shoulder as I thanked her for driving over an hour to bring her son and a couple of other kids to my son's party so that there could be other children there (since he has no friends, yet he wanted children at his party so that "it would be a party"). It meant the world to me.
Thank heaven for tears; they heal and cleanse a person and I have no idea why I fought them for so long. It must have been those unshed tears pressing up against my brain that made me lose track of September. After finally shedding tears, walking into the office last Monday to find out I was going to lose my job made me laugh. I'm not kidding. I can't say that I didn't screw anything up in September. For all I know, I screwed everything up. I don't remember because I was barely there. But it's okay. It's over. I'll move on and make a place for myself somewhere else. I sent the owner of the company a letter explaining what has been going on with me and letting him know that I know I'm being fired, so he can ask me any questions he needs to while I am still here. Life goes on, and I've found my Zen about moving on from this job. I didn't send anything to my boss, because I really have nothing to say to him beyond, "Sayonara, sucker." I doubt I'll shed any tears on my way out of the office that day; if I do, they will be tears of relief.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
Sometimes, I can be slow on the uptake. For example, I was almost finished with my nervous breakdown before I noticed I was having one. I blame the DNA from my Swedish ancestors; we are just so subtle and quiet with our emotions, even when we are falling apart, that we have even been known to not notice them ourselves. In the meantime, the Scots-Irish DNA I got from my mother kept pointing out to me what a damn shame it is that I don't drink. That half of my DNA wishes that I did; those are my recessive genes, though, so I don't have to listen to them.
My first clue that something has been going on with me is that I can't remember much of what happened in the month of September. I have some memories, but I can't put them in sequence. The last thing I remember for certain was the phone call from my son's school on the last day of August when he had his sensory overload. The school receptionist reached me, and put me through to the principal's office. Twice. The first time there was no answer because the principal was busy restraining my son, and I rang back to the front desk. The second time it still took awhile for her to pick up, and when she did I could barely understand her over the sound of my son screaming. And what a scream it was.
There is a difference between the sound of a temper tantrum scream and a sensory overload scream. I mean, both are loud. But a temper tantrum has a purposefulness to it, for lack of a better term. It says, "I did not get my way and I am not happy." The scream I heard that day was of a child out of his mind with more emotion than he could possibly process. It was fear and anger cranked up to their highest level, a level so high that it exceeded whatever there was to fear or be angry about in the first place.
She put me on speaker phone so I could talk to him, and he calmed down a bit at the sound of my voice. She told me it wasn't him, it was the other kids. They were being mean to him. It wasn't his fault. I told him that was fine, it was okay, but that he needed to calm down. I told him I wasn't mad at him. I asked the principal if my husband or I needed to come down there. She said she thought it would be best. I told her I would call Jeff, since he was only a few minutes away. If I couldn't reach him, I would come down myself, but that it might take me 30 or 40 minutes to get there.
I was able to reach Jeff, who was home since his "weekend" falls in the middle of the week. He told me later that when he opened the front door of the school, he could hear our son screaming and he knew exactly where to go. When he opened the door to the principal's office, it looked like a tornado had hit. Two large heavy chairs were lying on their sides. Everything that had been on the desk was scattered about the room. The principal was on the floor with her arms wrapped around Sweet Pea, grasping his hands tight against his chest while he struggled against her. When he saw Jeff, he stopped screaming and she let go of him. He clung to his father while Jeff talked to the principal for about 45 minutes until school let out. He said that it took that whole amount of time for Sweet Pea to calm down; for his breathing and his color to return to regular, for his muscles to relax.
"If I had not known him," Jeff told me that night, "I would have assumed I was looking at a severely autistic child when I walked in there. You should have seen it."
I didn't need to see it; I heard it. For a month, I did not stop hearing that scream. It haunted me; it forced me to face that something about my son is not exactly typical. The word autism bothered me and still haunts me. How can he be autistic? He makes eye contact (at home, at least) and he doesn't flap his hands or "stim" like an autistic child. I still haven't resolved that, though there is a whole spectrum of disorders that fall under the label of autism. Something is not right, I agree. He can't transition from one activity to another as easily as other children. He can't stand to have anyone too close to him (unless it is someone like his father or me, and then he likes to be very close). His emotional responses are far more intense than other children's. The rules of social interaction seem alien to him.
There is also the "emotional disturbance" option that was suggested at the team meeting. When we took Sweet Pea to his Meet the Teacher Day, he was fine up until we reached his classroom door. At that point, he grew quiet and his expression turned guarded. I joked that it was almost like he had Post Traumatic Daycare Experience Disorder; that being back in a classroom took him back to the bullying and harsh treatment he endured in daycare before he was expelled. Perhaps it is some sort of Post Traumatic Stress response that is making him act out. Or maybe there are several factors working together, creating a unique pattern all their own; something so unique it can only be called Sweet Pea Syndrome.
I spent the month of September in a daze. I went through the motions, but I can't tell you what those motions were. I functioned, but barely. I couldn't really cry until after the Problem Solving Team meeting was over, and then I shed my first real tears. In the week since, I've shed some more, usually alone in my car and once this weekend at my son's birthday party, when I broke down on my cousin's shoulder as I thanked her for driving over an hour to bring her son and a couple of other kids to my son's party so that there could be other children there (since he has no friends, yet he wanted children at his party so that "it would be a party"). It meant the world to me.
Thank heaven for tears; they heal and cleanse a person and I have no idea why I fought them for so long. It must have been those unshed tears pressing up against my brain that made me lose track of September. After finally shedding tears, walking into the office last Monday to find out I was going to lose my job made me laugh. I'm not kidding. I can't say that I didn't screw anything up in September. For all I know, I screwed everything up. I don't remember because I was barely there. But it's okay. It's over. I'll move on and make a place for myself somewhere else. I sent the owner of the company a letter explaining what has been going on with me and letting him know that I know I'm being fired, so he can ask me any questions he needs to while I am still here. Life goes on, and I've found my Zen about moving on from this job. I didn't send anything to my boss, because I really have nothing to say to him beyond, "Sayonara, sucker." I doubt I'll shed any tears on my way out of the office that day; if I do, they will be tears of relief.
