As the title says-- Where do I even begin? --And where do I go from here? Our finances are wacked. My son has issues-- stealing, lying, and behaviors I don't even know how to deal with. Constant arguing has taken away any peace I could hope for. Today the final straw was him setting a credit card on fire and almost catching the house on fire in the process. I don't know how to handle everything that has happened in the last three weeks. I've been taking my son to morning mass every morning and of all the day he does the best being there. After mass his day spirals downward. After he comes back to himself he'll cry to me that he wants to be a 'good' boy. And honestly I can see how hard he is trying, but something really goes crazy between intention and execution. So where do I go from here?
I've talked about the problems. Now to tell you a few little important details about Peter. Peter was born about two months early and had a stroke right around birth. He lost about a quarter of his brain in the right posterior and his left brain kinda took over. He was born in Bulgaria and his biological mother gave him up to the orphanage in hopes he would be adopted. Todd and I first met Peter when he was almost two, and brought him home three months before he was three. Peter to come home to us had to leave the only home he knew and people he loved and trusted. Trust is very difficult for him. He is afraid to be alone, though he won't exactly tell you that. For the first several years he was with us he was afraid for me to be in another room or to go any place without him. He hates not knowing things, but is so afraid he can't learn that he won't really try. He is so determined, but that determination can work for him or against him. I believe it is because of his determination that he is alive, but it is also that determination that makes him almost impossible to get through to.
There is another issue. I don't want to put him on meds. For one thing his brain is wired different from most people, and even the specialists don't know what medicines will do to him. Another thing I've taken a natural approach with all my children. I'm not comfortable putting extra chemicals in their bodies-- especially ones that effect brain chemistry. Yet it seems everyone I talk with suggests the meds.
I also do not want to send him away to a group home, to a program, or even to a day camp. My son has felt abandoned all his life, and I want to heal that, not make it worse. Any form of sending him away makes him think he is losing all that is his. Maybe you say 'Well good. He should not have done those things he has done' But think of this different. Have you lost your family? Your country? Your language? Everything you know? Peter has, and it still effects his life everyday. He is afraid everyday of losing it all over again. When he was younger every time he would bungle things he would anxiously ask "Your not going to send me away?". Now it goes something like this-- in an angry yell "Just send me to that boys home! That's what your going to do!" I've raised teenagers. What they get angriest about is alot of times what they are most afraid of. In Peter's case it is the same thing he has said since he could talk, and the same fear of abandonment.
He was placed in a taxi with me by his favorite nurse when he did not know me or even speak the same language. He was taken to a new country where even the air was different, where strangers became his family, and he had no contact ever again with the people that had raised him for the first three years (almost) of his life. It's only been ten years since that happened. How many of you would still be a little frightened? I just can't not be there for him. I know he needs all I have.
The last thing is I don't believe he is 'always' going to be this way. I've raised three teenagers already. One in particular has burned things, lied, stole, and even snuck out of the house all before she was fourteen. She drove me crazy. Granted she never stole my credit card and fed the neighborhood their fill of pop and candy to the tune of $500, but she did her fair share of stuff. She out grew it. I honestly believe he can do better.
I believe in him. Maybe I just need to hear myself say it. I believe it was no mistake that Peter is in our family. I believe that God had purpose in that. I also don't believe God would abandon us.
So I know there has to be a way. But I do not know exactly what it is. I made an appointment with a Chiropractic Neurologist today. He's seen one when he was younger which helped then. The doctor then warned us it would get bad when he was a teen and that we would have to do more interventions then-- hint that's now. I've made an appointment with a counselor. It's on Wednesday. He's started soccer in the evenings for 2 hours each day. We are going to mass every morning. As the school year starts up he will be involved in homeschool activities. I'm planning also to hire some kind of tutor to help him with his studies. He's on a waiting list to see an occupational therapist again. He's on a restriction from even going outside alone. He's lost everything I can take away. But will this be enough? Do we need to revisit speech therapy, or some NET? I don't know. Is he going to grow out of these problems? I don't know. Am I going to have to go against everything inside me just to gain peace? I sure hope not, but if something doesn't give I don't know what I'll do. I love my son more than words do justice, but his stunts and behaviors hurt all of us and leave me feeling very alone and abandoned.
Some think that we've done everything wrong, some think our technique is wrong, some think we should send him away from our home, some think we should punish harder, some think we should go total medical, and most think this is our discipline that lacks. They may be right. I'm the last to claim perfection. All I know is I have spent today and everyday crying out to God and praying for him to show me what to do. I am not afraid of hard work. I am not afraid of being hard or soft. I am most afraid of losing my son-- either emotionally or spiritually. I am afraid of making him feel alone all over again. More than anything I am afraid I will fail him if something does not give or change. Any words of acquired wisdom? You kinda last words before I walk the plank? Because on days like these that is exactly what I feel like I am doing. Not ending on a good note. But I still have no clue soo-
This is Cat out, asking for your prayers, and if you have anything to make comment on, please share. Thank You for continuing to read.
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