The Middle

Hi friend!

I miss you. Life gets so busy with the ‘musts' and ‘shoulds' that it's easy to get bogged down; water logged with responsibilities. While you have been busy raising your babies on the other side of the world, I have been doing the same over here. Neither one of us has an easy job. Toddlers and 3 year olds are just as complicated as teenagers. The fear over their physical safety and development is every bit as real as the fear over their physical safety and development.

I've been burdened with worry over my child. The worry has been smoldering for several years and on the eve of matriculation into another phase of adolescence, I am anxious that I have waited too long to take action. The only problem is there is no clear path. It's like trying to carry soup in a paper bag.

This kid of mine is not like the others. He is of me but not like me. I don't know how to decode him. It is pushing me past the natural limits of myself.

Not sure when I wrote the above. It must have been in the spring. Now it's the fall. And things are no better. We've been to see the psychologist as a couple, individually and he's seen her. We've been to 3 different psychiatrists and we are starting a third medication. I am sick with worry. My husband is sick with worry. We don't know how to reach this boy. Some days he is with us. Parts of days he is with us, but mostly he is detached. The latest medication is supposed to treat an underlying depression which is probably the result of unrecognized anxiety. Once the medication takes affect and the depression lifts, then he'll want to engage. Hopefully.

This is the kind of fear like no other. When they were little I'd worry that they'd harm themselves unintentionally. Now I worry about him harming himself intentionally. He assures us and the mental health professionals that he isn't suicidal. He told me he could never do anything to make me sad. He doesn't realize the irony of that statement. He has no idea the depths of my sadness. How can I be happy or have peace when my boy is in turmoil.

The beginning of the school year has been rough. He doesn't want to go to school. He hates school. He's certainly not stupid. The standard model of schooling doesn't fit him. It's uncomfortable and constricting. There is no room for independence and questioning and movement. I get it but I don't get it. I've always been a rule follower. Give me a set of rules and I'll follow it to my death and get a gold star in the process. I'm also very creative but that creativity has been more active as an adult. I guess in many ways I was stifled as an adolescent but I was too scared not to follow the rules. I feared consequences. This one doesn't. Or maybe he does, but he is so anxious/depressed he can't make himself follow through.

We've looked at alternative forms of education. We've toured 3 different schools in the past 2 weeks of school. Nothing is the silver bullet. The issues are still going to be there but they'll just be housed in a different environment.

Reluctantly on my part, we are starting an selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor on him. It's funny because as a physician I don't mind prescribing these drugs and I can extol the virtues for my patients and even for myself. But, when it's my boy, I am paralyzed by fear by the "what ifs". What if he becomes suicidal? That's my biggest fear.

No one can prepare you for how much you will love your children and how much you will agonize over them. How your heart will break in ways you didn't even know was possible. How you will pray continuously and not even know for what you are praying. How you will loose sleep, imagine the worst, hope for the best, plead with God. How you'll love your spouse and also hate them because you have a b s o l u t e l y n o c o n t r o l o v e r a n y t h i n g and the only thing you can lash out at is the one you love the most. You can't believe it will happen to you. Not your kids. They will be different. No evil will befall your house. How you'll fold laundry and wash dishes with a blind ferocity because at least by doing this you are accomplishing something.

All I know is I love him but I don't know how to love him. My best efforts are lost in translation. Again and again, I offer him up to God like Abraham did with Isaac. "He is yours, God. He is yours.", is my breathless chant. I get some small glimpses now and again of my boy and I cling to that and to His promises. Meanwhile, my heart aches and I am waiting for the skies to clear.