Minesweeper

I suck at this game, though it's apparently very simple, just a bit of logic.

Perhaps that's why the game of Minesweeper that is my life, I keep failing at utterly. I don't have any more limbs left.

Seriously, I do not want to be a drama magnet...I don't. I don't!

But the roller coaster crests yet another hill, and my stomach flies up into my throat.

It turns out that someone I thought I could trust I cannot, someone I thought I'd never trust again I'm clinging to for life, and some folks just haven't changed in that one is just as evil as ever, and the other will always use denial as a shield.

Since coming back to my mother's house, it seems like I've ended up back where I started. Suddenly that rundown apartment doesn't seem as bad after all. I'll take a cardboard box to the emotional pain I deal with constantly here. Being told essentially that I'm psycho, that I've invented a false reality. The sad thing is, that even though I felt every beating, I felt the razor on my wrist, I felt the tubes down my throat when they pumped my stomach, I felt the taunts and teasing, I felt the loneliness and depression....

I still wonder if they're right, that I'm really THAT crazy, and none of it ever happened. They are so insistent, that I question myself sometimes.

But then my mother pulls more of her shit, and I bounce back to the present.

I've never really put in one place everything that this woman has done to me to make me hate her so. Perhaps I should now, in case someone wonders, then they can refer back to this.

SO WTF IS GOING ON?

My mother had me only for the purpose of keeping my dad around. She got pregnant to snag him, she got pregnant again hoping to keep him. Mom resented her life at home, and sought a man and the chance to play house as an escape. She and my dad divorced when I was 7. I'd been watching them fight for years before that, Daddy was sleeping in the basement years before that, if he was even home.

When Daddy left, Mom turned on me.

I got beaten for missing him. I got beaten when she had a bad day at work. I got beaten for mixing her cold cream with her blush to see what color it made (I was like, 8). I got beaten for putting my bread crusts under the carpet in the living room (I thought they'd disappear) once, when my brother wouldn't cut them off my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Beatings comprised of stripping me naked and hitting me as hard as she could with a belt or switch until SHE was tired. I was expected not to cry...not that I ever succeeded with that. She would draw out the agony of waiting, I'd know before she got home what was coming, and I'd be forced to wait for her while she "got comfortable". She'd tell me her father didn't beat clothes, so neither would she. She taught me to be ashamed of my body, I have never felt comfortable being naked in front of my mother. When she was done, she'd leave the instrument of abuse on the radiator downstairs and tell me that she wasn't finished with me.

Hell, I even got beaten for throwing up at dinner. I had a sensitive stomach, and if I didn't finish it all, I got beaten. If I gagged, I got threatened. Once she made me eat something out of the trash can that I'd thrown in there.

My mother was the ultimate imposing figure in my life. She was God and the Devil. I feared her, hated her, and longed for her to just be nice to me and love me.

She beat me until I became her size. Then the abuse just continued on psychologically. Still, she called me names and berated me from childhood. I was "stupid", "lazy", "worthless", "good-for-nothing", and the biggest insult of all "just like your father". This was the biggest dart she had, because I knew she hated him as much as I loved him.

My dad was gentle, yet ineffective. He never beat me, but he never saved me either.

I grew up hearing aunts laugh about how upset my mom was when she found out she was having me. Stupid women, they didn't realize I was smart enough to put things together. I started wondering at an early age why a mother would NOT want to have a child. And when I learned about abortion and adoption? Then I wondered why my mom hadn't done that, and what life might have been like, living with God or another family. Hell, when I was five I demanded to see my birth certificate. I thought I'd feel better if I knew I was adopted.

I had immense vocal talent as a child. My mom made a point never to encourage it. She said it was because she was made to sing. I tried to reason that I wanted to sing...that didn't do any good. I had musical outlets through chorus until I graduated high school...and then my talent died along with the dream of college. Mom said that she didn't want the Department of Education to steal her identity, hence she would not sign my financial aid forms.

I was suicidal by the age of 12, and that continued until I was in my early 20s. I cut, overdosed on all the meds I was prescribed (14 at one point). The answer to my ailments was so simple, I was depressed. CT scans, X-rays...I've been irradiated so much...and all because the doc was too cowardly to tell my mom she was an abusive bitch.

I got dragged into a dream when I was 13...mom married for opportunity, and off we went to Europe. For the first time I had a name; I wasn't just someone's child or sister. I began to blossom...and Mom killed that, too. She sent me home with the lie that I was on drugs and trying to seduce her alcoholic husband (happy 17th anniversary, you fools...). I didn't find this out for 15 years, and for 15 years her sisters have treated me like trash. When I had my stroke, they were still so scandalized by why my mom would send me 3,000 miles away from her to my father who couldn't afford to take care of me (she had to send me maxi pads and underwear...and that was my birthday present one year), that they believed her when she said I faked my stroke. How the hell do you fake yourself into intensive care? I almost died, and my family wasn't there.

While in Germany, Mom got upset that I learned German in six months and made friends. She hated my closest friend, often yelling at her to the point where the girl would break down in tears (mom told me she was crazy). On my 15th birthday, my mother came home from being out with my stepdad, storms into my room where I'm eating cake with friends, and starts screaming at me for no reason. I look up, and all my friends are gone. They were forbidden from coming to my house after that. But not from being my friend. Their parents understood that my mom wasn't a good person.

Mom hated every friend I made as a child. And when she learned that Jessi, my German friend was especially close to me, she sent me back to the States just to get me away from her. Just to be spiteful. No matter that all the things she claimed Jessi was lying to me about could be proven, no matter that I had the chance to go to college for free, and the chance to have a wonderful life abroad. She hated me that much, that she'd ruin all that. Then to top it off, she gave the empty promise that I could come back (I lived off that dream, school at my dad's was so horrible, the kids threw trash at me), and then faked being hurt that I was upset for the wrong reasons and not concerned with being with her. She said she honestly thought I wanted to come back to Germany to be with her. I had agreed to get a job, not see my friends, come straight home...just to last until age 18 there, so I could tell her to suck it and run.

I attempted suicide for the first time when she dropped that bomb on me. And her reaction? She drank a whole bottle of wine. Wow.

Mom had to keep painting stories to get my family to look away from my mental breakdown.

Her lies were so convincing, even my dad believed her for a while. When I was a teen, my depression was seen as dangerous. No one tried to help me, they just judged me. Those years were so lonely, I spent 17 hours a day in my room on school days, and the full 24 on weekends. I came out to eat and pee. When my dad died, somehow I got the blame. You see, I was that bad of a child.

And the ironic thing is, I was accused of trying to seduce a man who was grooming me for molestation. When I finally told my mom...she called me a whore behind my back. Funny thing is, she asked me (only because my brother was there) why I didn't tell her before. I told her I figured she wouldn't believe me. And it was convenient for her not to. This man used to stand NAKED at the foot of the steps leading to the lower level each day when I left for work. It scared me so badly. He would find ways to touch my butt, or catch me alone in a room. I used to pray for protection from the evil of that place. And my mom didn't even believe me. But when Woman Thou Art Loosed the movie came out, all of a sudden (in front of her friends) she was my advocate.

When I graduated high school, since I couldn't get financial aid, I started work, hoping I could pay my way through school. Well, I had never been taught to save (hell, I was never taught most things a female should know), so I spent what I wasn't paying mom in rent. I racked up debt. By the time I had paid it off and was able to sign my own FAFSA forms, I had had my stroke.

25 years old, thinking that I just can't win.

I paid this woman tens of thousands in rent, and she was telling her family that I wasn't paying a dime. I used to wonder why she got so upset at me laying the rent money on her bed...it was because she was telling my stepdad that I wasn't paying rent.

I finally escaped when I was 27. I pretty much pulled a move like her, being pregnant and moving in with the father...but we weren't married, and I actually wanted my child. Mom convinced me to move nearby "so she could help". At that time I still held out the hope that she'd care one day. I ended up moving out of that house with no help (Steve was coming from 60 miles in the opposite direction). My mom and stepdad sat and watched me carry every heavy thing alone.

I told myself I'd go to a shelter before I'd live with my mother again.

Mom has done her best to break me and Steve up. She thinks it's okay to spend his money, but I should not let him be a dad. Steve and I have had our own troubles, as laid out earlier in this blog, and they ultimately led me to leaving him twice, the second time landing me back here. My mother told the cops to go away, that she'd take care of me. But she hasn't.

The last time I had a seizure, she was downstairs playing frecell. The baby was running wild. Steve came from work and called 911 himself. But he's a deadbeat according to mom.

Mom told the whole world she was helping me....while doing nothing. I can't even go to the bathroom without having my son in there with me.

She's accused me of infesting her home with ants because I'm so filthy (um, I have to clean every day because my son eats things off the floor if given a chance). She said I gave her MRSA (we'd have had to have skin-to-skin contact for that, and she won't let me touch her...never has). She's now saying she's afraid for her life...because I have just stopped talking to and fighting her. For a minute, she was trying to get me to pay her rent out of my social security. The goal is to leave here! I have to save to do so.

I found out this week that for the past three months she's been talking with Lisa, a person I thought was my friend. Lisa had been pressuring me to go to therapy with my mom, her reasoning being that her adoptive mom was so much worse, and if she could forgive so could I.

Um, I'm not really mad about my past. I'm just tired of being asked to act like it didn't happen. It's really messing with me.

Well, Lisa and my mom have their bitterness towards men in common, and apparently last thanksgiving Lisa was listening to my mom a lot more closely than I was aware, as Mom sat at the dinner table over Thanksgiving and went on and on about how angry and disturbed I was.

So now they talk via cell phone behind my back. They'd made plans to bumrush me on Thanksgiving, but I found out about that. I won't be here. The reason for their ire? I'm back with Steve! I should be struggling on my own like them....to hell with how doing it on my own would affect my kid. I "coped"...so have other kids...so would my autistic son. But there not there as Little Man stares at Daddy out the window and freaks out when the bus takes him away.

But I'm supposed to make that a regular part of his life.

One day, when I was 14, I looked up a book on child abuse in my school library. I knew I was being abused. What I didn't know was that I was depressed and suicidal. Sure, I knew that I was sad and wanted to die, but I didn't know that these things had actual clinical terms. After reading this book, I went to the school guidance counselor, who recommended me to the school psychologist.

I've been in therapy for 16 years. It's the only place where I can talk about my reality.

That's all I really want, to say that it happened. I don't want to punish my mom (I want to move far away from her and not let her know where I'm going), I don't want to flay anyone.

I just want to be free to cry sometimes. That's all. I've held it in for 30 years. Do I have to wait until Mom's dead too to be able to speak freely?

I feel like every step I take is unsure. I never know when Mom is going to go whispering to her sisters, apparently my brother has chosen the side of abuse, he refuses to fully acknowledge what is going on. He wants me to "keep quiet". I'm sorry, but I must cry out.

Every day is like walking through a minefield in the world that includes my mom.

I want to be free. And I don't want the day of freedom to come when they bury her. That's too long to wait.

Kissy Kissy

18 months ago, the picture below was not reality.



But now my son hangs on my neck, makes sure he's touching me before he goes to sleep at night, and kisses my forehead at least once a day.

When he's not getting into stuff. *laughing*

Like he is right now.

Will blog longer another time. Like when he's asleep.

A Grain of Sand on Life's Beach/Feeling Insignificant

I've always hoped that someday my name would be in lights of some sort, as a way to make up for all of the abuse and disregard I have endured in my life. I want all the people who have teased me, misjudged me, abused me and rejected me to look up and see what an awesome person I am.

Totally unrealistic, right?

Not to mention, it smacks of pride.

Every now and again I search out certain peers from my school days online, just to see how they are doing. I think I'm beginning to see the flaw in my thinking. I always search out the ones I envied to begin with, and with my life it's not hard to see people that you wish you could be. Few of my peers have seen the days I have. They've known the love and support of their parents, if not their whole families. People just don't realize what a platform to success that is. Unless you are a complete and utter brat, if you are loved and the people who love you point you in positive directions, you will fly somewhere.

Me, nobody bothered much with me. I can't say that no one taught me anything, because I did learn by observation, and by cause and effect, but I have rarely known someone I could call a mentor. I've had a few women in my life who took the time out to talk to me, and I will always be grateful for that...but I have been no one's apprentice. I miss having someone to look up to.

Tonight I realize that I need to get over my approval addiction. My purpose in life has nothing to do with the approval of others (in fact, I'll probably end up upsetting the apple cart many a time). So some of my peers lead these interesting, shining lives. My life is book-worthy, and one day I'll birth that book. I wasn't meant to be a singer. At least I don't think I was. That doesn't mean I won't ever lift my voice, but if I were supposed to devote my life to it, I think more opportunities would have come through by now. I'll leave that spotlight for my best friend.

I do know that one thing I am supposed to do is live my life as an example of the goodness of God, and to talk about/teach that goodness to others. I'm only 30, so I have a ways to go before anyone will listen to me. But meanwhile, I think if I can just focus on the future and keep moving, I won't get so disappointed and sad when someone else once again lives out one of my long-buried dreams. It really doesn't matter in the long-term scheme of things.

So I see other people doing great things. I try to do something great each day. What's important is not that a great number of people see, rather that the people closest to me benefit by it....and that God sees.

For a second there, I allowed myself to feel really small. But then I looked at the picture below and realized what a superwoman I truly am.

Life on the Spectrum...

I'll never forget that day when the doctor told me that Steven needed to be evaluated for Autism. I'd always felt that something wasn't quite right about his development, but that term was very new to me.

Since that day almost a year-and-a-half ago, life has been very eventful. Steven has been evaluated by the county for services, and he received some help from them, but both Daddy and I were very lukewarm about the progress we saw. At times I thought that Steven hated his speech therapist. I'm sure she wasn't too pleased at having to come to our house. But she was an angel to him, and for that I am grateful. He had a few weeks of behavioral therapy, but his therapist took ill, and that was put on hold.

I have higher hopes for school. Steven does much more when other kids are around. He's even eating school lunch. It's pummeling through his digestive system, but he'll get used to it. I just have to make sure he doesn't squat on the floor. That was somewhat okay when I was dealing with dry dingleberries. But anything mushy....hell no.

Speaking of poop...yeah, that's a new part of life on the Autism Spectrum for me. My son is a sensory seeking child, so anything that feels different or new...he's attracted to. Apparently that includes sticking his finger up his butt and plucking out turds. It used to be that he'd just "clean out his diaper himself" if I didn't smell him in time, but for a minute there, he would poop in the tub. Oh....my....gosh. He's pretty much over that part (I monitor him closely), but he still likes to poop and paint if you don't watch him. Not to mention, he's gotten used to doing the little toddler squat, and has to use different muscles to sit on the pot. So sometimes he will get up and use the floor. Did I just write a paragraph about my son's bowel movements? Dude.

Steven's still not saying much, but he will mimic. It's kind of garbled, but enough to make you turn your head and ask yourself if he said what you thought he said. He's not as frustrated lately when it comes to communication, perhaps I'm reading his cues better. Steven has many ways to let us know what he wants. Among them are:

-Covering his eyes to let you know he's feeling shy (new)

-Plugging his ears to let you know he doesn't like a sound (somewhat new)

-Pulling his high chair into the kitchen and climbing into it when he's hungry (not new)

-Yelling the moment he sees his milk or juice (LOL, since birth)

-Various facial expressions

-Sqatting in the corner when he has to go potty

When I write about these things, it's amazing how far he has come. I was reading his IEP the other day (Individualized Education Plan), and it made me smile, how the person who wrote his IEP took pains to emphasize his character. My son may be autistic, he may not talk, but he's very affectionate to those he trusts, clever (now, if he poops in the tub he hides it under the bath mat), and stubborn. I don't think I could have him any other way than who he is, and if that means him being autistic, then so be it.

However, dealing with the people who don't understand is hard. I'm grateful that his dad is paying attention, that the paternal grandparents are as well, and for his teachers. Not to mention the mothers I know with kids on the spectrum, and his old daycare provider. Because it takes a lot of self-control not to punch someone when I'm in a loud, populated place and my kid is screaming and stimming because he's scared...and someone comes up to me and tells me to spank him. Wow. How about I just smack you?

I discipline my child, but only when I can clearly see on his face that he knows he's into something he should not be. Other than that, I must leave room for where he is right now.

I'm used to the midnight diaper changes, I'm used to the night terrors which seem to scare us more than they do him. I'm used to being awakened at dawn. I think I might be falling in stride with this thing. My fellow autism moms said it would start to get easier. I'm beginning to think they might be right. Steven likes his routine...and so do I. :-)

Steven and Preschool....

So my son has started preschool. Um, this day came waaaaaay to early for me. Steven isn't even three yet, and yet every day I get him up, make him eat breakfast, put him on the potty (and pray he stays there, not to mention keeps his aim straight), get him dressed, and off we go to wait for his bus. Below is a picture of Steven on the second week of school.



The first week was definitely an adventure. I was happy to see the beginning of the school year because it meant a break for me. Steven stopped going to daycare back during the summer, when Steve and I split. I was still very ill then, and barely able to keep up with him. These few hours of quiet I get each day, I truly treasure. I wasn't sure how I'd feel the first day of school (hell, Big Steve was in mourning), but I actually did pretty well. I didn't cry. Everyone said I was going to cry, but I was more proud than anything. It's been quite a journey, navigating Steven's developmental delays.

As time passes, I can read his cues better, and so can his father. Yes, Steve is still in our lives. Another blog for another time, but I quickly came to the conclusion that my son wanted him around. Steven is deliriously happy when both his parents are in the same place. He's also more bratty, but at least he's tag-teamed. The boy is quick, he can toss a chicken nugget and flee before you have a chance to go get it. Very scary for me, as I've discovered that more than half of all autistic kids bolt from safe places. No wonder my son wants to play in the street ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Well, the first day of school rolls around, and everyone in the house was excited. Big Steve and I had agreed that we would both take him his first day, so Big Steve came from Maryland and stayed here for the weekend. Don't even begin to think that things are not tense with that situation, even though Big Steve and I are getting along a lot better.

I found out the Friday before school starts that my son is not on the bus route. Transportation says there's nothing they can (will) do, and that it'll take a week to straighten out. So Steven got a ride from Grandma for the first week. The first day Steve and I took him, but for the rest of the week he was chauffeured.

Onto the actual first day...

Steven's preschool is actually a special-needs preschool. The school has an actual preschool autism class, but since Steven has not yet gotten his full diagnosis, and seems to be fairly high-functioning, he was put in the basic special needs class. Steven's biggest hurdle right now is communication. He will not sign and he does not talk. But he does have his ways of letting you know what he needs. Like sitting on you when he poops (or squatting in a corner), or pulling his high chair into the kitchen when he's hungry. He yells a lot to get his point across as well. We're still getting used to that.

My mother and I took Steven with us to the preschool open house that was a week before school opened, and Steven seemed to like his classroom. It is a beautiful, bright airy space full of things for little kids to do. He's one of the youngest in his class. He will probably have to repeat this class next year, or an equivalent to it, based on the school district wherever we move to.

Little Man was definitely excited about his first day. I got him up, dressed, got myself dressed, and Steve was already downstairs looking sad. I felt bad for him. He didn't get to see his daughters go to school for the first time because he was deployed. So I think the day was harder for him than it was for me.

We ended up getting to the school a half our early, because the principal sent out an email saying school starts at nine. She didn't make a distinction between K-6 and the preschoolers. The preschoolers start twenty minutes later. I found out why the hard way.

The noise of all the bigger kids terrified Steven. So we had a half hour of him fussing and trying to escape before it was time for him to go back in his classroom. Personally, I intend to be a responsible and involved parent, but I don't want to be a helicopter mom, either. So Steve and I probably did the wrong thing the first day, and left him a bit too early. The teacher said Steven settled down and was fine after an hour, but I think it really scared him to be left in the lobby of the school the first day. He even punched a teacher's aide. I didn't find that out until the end of the week, one of the moms whose kids went to Steven's daycare told me. The aide was holding him, and my son is strong. I think the aide underestimated just how strong.

Subsequent days were easier, with the exception of one Monday. He did throw up on his teacher, and she called to ask me if that was normal, I told her yes. At Steven's preschool, the kids are not required to be potty-trained, so we have to include diapers and a change of clothes in his backpack. I count it a good day when he comes home with the same clothes on that I put him in that morning.

These days he stamps in anticipation of the bus, jumps off the bus in the afternoons when I get him off, and his teacher sends home daily reports of what he does. It's so cute to think of my little guy as the weather helper, or the line helper.

Steven will mimic you from time to time, and he does have some clever antics notched under his belt. I'll write about those another time. But when it comes to school....

So far so good.

More to come....

Steven has started preschool...

Follow me on my adventures with taking my autistic kid into loud, busy public places...

Some relationships have died out, while others have resurrected....

I LOVE EPILEPSY!!! (NOT)

Time to return to school.

A move in the future (out of state)?

Babymamadrama...and I'm not causing it. LOL

Tune in...once I get to a computer. I'm posting from my nook.

Yeah, I wait to long to post.

Three Mile Island

I wonder how long it will take for me to completely melt down.

I love my son to distraction, I'd die without him, but honestly doing this by myself, and knowing as little as I do about autism is hard. Some of my family think it's something you "grow out of". My mom is morbidly amused by my struggles. I have a kid in his terrible twos, who cannot communicate to me AT ALL what it is that he needs and wants. Not to mention, I'm like crack to him, if he doesn't have a good dose of his mama every hour, he practically becomes catatonic. I'm the type of person who needs an hour of peace every night. And sleep doesn't count.

My friend Lisa has offered to come and spend time with him a couple of times a week. Though it's terribly difficult for me to accept help from others (those who were supposed to help me just made me feel worthless for having needs), I know that if I don't take her up on her offer, I may do something I regret. My son is like a cheese grater to my nerves right now. And it's not his fault, he is doing what his little soul and brain compel him to do, I have to keep that in mind. But when I'm trying to take care of normal bodily functions in peace, or even take a bath, and I can't do that by myself because my mom feels that watching him for five minutes is raising him, and again, I am my son's addiction....it gets hard.

I'm trying not to be bitter. I feel like coming back to my mom's house brought me full circle, only the circle was standing on its end, and I only went up to come back down. I told myself when I left here, I'd go into a shelter before I came back here. Well, Steven and I are family number 80. We were family number 93 last week. So at least there's progress there. Still, what is this house, but a gilded cage? Yes, there's money here, but money is as valuable to me as paper currency during the Second Coming. It's the support that's gold to me. I've learned to make do and be satisfied with very little materially...it's the things you can't buy that I hoard, because they come so few and far between.

My spirit is raw. I cannot concentrate on anything but my child when he's with me. If I don't keep constant vigil, he will be into something that is likely to kill him. There is no time to do anything other than read casually, and even that is sporadic. I used to be able to read a 600-page book in a day. School was a piece of cake. I need to go back to school. I only have two more years, and if I'm to be doing this by myself, I'm going to need a degree. Perhaps I'll double major. I want to keep my Christian Studies major, but now Early Childhood Education with an emphasis on Special Education is pulling me in that direction. Perhaps my child won't baffle me so much if I continue my studies through studying him.

Still, it's hard. Every time I smell that he's done #2, I pray that there's no poo on his fingers or elsewhere. I feel myself trying not to cry. I have to somehow overcome personality traits imbedded in me for years (I do not like to be touched when asleep...Steven needs to touch me at night for reassurance), so that my son doesn't feel any more lost than he probably already does.

I'm trying not to resent his father, but at least once a day I hate that man. Did I deserve to be lied to, to have every holiday ruined because someone else mistreated him? Did I deserve the ire of his mother, who seems to think I poured the alcohol down his throat? Did I deserve to have my life threatened? Do I deserve the daily contact, the inappropriate comments, the denial on his part? In his eyes, it's like none of that ever happened. There are no holes in the doors and walls of our old apartment. My son has never been witness to any fights. The reason why we split in his eyes is because we didn't have enough money to stay on our apartment. Perhaps had I not been as stressed, I would have been able to work. There were times when my health allowed me, but more often than not the stress overwhelmed me, and I remained bedridden. That's not an option now.

Still, had I stuck to what I knew was right, I wouldn't be in this situation....but neither would I have my son, and that child is honestly what's kept me alive the past 3.5 years. God took my mess and fashioned a miracle out of it. I would not be here if it were not for him. My family walked out on me for good when I got sick. With each new development in the saga that is our family dysfunction, I see more and more why they hate me. My son gave me love. He gave me a whole lot of need at first, but when I met that need, he looked at me one day and gave me love. You can't replace that. Every time I go into the hospital I worry about him. I keep avoiding the MRI I know I need to get, because there probably is a lesion on my brain....obviously not cancerous, but 2 weeks in the hospital....who would take care of him? No one knows him like I do, no one has tried. They can't feed him, they don't know his cues, and they definitely won't put up with being up half the night changing and soothing him. Perhaps Lisa would, but that day is going to have to be a long way off for now. I'll stick with the silent seizures. But if a Grand Mal one hits, I have no choice. It just sucks that the only hospital that can help me is 20 miles from my child.

The past two weeks have been especially hard, and I sadly admit I have not been the best Mom I could be. My patience has holes in it, and my son keeps sticking his fingers in them. I wrote a blog weeks ago that compared my situation to that in Matthew 25, and my son was "the least of these". I'm ashamed to say I have not been very kind to my Savior as of late. I just feel so lonely, so isolated. My family is not there, the two women I know who have raised kids on the Autism Spectrum live a ways away. My brother is the only relative I speak to candidly, and even he doesn't understand. Steven's father looks at him like he's a trophy. Many people think my kid is a toy, because he's so cute. He does this Puss In Boots thing with his eyes, they get big and change color when he's whining to get his way. I've noticed that of late. It's kryptonite to me.

Lord, take the scales off my eyes before I turn into my mother. I got beaten like a slave for things I could not help. My son can't help how he sees the world, and that will always be, no matter how tired or sick I may be. Not all of his antics are intentional. And he does see some value in me, even though I feel like the Abominable Snow Woman right about now. He just came in and gave me a kiss. Progress in and of itself from a child who used to not notice the presence of other people.

Somehow, I've got to find a way to gain peace in this storm. For his sake more than mine.

Now it's time to put him to bed. He just found another rubber tip to the door stoppers in the house, and was eating it. I think he's trying to tell me he's sleepy. :-) Heaven help me.