Sometimes doing what's best doesn't feel the best. 

Burnout

Oh, end of semester.  How I love you.  <insert sarcastic snicker here>  Seriously, it's the end of the school year for me, and for my kids, and I am feeling it.  Oh, how I'm feeling it.

A lot of people ask me how I manage to balance school, and work, and parenting.  The secret is:  I don't.  Every semester, at the end of the semester, I die. And then, I'm reborn again.  Like a phoenix.  Or a vampire.

It's easy to experience burnout whether you have a full time job, or you're a parent, or you're going to school.  What I see in my own life is that a lot of little things pile up.  By the end of the semester, my thoughts are scattered, I'm tired, and I don't really want to do anything. Not wanting to do anything equals procratination, which means things fall through the cracks.  Things falling through the cracks means feeling stressed, which means irritability, which equals feeling tired and sorry for myself...(if you give a mom a cookie...)  You get the idea.

How do you avoid it, or control it?  The best thing to do is to understand, first of all, that it is going to happen.  Expect it.  Then understand that you have to nip it in the bud before it blooms into a veritable garden of cortisol and epinephrine.  Take some quiet time to pray, or meditate, and think about what is truly important to you.  When you've decided what those things are, then understand that those things (or people) are what deserve your time and attention.  After those things are taken care of, then other things can be taken care of.

And now I'm going to go work on a paper.  *sigh*  Hang in there, fellow students and parents of students.  We're almost through.

Boldly Go

"Move forward boldly towards acceptance." - Amber Jones

God's Diary

There are at least sixty acres behind our house.  They don't belong to us, but my son has roamed back there a time or two, and a couple of times, he has brought back to me a shiny rock.  I call them "sparklies" and he gets annoyed with me if I ask him to bring me one too much.

When I was a kid I had a rock collection under my bed.  What I chose to put in it, I chose for its texture, shape, luminescence, or striated surface.  I've taken two semesters of geology and absolutely fell in love.  It's such an all-encompassing science.  Meteorology, physics, biology, and chemistry are all wrapped up in geology.  The sheer scope of years that it address...in the billions...is enough to blow your mind when you actually take the time to stop and consider it.

It's God's diary, really. His record of the earth that He created through His Only Begotten.

So what is it about holding a rock in the palm of your hand?  For myself, there is a small sense of wonder.  Each one is different and I think on some base level, I can sense that I'm holding a piece of ancient history.  Whether it's sparkly...or not.

Playing Spades

Today, during a conversation with a colleague, the subject of autism came up.  Said colleague made a joke about autism, and I have to say that it didn't go over too well with me.  My reaction was somewhat more caustic than I intended, and apologies were made on both sides of the table.

Said exchange made me start thinking about why I reacted the way I did.  Why was I so sensitive about it?  I realized that there were a great many things that the general population doesn't understand about parents of children with autism.  So, this is me, laying it out on the table.  No offence is intended.  Those who know me know that I call a spade a spade.

1) We hate the word "retarded".  This word has gained a stigma in recent years as autism has reached epidemic proportions.  Many of our children, in spite of their inability to communicate, have IQs that are off the charts.  And even if they don't, the word "retarded" is such a minimizing, demeaning word.  It takes all that they are and reduces them to an image of a drooling idiot.  This word does not make its way into our vocabulary. Neither does that ridiculous, flapping hand gesture people use along with the word "retarded".  You realize what people are mimicking, right?  They're mimicking an individual with cerebral palsy.  Specifically, these individuals have spastic hemiplegia or hemiparetic CP,  which means they are completely or partially paralyzed on one side of their body due to brain injury, most often as a result of infant stroke.  So, when you're uttering the word "retarded" and flapping your arm against your chest, you are making fun of someone who, despite being blessed with a body with severe limitations, still has much to offer the world if people will only stop and notice.  Congratulations.

2) We are grieving.  No matter how upbeat and positive we try to be, we are grieving for our child.  Many of us watched our children as toddlers begin to change into something unexpected.  Some of them slipped away.  Some of them stopped talking and never uttered another word.  Some of them began exhibiting odd behavior that we were powerless to stop.  In any case, jokes leveled at our child, our child's behavior, or our child's condition, is about as classy as passing gas in a five star restaurant.

3) We are ultra-sensitive. We have been given dirty looks in stores, churches, and restaurants.  We have been left out of social gatherings, birthday parties, and even had our children passed over at family events because the "normal" children garner more attention. (And lest my own family think I am talking about them, I am not.  I am talking, in general, about what parents of autistic children experience.) Our "normal" children hesitate to invite people over because their sibling is "different" and they're afraid of what other kids at school will think.  Pre-autism friends have disappeared into the woodwork, leaving space for friends who actually get it.  We know not everyone is going to feel comfortable around our kid. We accept that that's the way it is.  We also hate that that's the way it is.

4) We cringe when you say that a problem child needs to have his ass whooped. Yeah, yeah.  We know you're from that school of thought that thinks a good ass-lickin' will solve that behavior problem.  Walk a mile in our shoes.  The old mantra that says, "My parents spanked me as a child.  As a result, I developed a psychological condition known as "respect for others" doesn't really apply here.  Do we discipline our children? Yes.  Disabled or not, children need discipline.  BUT. Think before you decide in your head what would actually help my kid.  I have seen things you haven't seen and I have dealt with things you haven't dreamed of.  I can no more beat the autism out of my kid than I can smack the ignorance out of you.

5) We think we're bad parents.  We question ourselves.  Over and over again.  Some of us even blame ourselves for our child's condition.  It may not have any logical reasoning and it may not make sense, but we do it anyway, because that's our kid, and we feel responsible.  We think we can do better, try something new, change their diet, change their sleep patterns, change their medication. Some parents spend thousands and thousands of dollars trying to figure out what will alleviate, eradicate, or control autism.  Then there's the other group of parents who decide they'd be better off taking a pill themselves.  It's a fact.

6) Some of us don't care what you think, and some of us care too much. Some of us have reached the point where we know that the only important thing is parenting our child the best way that we know how and that giving them what they need is top priority, and we couldn't care less about your opinion of this.  We don't care anymore about the noise our child makes during a public meltdown or if that odd noise is causing someone to stare.  Some of us, on the other hand, avoid public places all together for fear of a potential embarrassing situation.  We worry about offending the general public, we dread the stares, we want to sink into the floor.  (Guess which group I belong to?  Yes.  Group A.)

7) We think you have it easy. So your kid brought home a C on his report card, or got benched during a ball game?  Your three year old wouldn't sit still during church or spilled cereal on the floor?  We try to be sensitive and understand that these things are a big deal to you. And we like hearing about what's going on in your life because a) we care about you and b) it takes our mind off of our own issues.   On the other hand, you have to realize that some of us changed a diaper on a fourteen year old girl that morning or tried to keep our son from yelling profanities in the middle of the grocery store.  Do the math.

8) We wouldn't go back to the way it was. Some of us see autism as its own blessing. Some of us think it's the worst kind of curse.  But what most of us agree on is that we wouldn't go back to the way we were before dealing with it.  The lessons have been too profound and too eye opening.  Would I take away my son's autism and make him normal?  Sometimes, yes, I would love to do that.  At the most, I would erase his anxiety.  If I could do that, I would have it made.

9) Autism has changed our family dynamic forever.  We are divorced because of autism.  We are at different stages of the grieving process because of autism.  Our other children are anxious, tired, strong, mature, sarcastic, depressed, more kind and compassionate,  or angry because of autism.  Our child with autism is frustrated, anxious, and feeling unaccepted because of autism. We haven't been on a real date in years because of autism.  We have distanced ourselves from other family members because of autism.  We have moved, because of autism. (Yes, this is true.  Some families will uproot themselves to find better care or because the town/neighborhood/school district they live in is so unsupportive and unaccepting).   This condition affects the family unit in a variety of ways, and it's never the same from one family to the next.

I could go on forever.  I really could.  This is me, laying it out on the table, readers.  If offense was taken, it was unintended...and I ask you to remember that I belong to Group A.

How to Succeed at Anxiety Without Really Trying

I used to think that being alone was my greatest fear, but it's not.  I know how to be alone.  My greatest fear is, in actuality, failure.

When I was a kid, I made really good grades in school.  I took after my dad, who never saw a need to study and was actually sort of contemptuous of the work he was asked to do.  I never went that far...the contemptuous part, I mean...but making good grades became part of who I was, and it was just sort of expected.

It became so much a part of my character that it morphed into something along the lines of "failure is not an option, and if you do fail, you really suck.  In fact, you're not even a good person, if you fail."  This was the sentiment I operated by for such a long time.  I never looked at other people this way, for some reason.  It was okay if so and so made a bad grade or if somebody else screwed up.  But not me.  It was definitely not okay for me.  It carried over into my adult life, and when I made mistakes, even serious ones, they had lasting repercussions.

This kind of attitude is dangerous for a lot of reasons.  First of all, if you are human, you are going to make mistakes.  You're susceptible to human weaknesses and therefore, you can't operate with the assumption that you will never succumb to said weaknesses.  (I have a slice of cherry cake in my near past to prove it.)  The other reason it's dangerous is that it causes a lot of anxiety.  What will happen if I don't do this right?  What will happen if this person gets mad at me?  What will happen if this doesn't work out, if I can't do a, b, or c, or if I don't do as well as I expect to?  Anxiety is based on not what will happen, but what will happen if.  In the bank of life, the anxiety sufferer borrows more than their fair share of trouble with interest compounded daily.

Why am I writing about this?  Because this week I read an excellent article from our church website.  It was called "It Isn't a Sin to Be Weak" by Wendy Ulrich, and it was very eye-opening.  What do you mean, I'm not going to be perfect all the time?  What do you mean, Heavenly Father loves me anyway?  If He can love me when I make mistakes, why can't I love myself?  It's an excellent article, and it made me realize that I've been going about things entirely the wrong way.  Here is the link:

 https://www.lds.org/liahona/2015/04/it-isnt-a-sin-to-be-weak?cid=HP_TH_3-26-2015_dPTH_fLHNA_xLIDyL2-2_&lang=eng

In the meantime, I give myself an A+.  I give myself an A+ for dealing with life the best way that I can, an A+ for knowing there are things I need to change, and an A+ for still, in spite of my flaws, trying and not giving up.