June 2012 Alphabet "D"

Morning, you guys. Sorry I haven't been around, like at all. I tried to go back and post a few of the alphabet series for you. Try and catch you up.

Yesterday was the last day of school, so maybe now I can blog in the mornings and catch everyone up. I've been having a hard time blogging in the evenings. It seems to be the only time that CPT and I have together, and to spend it on the computer only causes tension between the two of us. And that's the last thing that I need right now.

So the last time that I blogged, I was going to school with Jacob. And it worked, for the most point. During one of his finals, he finished in 1/2 the allowed time, and wanted to draw. But he needed to study for the next final. So I wouldn't let him use the paper or pencil. And he "wrestled" me for the pencil. It was interesting. What freshman boy gets into a tug of war with his mom for the pencil in the middle of class? The dude at the table across from us was giving Jake some serious strange looks. I eventually got the pencil because I was quicker. And after about 10 minutes of pouting, he decided to study. And after studying, he got to draw.

Anyway, each evening after school, we had some kind of power struggle. Either from doing homework, of cleaning his room, or with his dad, or something. They were getting worse and worse. And he's a super intelligent child. He knows which things we will and won't back down from. We only stick our guns to the most critical safety issues with Jake. So those are the ones that he's gonna be adamant with. He even went so far one night as to tell his dad "I LOVE pushing your buttons and making you mad"... Yeah, THAT didn't go over well...

So on Saturday, we had 2 baseball games to go to. Joe at 9am, and Jim at 10am. Tom and Eme stayed home. Jake had to come with me. CPT went to the shooting range with friends. Jake didn't wanna go, but he can't be unsupervised. That's just how things are right now...

So he did passable at the first game. Not too much complaining. He was gonna have Ms Julia help him study for his Spanish, but I forgot his paperwork at home. And he forgot his reading book at home too. Fail on both our parts. And it was too far back home to go and get it. And I had taken my meds WAY too late on Friday night to go drive some more. I was feeling not so good. A little out of it, in fact.

Julia took the little kids at 9:30 to Main Post youth center for their game, and we followed at 10:30 ish. Kari drove me, since I was feeling a bit strange. That's what friends are for. hehe. We got there, and Julia and Kari had folding sports chairs for us to sit in. Not like George Moore field with the nice bleachers.

Jake's mood went downhill from there. He didn't wanna be there. He wanted to go home. He wanted me to take him. Nope. He wanted to walk. Nope, because he can't be left unsupervised. Plus, there were other kids at home. He even tried to walk off a few time. But he came back. He did seem to have a bit of self control. And he came back and sat down.

But then he wanted to play on my phone. And phone are NOT for children to play on. That's how phones get broken. So I don't let kids play on phones. Big kids. Little kids. Any kids. I just don't. Only once in a blue moon. So I said, no, kids can't play on my phone. And he didn't take that as an answer, and kept demanding an answer. "Answer me, mom.".. Over and over again...

He got even more agitated, and grabbed my arm, threaded it thru the camping chair, and held it there against my will. It hurt. And he wouldn't let it go. For between 10-20 minutes. The time is a bit vague to me. I can't remember the timeline. It's all kind of a blur...

He was saying "WHY CAN'T I PLAY ON YOUR PHONE" and being a punk. He was banging my arm against the metal poles. I was trying to escape my arm, but I couldn't get it away from him. He is so much bigger than me. I was getting more and more upset. I was trying my best to hold back tears. Being tortured by your own child is NOT enjoyable...

At one point, he or I knocked our chairs off balance, and we went over. Like I said, my memory of the event is a bit blurry. I'm still a bit traumatized by the event. We fell to the ground. And I fought back. I managed to get him and a choke hold, and I can remember yelling in his face, "THIS IS NOT HOW YOU TREAT YOUR MOTHER". Yeah, I was not in control at this point. I had been emotional abused for the past 15 or so minutes and was rattled.

Well, he didn't like that, and went after me harder. He knocked me over, and started throwing punches. We hit the ground, and of course the game stopped. Jim's coaches are MP's. The both came running, and tackled Jake off of me. I of course was sobbing uncontrollably at that point.

Yeah, I'm THAT mom. The one that gets beat up at her 6 year old baseball game.... Sigh. Someone from the other team called the MP's, so they showed up about 3 minutes later. Luckily we didn't have to fill out paperwork until after the game.

We explained to the coaches how he was special needs, and Jake kinda wandered around cooling off. It only took him about 15 minutes to fully cool off. I stayed rattled for MUCH longer. The rest of the game is a huge blur to me. One of the moms came and talked to me. She worked at CYS and ACS or something like that, and said to pursue Respite care thru ACS. If approved, they would pay for up to 40 hours a month. For an older kid, I could get money to hire someone to "babysit" Jake so I wouldn't have to be the only one to supervise him. Sounded good to me. One more good resource.

We had called CPT, and he was on his way to the game. He got here as the game was over, and when I was just starting to talk to the MP's. We ended up being there 2 hours after the game got over talking to the MP's. Oh yeah, I do remember being so emotional that I yelled at the MP's when they I first started talking to them. LOL. Looking back, I wouldn't have done that.

They were like, "How can we help you, ma'am?". And I was like, "Really? You can't help me. My son physically abuses me, and you can't do a thing, can you? He's a minor, and he's special needs. I have called the MP's, and they don't do a thing! So YOU tell ME what you can do to help me.". Yeah, I may have been a bit rude... They ended up being SUPER nice, though. And the short dude knew ALL about Aspergers. He was very good to have there. He was supportive. I thanked them in the end, and apologized for yelling at them. LOL.

I am almost to the point where I can see humorous parts to it. Almost. I still cry about the experience. I still have moments where I relive it. And can't stop myself from doing it. It was scary. I can definitely say, that if I lived with a physically abusive spouse, I would leave them. In a heartbeat. I would NOT stand for that.

But there is nothing you can do to get away from a physically abusive child... You just have to endure it. How is that even remotely fair?

We decided that Jake needed to go back to the hospital. If he could freak out THAT badly over a phone, he was NOT in control. What if he had done that to one of the little kids. Yeah, NOT acceptable. We were taking him to the psych center. But not PEAKS. I was NOT pleased with the pill sharing from last time. Did I tell you about that? When he unpacked his stuff from last time, he had pills stashed in his stuff! He hadn't been taking them! They would stuff them in their cheeks! Then try each others pills. Or crush them and snort them. Sigh. I don't know what to even think anymore!

Police reports take FOREVER to fill out. The coach from the team filled one out, and so did Kari and I. Kari's hubby Brian took my little boys and dropped them off with Tom, then CPT and I headed to the Psych center with Jake. We stopped for some Burger King first. It was lunch time first. Thank you drive thru.

We started our paperwork at 1:15pm. And yeah, at 10:05pm, we headed home. OMGosh! It took freaking all day long! We slept in the little room for a while, chatted (Jake was 100% back to normal by this point... CPT and I? Not so much), built puzzles, whatever we could do to hold off boredom. But we eventually got him admitted.

This new hospital seems SO much better. It's right next to Childrens hospital closer to downtown. And is high speed. Professional. Clinical. Makes PEAKS looks like a summer camp. These people seem to know what they are doing. I feel like my child is in MUCH better hands here. And Jake was SO excited to go back. Sigh. He LOVES the hospital setting. The routine. The order. The structure. His Aspergers mind craves it.

We were exhausted by the time we got home, mentally. And just went right to bed. And slept in in the morning, and only went to Sacrament in the morning. And tried to relax on Sunday. And told the kids what was going on. Jim was sad, but the other kids seemed happy-ish to see Jake in there. He terrorizes them, to some extent, and makes their lives hard. It's really such a sad situation...

Monday morning, I got the kids to school, and had another longest day ever. I went to Jakes school, and talked to his teachers about getting his finals. And told them all my story. Then went to the counselors office, to talk about how to proceed for the end of the year. And told my story. And asked about Spanish. And because I still wasn't happy about that Spanish teacher, we talked about how that teacher probably wasn't following Jake's IEP mods. Jake stopped trying because he didn't understand. And his particular brand of Aspergers makes him not want to ask a lot of questions. So the teacher is supposed to check for understand. And obviously, he was not. He just got mad that Jake was mouthy (he told the teacher that Spanish and his class was pointless and stupid and Jake shouldn't have to take it).

The counselor sent me to the assistant principals office to tell her about Jake and Spanish and the teacher. So I told me story again. And finally had all of the school stuff done. Then I headed to the MP station to get the police reports. It would help me with the Respite care application, I'm sure. And I told my story again. Of course, each time I tell my story, I cried and got all emotional, and relived the experience... Not good for ones psyche... I'm becoming more and more of an emotional wreck as the day went on.

I got the reports (minus the one from Saturday - it wasn't processed yet) and headed to the psych center for the meeting with the professionals. We were meeting about Jake today. CPT meet me there too. And it was a GREAT meeting. We met for about an hour and a half, and talked about Jake. Childhood stuff, current stuff, issues, positives, negatives, future plans. All sorts of stuff. They agreed that a residential treatment facility for about 6 months would be a good choice for Jake. They took copies of the police reports.

And they wanted a FULL psychological work up for Jake. Good thing we are in the process of getting that done. We had an insurance approval pending, and were on the waiting list. They said that they would even release Jake to go and get the evaluation done, send a nurse with him (like as a field trip), then take him back, whenever the psych evaluation was. Sounded good to me.

We left that day hopeful. CPT and I went to lunch at Chilis. He had to eat and run, so I stayed, finished eating, and paid the waiter. I was super out of it. After lunch, I went to Big Lots, thinking that it would cheer me up. I walked around and put a few clearance items in my cart, but my heart just wasn't in it. I ended up ditching my cart after a few minutes, and went home. It's sad when Big Lots doesn't snap me out of it...

But before I could get home, I turned and went to ACS (Army Community Services). I checked in, and asked for where the Respite Care sign up was. It's in the EFMP (Exceptional Family Member Program) wing. So they directed me over there. And I saw a worker there I knew who showed me the way. And I told her my story, and cried and relived it again, of course.

It was a 30-40 minute wait to get seen, and she didn't want me just blubbering in the waiting room, so she let me wait in her office. Thank goodness. I was kinda a mess. So I had about 15 minutes to compose myself in private, then she came in. And we chatted until the man came in to get me. And I went to his office, and told him my story, and cried and relived it again...

He was very helpful. He started off asking what special need Jake had, and I said Just Aspergers, to which he corrected me. NEVER say JUST Aspergers. JUST? Aspergers is enough. Don't I know that!!!! Aspergers is extremely hard to deal with, especially in the teen years. NEVER will I say JUST again. Thanks, sir, for putting me in my place :) hehe. And Aspergers usually don't come alone. It's coupled with something else. Which we will find out when we have the full psych evaluation, I'm sure...

We talked about all the options, and he explained the application process. How I fill out all the paperwork, and how the board convienes to decide who gets the $$ for the respite care. And how to fill out the long answer part. Talk about how my family has all these activities that they love doing, and how because of my special needs child, we are unable to do it. That's the pattern to filling out the paperwork. OK, I can play ball. The board meets every 2 weeks. I missed the meeting by a day, so I have 2 weeks to fill out the papers.

And I needed to go to the hospital and get a print out of the EFMP summary. To see what the army thinks my childs special need is. So there was another stop... My day was getting super long.

I ended up at the bus stop right after the bus came. My kids went home with Tom, and I check to make sure everyone was ok. And to add more pressure to myself, I was starting to feel like a slacker neglectful parent. In my quest to keep myself and my children safe from a teen special needs 'abuser', I was being neglectful. Nice. More guilt. Not a good day.

So I get to the hospital, and go to the EFMP department. And ask for the EFMP summary. Which she prints out. And I tell her my story. And cry. And then notice that they have the diagnosis wrong. They say that he has PDD. Dr. Meyers. The dude who first tells us that Jake has Aspergers. Sigh. So I ask her what we can do to fix this. She give me 3 HUGE copies of forms to give to each of his different doctors to fill out. That will fix the problem. Then, I can give it back to her, and she can enter it into the computer, and give me a NEW printout so I can give it to the respite care man before the board reconvenes in 2 weeks...

I headed back home. Jim had his last game that night, but I couldn't go. I just couldn't. I really really wanted to hang with Kari (she's moving Wednesday!) and Julia, but I just couldn't face the team after what happened on Saturday. So Julia agreed to take Jim. Who was having a melt down. And of course he was, after getting NO grown up attention. Poor kid. I feel SO bad for my kids. And then I cried on Julia when she came to get Jim. Sorry, Julia.

Then CPT and I took Eme to her last Volleyball game. She's so cute :) After the game, they had a pizza party and got trophies. We dropped her off at home, then CPT and I went to the hospital to see Jake. I had the rest of his finals and books to give to him, and I had called the Psychologist. The insurance request had come in, and he was all scheduled for a psych evaluation at 2pm on Thursday. We informed the hospital of the time, and they said that they could call me.

We visited with Jake for about 30 minutes, and it actually went very good. It was funny, because we had brought Jake his Literature book with "The Odyssey" in it. And CPT decided to read part of it. With feeling. It was SO funny!!! And the fact that we weren't the only people in visiting room made it even more funny. CPT had Jake and I laughing hysterically :)

After the visit, we headed on home. And put the kids to bed. And were exhausted again. I don't think I could keep this pace up. I had told my story about 12 times that day. And relieved it 12 times. Yeah, NOT cool.

I thought I would get further in this post, but life got away from me. Let's tie it up here, and I"ll try and come back on Friday and catch you up for the week.

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June 2012 Alphabet "C"

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June 2012 Alphabet "B"

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