Fight, flight or freeze
It has been a while. A lot has happened and unhappened. I am still wrapping my head around most of it.
We started Grade 1. And like most of our journey, everything was great until it wasn’t. Around mid-February the wheels completely fell off. All the wheels. At once. A team meeting – he’s in crisis they said; he needs urgent medical and therapeutic intervention they say. Fight, fright or freeze – I fight. The mother troop rallies and gets us expedited appointments with a paediatric psychiatrist and an education psychologist and I manage to move our developmental paediatrician appointment earlier. After 3 weeks of intense and relentless appointments, we are left to digest the following information: uncontrolled ADHD; uncontrolled anxiety; completely dysregulated mood as a result and most likely a missed diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. New medications at all new doses on a sliding scale of weaning and increasing that leaves me panicked and sticking up printed schedules on the fridge.
I am sure you are wondering what happened. I am still wondering what happened. There is so much to write and yet I still feel at a loss in some regards. Not only was his behaviour so unexpected, but there was a massive disconnect between what was being seen at school and at home – so much so that it didn’t seem like the same child. Some of the behaviour was so traumatising that I still lie awake going over and over it in my mind – 3 adults having to manhandle a hysterical child into my backseat; getting calls any time from 9:00a.m. to rush and fetch and inconsolable and uncontainable child; a sobbing and emotionally spent 7 year old collapsing on the couch from the exhaustion of another emotional escalation; no appointments or arrangements made outside of work because of repetitive cancelling and rescheduling; cutting meals or outings short in the hopes of curbing the breakdown; trying to explain the core of our struggles to those outside of our nucleus. I was depleted – physically, emotionally and in every other way possible. Trying to keep some semblance of “normality” felt futile and impossible. The best I managed was a small birthday party for his 7th birthday which fell in the midst of the chaos. Everything else stopped – extra-murals; social arrangements; religious get togethers. I couldn’t. He couldn’t
One of the hardest parts was trying to hide my distress and stay calm for him, to be his centre no matter what. Nothing could have prepared me. I felt blindsided; confused; unequipped and completely whiplashed. Everyone kept asking if I was seeking help for myself. I knew I needed to, but finding the time and space was impossible, even after I found myself at the doctor at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning sobbing and begging her for a Voltaren injection for my spasming back.
But the absolute hardest part of all, was the frequent team meetings where everyone seemed to be equally at a loss as to what to actually do. There were no solutions, plans or answers (outside of waiting for the medications to settle and take effect). I knew we couldn’t ride all our hopes on the medications. I knew it wasn’t enough, but I had no idea what we needed to do. Thankfully the April holiday rolled around and we had some breathing room. The tentative plan for the second term was to find a facilitator, which turned out to be a lot more difficult than it sounds. We started the term with hope and blind faith that somehow things would be better. That notion was shot to hell by day 4 of the term. A frank conversation; all cards on the table from all sides. The decision is made – we are moving N back to Grade R for the remainder of the year.
How did he take it? The relief in this small child was so palpable that there was not a dry eye in the room. He ran back to Garde R as fast his legs would go while shouting with joy “I am back!”. I will never know if we did the right thing at the right time. I feel as if that is something I will never ever know with N on this journey through development and schooling. All I know is that he is happy and that a fraught and unhappy child cannot learn. A dear friend explained to me the concept of “twice exceptional” meaning that these neurodiverse children have skills at the very top of the bell curve and other skills at the very bottom. N can bring me any book and read it to me fluently, yet he was emotionally and behaviourally unable to cope with the transition and demands of Grade 1. I have subsequently joined the most wonderful support group for parents of children on the Autism Spectrum and we were all joking about the loss of humility and dignity that comes with parenting. I can say with conviction that what was left of my humility was left on the floor of H&M in Rosebank Mall on a busy Friday afternoon….but that is a story for another day.