Stampeding into a New Year

Goodbye, 2012. See ya. Don't let the door smack you on the behind.

Seriously, we've had worse years. And we've had better. But altogether, we seem to be holding on tight and taking the roller-coaster in stride.

We now get to face new and ongoing programs for improvement and progress. With a new year, its a good time to think over what is needful, and getting the balances right for a good beginning.

I've been having a lot more anxiety lately, and that leads to an odd sort of depression. I'm anxious about our current Joey mystery, moreso after seeing the report from Kennedy Krieger, which seems to ignore it. We thought the doctor was more receptive to what we were saying than this report reveals. I worry that I worry too much, that I'm finding demons in shadows that aren't really there. I worry about over-medicalizing and over-analyzing and being over-bearing.

With a spate of good days, it can be hard for me to remember the bad ones. After all, I'm a mom who's been through labor, and then decided to have a second kid, anyway. The good crowds out the bad, and to be honest, I'm usually glad. But then the anxiety comes. Should I be something something more? Something else? Is everything I should be doing getting done? Do we have time for all the interventions I've been told to do? Are they all necessary and helpful, or am I being... what do you call a person who is a hypochondriac about their kids?

And then there are the things that can't be turned aside as over-worrying. Joey needs help with his reading and testing, with his social skills, with his ability to function in a highly complex social world. He's not picking up important cues by example or model; he has to be specifically taught. Middle school is coming, and watching him among his peers is increasingly terrifying when my goal is to give him the skills to cope and survive as an independent and self-advocating adult. I know what model will work, I can see it, and I can see a place that will give it to him. How do I get him there? How do I get the folks at school, who are working so hard to help him, that he needs to be somewhere else? That they are not doing enough, not giving him the appropriate education and support he needs to learn to survive? How do you convince people who are totally sold on inclusion that it isn't working for your child anymore?

Anxiety. And that's just the Joey saga. Andy has an entirely other set of challenges and anxieties. I worry about his mental health, his world dominated by the challenges of his brother. I worry about his own coping with his own challenges. I worry about his arsenal of nerf guns.

Then there is the employment situation. We are dependent on a contract that is in-between projects, and have no timeline for when the next project will get started. We have no idea how long we have to hold on before income resumes. We have no idea how long we can hold our breath, waiting for others to decide to get started. Do we close down the main office, and save that rent money to last a little longer, hoping that the client won't come to inspect our location? Can we come up with new revenue streams, enough to tide us over, and fast enough? What if we don't survive the gap?

Anxiety means insomnia. It means things forgotten and things left undone, to create more anxiety. It means a constant feeling in your stomach that everything could crumble around you any instant. It means looking at the overwhelming tasks before you and being... overwhelmed. To think my kids feel like this every day of their lives is one more anxiety. The spiral begins, leading down into the dark. I didn't even get all my Christmas decorations up this year, and I look around and want normalcy. There isn't any, anywhere.

I am not a normal person living a normal life. I'm more of an Alice wandering through life trying to convince the Cheshire Cat that I don't want to go among mad people, and finding myself at the foot of the caterpillar's mushroom.

Who are you?

So it becomes time to rush into a new year, with new plans, new programs, new ideas. We have Joey and his new suggestions from his new nutritionist. We have a a new school to look forward to, though we are not yet sure which new school it will be. We have new ideas for keeping the house in order (well, the first floor, anyway). We have some new hopes, and new dreams, and new possibilities.

And new anxieties.

Did I mention I don't like roller-coasters anymore?

Happy 12th Anniversary of my 29th Birthday

My poor mom was due at Thanksgiving.