On Preparing & Winging It

We’ve been talking a lot about middle school. We visited a private school we really liked we think would be an excellent fit for Gage. It’s a school geared toward “learning differences” (new PC term for special needs). We went on a tour of the school and we saw really small classrooms (4 kids? 6 kids?) and the kids were standing and sitting on the floor and in one classroom they were throwing a ball to each other while talking about a subject and there was a sensory/calming room. The entire school has about 100 kids. See what I mean? At $22,500 it may be out of our reach, even with the state’s scholarship program for kids with IEPs (between $6-9K we hear) but we won’t know the amount until May and we’d probably need more financial aid. With $2200 monthly insurance and $400 in copays (on a good month) we are putting our education money toward staying alive.

We also met with the special ed director (who came to our elementary school to meet with us!) at the school that is our neighborhood middle school. We were pleasantly surprised. There is a semi-plan for 6th grade for pull out for major subjects where he will be in a class no  more than 12 but more likely 6-8 and that is terrific. When his in “general ed” and not the (special ed) resource room It’s still a big school 1500 and the 6th grade class is around 500 students so that is still daunting. But if we can’t swing the private school (and we can’t without help) then I think it could be okay.

I’ve said all of that to say that Gage is a little freaked out about 6th grade and he thinks he is the only one. Through a couple of art therapy projects with me he revealed that’s he’s nervous about entering middle school.  It didn’t matter that he is feeling as nearly every other rising middle school child. I am 100% certain this was the trigger for this latest episode.

Signs for us were that he was impatient, acting out at school, fighting tutoring/homework, not wanting to engage in activities he enjoys. These behaviors weren’t happening every second but were definitely noticeable by us and his teachers. We picked up on it right away and tried to help ease his anxiety. It didn’t work like we wanted, obviously.

One day this week after school he had a meltdown. Or blow up. Or “episode” or whatever you call it. I’m not exactly sure what triggered it at that moment (oh wait, it was him saying something mean to Quinnlin and me calling him out on it) but I’m absolutely sure underneath it all was anxiety.

The spiral happened quickly and before I knew it I had him in a therapy hold to keep him and our home safe. The hold only lasted 10 minutes and Julian was home and a little in shock but we were able to contain the situation by walking calmly through the hour with him. We talked about bringing him to the mental hospital, we convinced him to take a fast-acting calming med (just to take the edge off) even through his tears, screaming, gut-wrenching sobbing. His mind when straight to the “I want to die” place as was the case so many times in the past.

We called his psychiatrist who called back in 15 minutes and we told him we didn’t think it was time for him to go to the (mental) hospital. I can’t really explain it but I knew it wasn’t the time. I talked him into a little art therapy and he calmed down enough to talk to me. What he said was remarkable, “I don’t want to go to the hospital, but I think I might have to because I might want to hurt myself.”

I told him we could and would keep him safe. I said we would make sure he didn’t have anything near him that he could hurt himself with and I told him that we would not leave him alone. When he was sleeping we would be there. We would not leave him. We would protect him through the evening and night. We agreed that we would see how he was feeling in the morning and if was still feeling like he wanted to hurt himself we would go immediately to the (mental) hospital. He felt better in the morning and didn’t feel like he needed to go the hospital. A late start to school because of kidney clinic (didn’t hurt) and pull out early for an emergent doc visit for med tweak and we ended the day well.

I am extremely proud of him for telling me what he was feeling and we had made a plan he was comfortable with. He was leaning against me with my arm around him (which he never does) and I literally felt the worry leave his body.

I’m also extremely proud of us for not spiraling. You know, spiraling into worry that had us loading him into the car kicking and screaming in the middle of a rage. And also I am proud we took his statements of wanting to die and wanting help seriously and we offered him a solution that eased his mind, gave him support but didn’t jump all of us into an emergent situation.

One thing I know for certain is that this time that worked. Next time this approach may not work. I am not stupid enough to believe we have this thing licked because this time it didn’t escalate. This is just one example of a time when an episode ended well.

A few times during the episode I caught glances with Julian that each of us met with understanding and there were some simple truths revealed. We are largely winging it. Never having been a year into mental health stabilization we couldn’t have known what this would look like and so who knew how we would handle it? We’re trusting our intuition and that is our guiding force.

My friend Jen, in all her wisdom told me that this story was both good and sad. Good because Gage is advocating for himself and sad that this is his (and our) reality. She said in his mind he is probably doing what she does and is running to the first place he can in thoughts (during episodes of anxiety/fear) and that is to die. We were right to take that seriously but we should know that is always probably a part of his make up and our lives.

Gage, like everyone, wants to feel safe. We just have to work really hard for him to feel that way.

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