The Never Normal

Here’s the thing.

It’s not the one day of attacks, or the one incident of aggression; it’s the accumulation of day after day after day of the same thing, the same attempts to quell the behaviors that end in failure after falure, the same silence that falls on a situation we’re in – a cage, prison walls, something inescapable that has now become our “normal.”

Yesterday at school Jonah went to the safe room three times, and all three times he pooped and smeared it all over the walls and himself.  They cleaned him up as best they could while he fought them, then he cried and cried, and finally tried to run out of the building (a new trick for him).  The undoubtedly underpaid workers at Wildwood are angels and saints.   

Here’s one of his speech teachers, teaching Jonah about emotions and asking him to mock her facial expressions while they watch themselves in a mirror.  This is from June of 2010 – they are doing “excited” – I love this picture:

When I got out of work I went straight to the house and Jonah wanted a car ride.  As expensive as gas is, it is worth it to us when he is good on the rides (we have no idea why he was such a hellion in school and then was so much better for us at home)… Andy sat in the passenger seat and we drove over to the Voorheeesville Stewarts to get Jonah a peanut butter roll and visit the train tracks where we saw two trains, which this time neither excited nor annoyed him.  He was good, so we kept riding.  And riding.  We’d ride around forever if it meant our boy would be calm, and happy, sucking his thumb and looking around contentedly.  This kind of silence is welcome; we let Guster play on the CD player and drive along without speaking much.

We’d give anything to take away whatever anxiety or fear or confusion or pain that’s inside him.  It’s the accumulation of days, now, that piles on, swaying and unbalanced – and apt to fall at any time.

Thank you to my commenters, who always encourage and support, inform and try to help.  I appreciate you all more than you know!