It's been awhile since I last blogged, friends. And holy shit, have things been rough. On February 4th, my husband lost his dad. On February 15th, my husband lost his mom. 11 days apart. They both suffered from different forms of Parkinson's, but they had lived very different lives and been divorced for 30+ years. It's been absolutely surreal and heartbreaking and the absolute hardest time of my life on several different counts. So here goes.
Instead of reliving the past six weeks, I want to start with sharing the hardest thing, which came to a head last night. Since I was about 13 years old, I can look back and say I have battled with some form of mental health struggles. I believe, knowing what I know now, and understanding more about mental health now that the stigma of the late 20th century regarding mental health has somewhat decreased in society, that I had undiagnosed depression and anxiety for most of my teenage years and into adulthood. I wonder if I may have some level of bipolar disorder, but the fact that I can usually manage symptoms unless extreme stress is in my life is indicative of more than likely major depressive disorder and/or anxiety disorder rather than bipolar. But, I digress.
The hardest thing.
The impossible thing.
The gut-wrenching thing.
Here goes.
It's that I gave this invisible disease to my kid.
Micah has struggled with his emotions and having outbursts since he was about 4 years old. That's when we really saw an inability in him to express his discomfort with people he didn't know extremely well coming into his personal space, trying to hug him without permission, or generally just being up in his business and him preferring for them to stay out of his bubble. Now don't get me wrong. Micah can be an extremely loving kid. He loves his mom and dad, his grandparents, and his cousins and his siblings. But that's kind of where his circle ends. I think I am the only human on this planet that he will willingly come up to and ask for a hug. He will let other people hug him (his dad, grandparents, cousins, siblings) but he doesn't ask anyone else for a hug except for me. It's as privilege to be loved by Micah. It's an honor that he chooses me to be his person. But it's also the most exhausting thing in the world. Because not only does it drain me of the normal mom emotions of wanting your kid to have what they need and emptying your cup to fill up theirs, but I struggle with the same mental health issues that he does, so I'm emptying my cup that's already emptied a million times over again. The easiest way for me to explain it that I shared with my husband yesterday was that it's like I ran a marathon, and then I have to run another marathon right away, but this time I'm starving and dying of thirst.
So last night, the hardest thing. We had Micah's grandmother's funeral mass and internment service on Friday. Then on Saturday, Micah spent most of the day with his grandparents (my parents) while Nick and I went to start cleaning up at Nick's mom's house. On Sunday, Micah spent most of the day with Nick and Jaxon, going to the movies, running errands, just having a nice day off together. Then came the evening when it was time to settle down and get back into the routine of the week. I asked Micah to eat dinner or get in the shower. And then it was stonewall time. He refused. We went back and forth, me remaining relatively calm, giving him time and options to make the right choice, but also knowing I had to stand some sort of ground because he's getting too old (and frankly too big and strong) for me to let him get out of control or get physical with me. He has in the past gotten angry and a little big violent with me and his dad, just acting out and wanting to release his feelings and his anger somehow. So, I finally told him he just needed to sit on the bed, after he had thrown a few things around the room, beat up on his brother's gaming chair and some furniture, etc. I told him he just needed to stay in one spot on the bed or get in the shower. He chose to stay on the bed, and I told him I had to go vacuum the living room rug and I'd be back in a few minutes.
While I'm vacuuming, I hear him start to yell, "I'm going to hurt someone!" a few times. I waited, and then I went back into the room and told him that's a serious thing to yell. He's either going to need to tell me if he means that and we'll take him to the hospital to talk to a doctor who can help him, or he needs to tell me if he's just saying that to get my attention because he doesn't know what to do with his feelings right now. He didn't say anything, just stared at me and starts picking at his fingernails, a sign I've recognized over the years as one of his anxieties coming out. So I told Micah I needed to finish vacuuming and I would be back in one minute to hear what he decided.
I came back as promised and Micah was crying. I laid down with him on the bed, and he was just sobbing uncontrollably, his body rocking back and forth. God, I hated every second of that for him. It's the absolute hardest thing in the world to see your child walk through the worst pain that you know all too well. Hearing your kid tell you that he can't breathe, he can't catch his breath, that it hurts to breathe, seeing his eyes just drowning in pain and hurt, it will literally break your heart into a million pieces over and over again.
The loss of two parents within weeks of each other is a pain I cannot even begin to imagine. Watching my husband walk through that loss and pain over these past several weeks, seeing him deliver eulogies for both of his parents and do an amazing job at that and just carrying the weight of coordinating the services and all of the other pieces has been hard. Trying to be what he needs me to be has been incredibly difficult. But seeing my kid fall apart, and knowing that in some way I did that to him, I passed that down to him, I gave him those broken pieces of myself, that is the hardest thing. The thing I wish I could take away. But I can't.
So for now, I'll do what I can to make it less hard for Micah. I'll take the pain that I can carry for him, and carry it on my back instead. I'll be there to hold him while his little body rocks back and forth. I'll try to talk him through what he's willing to share, and I'll make sure he has people in his corner at school and at home that know where his struggles lie, and can recognize those signs and help walk him through the harder days when I can't be right by his side.
Because no matter how hard other things are in my day, whether it's a shitty job or friendships that aren't always what you want them to be, or bumps in the road of marriage or relationships with family members, or financial struggles or whatever other curveballs life will inevitably throw our way, God chose me to be Micah's mom. He chose me to be the mom to all four of my kids, for better or for worse, they're stuck with me. And even though sometimes I feel like they got dealt the short end of the stick because of my struggles, maybe God chose me because He knew my struggles would in some way be the lifeline that my kids needed. Maybe I'm exactly the right mom for Micah because as painful as it is, I know the feeling of your body shaking uncontrollably, of your emotions being so out of control and not really being able to explain why or how it got that way.
Maybe the hardest thing is exactly the thing that makes me the perfect person for this job after all.
.jpeg)