Back to School

The little man has been home sick for the past two days. Not really, really sick, mostly just a cold but because he's been running a low grade fever, I kept him home. We all know how it feels to have to go about your daily routine when you feel like crap. For most, a couple of days to recover is welcome and then we're ready to go. Not so with a person (adult or child) who suffers from anxiety. What two days away from the thing that is making you the "most" anxious does...is it reinforces your desire NOT to do it and makes you even more anxious when you have to go back.

It started last night after a chatty bath, where he informed me he believes he more of a Tom Girl, because he likes some girl things too. "I'm addicted to shiny things." he says. This made me laugh and immediately conjured up the scene in Running with Scissors where Augusten's Dad says "Augusten, what ARE you doing?"  "I'm polishing my coins." he says. "Yes, WHY are you polishing your coins?"  he asks. "Because I like shiny things." He responds, very matter of factly.

After some more chatting and me telling him it's okay to like girl and boy things or not like some girl and boy things, he seemed pretty satisfied, and we moved on to a game of Super Hero Charades, in which, I got my butt kicked.

Fast forward to bedtime.

 ..."I'm sad."

Me: "Why are you sad?"

Him: "I'm not sure. I just feel really sad."

Me: "Do you think your sad because you have to go back to school?"

Him: "Well that's part of it, but not all of it."

Me: "What's the rest of it."

Him: "I don't really know."

This was literally minutes after laughter and fun, and I do really believe that he doesn't know. It's hard sometimes to pick out the typical kid behavior/anxiety/manipulation from something a little more serious. Most people tend to shrug things off. I know this because I used to be the little girl that said she was sad or scared or that she  felt like something terrible had happened. No one ever listened. But I'm listening. Probably mostly, because what I'm hearing is a very familiar song.

I'm not sure if this can all be chalked up to Anxiety or if the Anxiety is actually a symptom of something more. I guess there is no way to know for sure until we start seeing a doctor. What I am pretty sure of is this is hereditary. I don't know much about Jack's Dad's family as he had little to no contact with them while we were together, but I do know more than I need to know about mine. And the last thing I would ever want for him is to take that road as a way to cope. I'm also sure that Anxiety and Sadness (depression) live in the same house, though often not at the same time. There have been times when my own Anxiety was so bad that the Sadness was almost welcomed. It had a numbing effect and provided some relief (believe it or not) from the constant state of anxiousness.

It's heartbreaking to see these things emerging in your own child. We only want the best for our children. We only want them to inherit the best of us. Never the worst. We never ever want to see them fighting the same battles.

We made it through the morning though and even though he was tearing up he still got on the bus, with a little smile.  Before the bus came he had asked me, was there any way he could be home schooled?  I had no idea how even knew that home schooling existed. But apparently there's a lot going on in that little head that I don't know about. I know I should be grateful that is coming out even in bits and pieces, rather than just floating around up there.

Now we hope for a good day and a big smile as he gets off the bus this afternoon. In the meantime I have to make up some work hours and start looking for doctors.

Hope, who wishes she had a charger that she could plug into.