The last year has not gone without some major changes in our family.
By this time last year PJ had already been suspended twice and we were expecting our Little Baby Girl (a/k/a Little) and had started taking him to counseling. All the counselor would advise us to do was “keep doing what you’re doing”. I stopped taking him there.
In December 2011 PJ was diagnosed, which really was the best thing for our family. At least we had something for the school to work with so he wouldn’t continue to be suspended, but would have resources added to his already existing IEP. Along with the challenge of adding a family member and disrupting his schedule things were definitely interesting. Luckily with Little joining the family, PJ has thrived in his role of “Big Brother” and loves being the best big brother to his little sister.
Other challenges we have faced in the last year was paperwork. I’m sure you all know how much paperwork comes with the diagnoses. I had to run between the neurologist and the school to get 2 complete files to have the best possible resources for PJ once everything was in place.
PJ has had an awesome team around him since he was 3 and they really stepped it up with last years diagnosis. Once the diagnosis was in place the schools social worker called me in for a meeting. He wanted to let me know that there was a special autism program available at another school within our district, the principal and the social worker thought this would be a great program for PJ. Which meant changing his schedule, changing his team, changing his school, changing his bus route, all things that had been in place for 4 years.
Before I could worry about all that, he would need to qualify for the program. More paperwork, more meetings, more observations, more worrying. We worried, would he be excepted into the program, when we was excepted we wondered if it was the right move. We worried that his new team wouldn’t be as great as the one he already had in place. We worried. A lot.
Now here we are almost a year later, he’s doing great! Me, not so much. Now I’m not sharing this for sympathy, but I’m sharing this for anyone else that maybe going through the same thing.
In the past couple of months, I haven’t felt like myself. I feel angry and I’m on an emotional roller coaster. I finally went to the doctor and ended up with my own diagnosis of “depression with anxiety” and now have to take medication. I’m not ashamed of having to take meds, because I was strong enough to know I couldn’t handle this on my own and I knew when to ask for help.
So maybe it’s just me, but if it’s not there’s no shame in asking for help.
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