I think every family has secrets, ours is no exception. However, sometimes those secrets get a little out of control and can bring you to a breaking point. I'm there. If I'm honest with myself, I broke a long time ago. In an attempt to make sense of what's going on I'm going to write it out. Please don't expect this to make sense or be clear or in any kind of order.
Our family has been hit pretty hard with a few things lately, and by family I mean mostly my son and I, but we thoughtfully share our crazy with everyone.
We're not sure where it comes from and we're not sure what to do about it because everything we thought would fix it didn't and now we're kinda floundering around, lost. My son is not an easy child, that much everyone knows, but what we don't tell the neighbors is how bad it really is. My son lives in a constant state of unprovoked, uncontrollable rage. He is violent, all day every day. He attacks every member of our family, two and four legged. Some of these attacks have left the victim needing medical attention. I live in fear. I'm deathly afraid of a six year old. I have been afraid of him for months now. I cry and shake when I know he's coming home from school. I spend my weekends walking on egg shells. I can't sleep because I'm afraid he's going to attack someone in the middle of the night. I have all of our knives out of reach and anything else that could be used as a weapon. He is unstable, he is dangerous, he is not "normal" and we can't fix it. We have come to the realization that we're going to have to drug the child. This is not something we take lightly. Both of us stand steadfast against turning children into zombies. However, I don't know what else to do. We've done the classes, he's in therapy, we've tried all the books, the programs, the punishments.. nothing helps. We've been doing all of this for three years and it just keeps getting worse. It just pisses him off. They say it gets worse before it gets better, they say it in all the programs, but he's gonna kill one of us someday and I can't sit back and wait for it to happen. I have waited long enough and I feel like I'm playing Russian roulette. Who's it gonna be? Four year old Pita? The dog? Maybe it'll be me. Who knows.
This is of course very stressful for all of us, but for some reason I've internalized it. I'm a horrible mom, I've failed my child, my child has no future because I can't help him, I'm drugging him for god's sake! I can't do this job, I shouldn't have signed up for it, he'd be better off without me. Someone else could do this, someone else would've stopped this before it got this bad, someone else would know what to do, someone else wouldn't be shaking and crying every day, someone else wouldn't be having panic attacks multiple times a week. Someone else, but not me. I'm a mess. I'm fucking insane. I can't do anything right. I'm weak, I'm stupid, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing over here. But please don't tell the neighbors. The neighbors think I'm Mary Sunshine with the clean house, the smart kids, the homeschooling, knitting, baking, amazing, selfless mom. They can't know what happens here. They can't know what goes on inside this house, inside of my head. If they knew they'd be horrified and the only thing I'm clinging to are those moments when I can stand on the porch and pretend to be normal. I can pretend to be happy and I can pretend to be a good mom. Maybe if I pretend long enough or hard enough, maybe it can be true for just a few minutes. Just a couple moments of good in the middle of hell. Something, anything good even if it's fleeting. Even if it's fake, it's better than not having it at all.
