Man oh MAN I’m in a foul mood right now. Angry. Sad. Bitter. And jealous. Here’s what happened that brought it all to the front. Not really THE REASON, but the trigger, if that makes any sense.

This morning I took Little J to his school’s speech therapist’s house for a 2-week intensive therapy session she’s doing with him and another child. He goes to an independent school for kids with special needs and we are really lucky that they are able to think outside the box and do things like this with him and the other kids when it’s possible. He’s there to be company for the other child, to be observed outside the setting of school, and to do focused listening therapy in the hopes that it will tell us something about his auditory processing issues.

I am all for this experiment, but I’ve quit holding my breath in the hopes that this – or any other therapies or medicines or treatments – will have any real, positive effect on him. FASD, or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, is brain damage caused by alcohol exposure in utero.

Brain damage is brain damage is brain damage. Which doesn’t mean he can’t learn, but that his learning is limited. Slower. If the corpus callosum, the area of the brain that takes messages back and forth between the 2 halves, is small or even nonexistent, and the front lobes aren’t fully formed, which is what we suspect is going on with J based on his medical history and behaviors, there’s no documented treatment that can regrow or re-form those portions of the brain.

So when the speech therapist talks about ‘building new neural pathways’ in a brain that has serious, serious deficits, especially using techniques that have no research in connection with FASD (which isn’t saying much, honestly, since so little has been studied about therapies for people with FASD), I smile and nod, but I’m no longer hopeful. I’ve come to the bitter part of acceptance of my son’s disabilities. The part that most parents of kids with special needs don’t talk about. The part that’s tinged with grief.

So now you know my frame of mind, here was how this morning went down. I got up at 6 so I could make breakfasts and get everyone cleaned up and out of the house for 7:15. When J wakes up he is grumpy and rude, and I was called “bitch” and “idiot” and screamed at a couple of times for telling him to wipe milk off his face and to find his socks.  In between screaming at me he stops, smiles, and runs face-first into my body, saying “hugs.” When he does this sort of thing I find it really hard to reciprocate. At this point in my morning I am just trying to survive. Physical affection towards someone who has been, frankly, verbally abusive, is not top on my list.

While getting him and his brother ready I also had to watch the dogs – J has been bothering them recently. Not in a sadistic way, but in a ‘I’m stronger and bigger than you and I’m going to haul you around and tie you up’ kind of way, if that makes any sense. I really, really, really don’t like it when he does this to our dogs and I’m always on edge when he and the dogs are in the same space. And before you tell me to change the spaces they’re in, please realize that sometimes I have to do things like put on clothes and use the toilet, and the child is perfectly capable of letting himself outside so he can chase the dogs around the yard.

Anyway, we all get in the car, I drop J’s brother off, and J and I head to the therapist’s house, which is 50 minutes away. About half-way through his Kindle stops working and he starts smashing it against various surfaces, screaming swears, and making random nonsense noises. And then we hit traffic. And then I really, really, really start to need to pee. Really, really badly. Plus, I haven’t had breakfast and I can feel my blood sugar tanking. I have some hypoglycemia/blood sugar (probably stress-related) health issues that I’ve not been exactly ignoring lately, but I certainly haven’t been paying very good attention to. Suffice it to say I am not feeling great for the last 15 minutes of the drive.

When we arrive at the therapist’s house it’s all I can do to get out of the car without peeing on myself. I mumble hello-where’s-the-bathroom and stumble inside.

When I come out, much relieved, J is smiling and happy. The speech therapist is smiling and happy and uber calm. They talk about doing chores (which J has to be FORCED to do at home) and taking a little walk (again, a FORCED activity at home) and when she asks if she can give J a little snack of salmon or turkey in a while I can’t help it. I blurt, sarcastically, “Good luck!” Because if I were to suggest a snack like that at home it would not go over well. (Which, incidentally, is why J did not eat lunch or dinner the day before – he simply didn’t like it).

But I bet you a million dollars he eats that turkey or salmon. And I bet you a million dollars he will tell her he likes it. And I bet he feeds that dog and takes that walk and is sweet and kind and has a decent conversation with her, the kind I NEVER get out of him, because he’s too busy telling me how mean I am.

So that’s where I am this morning. Bitter. Taken for granted. And super jealous of his speech therapist, who’s getting to experience my boy in a way I never get to.

(image by flickr user Lucia through Creative Commons license)