A hangover...

I don't even know how to begin.  I tried writing an email to our friends and family but having to be somewhat guarded or just brief isn't what I need right now.  Eli has Autism.  We took him for testing and we were told he had too many "red flags" and would need further evaluation to see where he lands on the spectrum...or how severe the autism. 

I was in a daze the rest of the day.  It was hard to "feel" anything.  I had suspected but there is something about a professional telling you this is what your son has in store for his future that can make you just...numb.  I know God was there.  I know He knew this long ago.  I woke up the next morning feeling like I had a hangover.  I was in shock and I couldn't seem to focus my mind in anything else.  I just...I just don't want this for Eli or for our family.  No one does, I understand that but the burden is so great.  It makes life and parenting a little harder.  It requires more patience and sacrifice...more, more, more.  Do I have enough?  I already feel like I have to borrow patience from my love...these don't come naturally to me, how will I ever have it when Eli needs it most?  I know we will be okay, I know it!  I wonder if this should have been given to a child with a sweeter mother...someone more mellow who doesn't get frustrated SO easily. 

It is so hard to rejoice in this time.  Eli is my blessing.  I remember the first time I heard Eli after he was born, the first time I saw his face, and the first time I held him in my arms.  Some days I feel like he never left the space in my arms that he occupied that early December morning.  When he will let me hold him I often shift him to that same place.  My baby boy...my first child...the first child my body sustained and nourished.  We were forever connected physically...he was and is mine.  I never wanted to let him go.  I did give Eli back to God.  I knew there would be things in his life that I would just not be able to handle or control.  I thought those things would come in his teens but I guess I was wrong.  I don't know why this happened.  I don't know why God did not protect Eli from this as he developed in my womb.  I am devastated.  I don't like that I cannot take this away.  I am weep at thinking Eli will struggle and may even suffer at the hands of people who don't understand him or his condition.  I want to fight but the foe is invisible.  No one can tough it or see it on an x-ray.  It can't be operated on or removed.  This is how it will be.  I am so blessed though that this is not cancer...it isn't terminal.  Eli will probably outlive me.  This is no death sentence.  I know all these things.  We will make adjustments and help Eli in all the ways we possibly can.  I guess now, I feel overwhelmed and unsure.

You can pray for me as I continue the severely stressful process of getting Eli put on Medicaid.  The testing is extremely expensive.  I began the process back in December and am STILL getting the runaround.  It is all about to turn my hair gray!!  I am a worrier and I HATE having to worry about something so superficial as money when I want to be focusing on how to help Eli.   

Today, mother, I HATE you!!

Today...well lets just say that I have not been this ashamed of myself for a long while!  I was never taught how to handle stress, everyday life, in a good way.  In other words, I was taught to take it out on other people.  In the middle of days like today, I usually take the easier way out...to go back to what I know and not fight past it and be better than my mother.  I go back to selfishness and believe the lie that it is all about me.  I give in to thinking it is all being done TO me when it is really just life.  Granted it is life happening ALL at once but still, nothing that is permanent.  I rage all day, yell and scream...over-react...rant and rave and then end the day feeling like a huge ugly monster!!  I sit here, thinking about my sleeping children down the hall and I just feel so very far away.  I can't possibly be good for them.  My body does not seem to be able to contain patience and calmness.  I am quick to over react and become angry, something that is sure to pass to them.  I can't seem to find a way to calm down or release my frustration in a way safe for all that come in contact with me.  It isn't all about me.  Thankfully they are still young enough not to remember mommy's temper tantrum from 5 min ago...but that will end too soon.  I need to find a better way!  Frustrations will come, but how can i seperate that from the way I behave?

Tomorrow we head to the Marcus Autism Center.  With all the things going on these past few weeks, I really haven't had time to think about it.  Knowing that this is just an introduction and an evaluation there is really no use in worrying about it.  This is just the beginning.  But that wounded heart of mine likes to pop up when I have a good handle on somthing I would usually freak out about.  All the "what if's" like to echo in my mind.  What if this is the calm before the storm?  What if we get "bad news" tomorrow...we can never unhear that bad news!  What if this is the last night before the rest of our lives are linked with Autism?  What if this is REALLY what is in store for Eli?  What if I am not a strong enough mother to help him through this?  What if I fail him?  Again, it is only a beginning.  No diagnostic facility would give such a diagnosis after one session.  But, what if...

Right now, I can tell you that I don't want this!  I don't want to fight so hard just to feel human...to feel good enough.  I don't want to be the one who was so abused.  I don't want to have to learn to calm down and not over react.  I want that to have been taught to me 30 years ago...the easy way.  Today, mother, I hate you!!  If you were to stand in front of me you wouldn't be on your feet very long.  I hate you for what you have done to me.  I hate you because I have to fix this now.  I hate you, I hate you!!  I am glad you are alone and suffering.  I suffer what you did to me almost everyday.  As hard as I try I KNOW it still touches my children...when things overwhelm me and I act almost like you.  I hate you and I want to punch you HARD!!!  I want to knock your teeth out and then mock you like you did to me.  I want to make you feel ugly so the you are the one who walks through the rest of your life wishing you could hide unable to see yourself how God sees you.  Thank Him that I am not the one who decides how you should pay for what you have done because I HATE you!  If you were here I would scar your body so that you were never able to forget the pain!  Tomorrow, I have to wake up and I have to be the one responsible for what you did.  It is mine now and I HATE you!  I will do it though, because in spite of what you did to me, I let love in.  I am in love with the three people who sleep under my roof.  Although I fail, and I fail miserably, I do fight.  I remember to step outside myself and remember to look at reality.  Reality is things break down...kids pee and poop and not always in the right place...things spill and things get dirty over and over...I am not always going to get enoug sleep and not everyday am I promised 5 minutes to myself.  Bad days come and bad days go.  Will I wake up tomorrow and assume it will be as bad as this one, nah!!  It really couldn't be too much worse, well it could, but then it might be good.  But I still hate my mother and I TOTALLY want to kick her HARD right this minute!! 

Blessings

Wow, it has been a while!  I feel like these last few months my mind, my body, and my soul have been rotating around Eli.  Since December (when his pediatrician used the "A" word) I feel like I am racing against an evil clock.  I know enough to know if Eli does have something as debilitating as Autism there is only so much time before the affects are irreversible.  I can say I don't feel alone in all this.  Eli seems to be surrounded by people who love him and want to help him in every way.  So many have come to me and asked how we are doing.  I wish it was socially acceptable to say that this isn't as hard for us as it should be.  An Autism diagnosis would only do Eli good.  It would open a whole new world of therapies and specific interventions that Eli would benefit from.  Yes, it would follow him all his life...but he will never know anything different.  If given the choice, I would tell autism to hit the road...I would tell all these things that haunt my son's abilities to evaporate.  But I can't do that.  I was not given the choice.  I could be mad.  I DO wonder "why".  Why my son...why Eli?  But we are so far past the "whys" it would be useless to allow ourselves to be stuck there.  It IS the reality...Autism may be the reality. 

You know, as I brave this...as we look for the best for our son all I can think is that this isn't permanent.  It is permanent in this life.  BUT, Autism has already been defeated.  When my son loses his life on this earth his mind will be erased of all that holds him back.  In Heaven, Eli will be like everyone else.  He will measure up.  It will all be gone.  We will give him our all while we are here and Eli will find his voice...but in Heaven, it will just be gone.  All the struggles of this life will be no more.  We have missed out on being able to tell Eli about God.  We pray at mealtime, but (to our knowledge) Eli doesn't know who God is or why we pray.  I do believe God and Eli have a special relationship though.  I can't help but be in awe when I think before the stars were hung in the sky, God knew my son.  God thought of Eli Graham Warden.  God knew the things he would be given to overcome.  Eli has taken what has been given to him and just crushed it!!!  God wove my son...piece by piece.  It was always intended that Eli would struggle.  Who am I to demand anything other that what is already in place?    

I heard a new song I have been wanting to share with you all:

Blessings by Laura Story

We pray for blessings

We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home,
It's not our home

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

What if our struggles in this life are really blessings?  CRAZY, right?  Think of it though.  Those of us on a journey to heal from abuse of any kind...how on earth would we EVER learn the things that journey teaches us OTHER than to have been abused and fight for healing??  I have yelled at God...blamed Him...ran a billion miles in the other direction and DARED Him to come after me...done things just to spite HIM.  And yet, here I am.  It doesn't always have to be that way but for me it did.  God was always there when I turned my back...waiting in patience and love.  No one had ever waited for ME.  No one had ever given me time.  No one had ever considered ME.  I made God wait but He was already there.  He just knew.  He knew each wrong turn would be a lesson...a bit of the truth that makes up the God He was always supposed to be for me.  When those around me were fed up with "how long it took" it didn't matter because it was ALL FOR ME!!!  And now I think, it was all for my kids.  It is insane to think I would have ever been able to face all that has happened with Eli had I not had some healing in my own life...NO WAY!!  There is no time now for denial...there is no time to cry over it and demand God change it.  Eli needs me now!!  It was all for Eli and Madeline!  I would never be the mother I am had I not been broken and then healed...NEVER!  I am so far from perfect but I give it my best.  Hopefully that will be good enough.  All the bad in my life has lead me to God in one way or another.  Not everything had been vindicated or explained but God has filled me so there is no gaping wounds any longer.  It still hurts...boy, does it hurt at times.  But it is what it is.  I live this life...full of holes and kind of dark at times...and then I can rest in the Son-shine for eternity.  I hope there is a beach in Heaven!!