"I hope you get the help you need" Part 1

That's what a relative said to me a few months ago. And I've been chewing on that thought ever since.

I've been in therapy for four years. I recently lost the therapist who has been helping me work through decades of emotional wreckage. And that comment nicely frames it all up in a way few things could.

My boys are transition age now, meaning that they are at a point where we need to figure out what happens next, how they are going to become self-sufficient, how they are both going to be capable of gainful, full-time, competitive employment--the ultimate goal my two very different young men share. My primary job has been figuring out how to make that happen.

Our experience, our way to this particular moment, has been fraught with all kinds of challenges.  I was told, way, way back, when my boys were in preschool and early elementary, that they need to be included in general education. I didn't really grok WHY, I just pushed hard to make it happen.

What I learned was that the WHY was because of expectations. My 'behaviorally challenged' elder was that way first because of his difficulties in communicating in the spoken word, compounded by his sensory challenges, which were once legion. My Greek chorus, my support, my village, got behind me to help me figure this out. And eventually, elder was able to find his own words and language to get what he needed to be successful in the classroom.

But that was not without challenges--specifically, the bullying that began around third grade and culminated with adult-led isolation, exclusion with his fifth grade trip (documented here). That manifested in sixth through ninth grade as eating disorders among other "co-morbid conditions that go with autism."

We're still recovering from that damage.

Hubby and I didn't realize at the time, but we were already doing everything we could do to countermand the damage of the outside world for both kids. We've been a tight knit family, our core of four--we did everything together. And more importantly, the message we imparted to our boys was that they matter, they were not how other people treated them, and they were enough.  We provided a safe place, whether that place was home, or out in the world. They were with us, a part of us, and they were enough.

This is important, because I didn't realize I was giving my kids something I never had.

I was the outlier. The scape goat. The one everyone blamed everything on. And I eventually began to believe I deserved it. That I was as awful as they said I was. I didn't deserve love. I deserved whatever shit the universe had to dish out because, well, I deserved it.

And I believed it until I met the man who would become my husband. Who changed everything.

And between us, we created this awesome thing, where we were both greater as a team. The sum of us was something multiplied.

And we were able to impart this to our kids.

What a gift. But they will need this, because the world does not expect much of either of them. Or at least that's the message I've gotten in great and small ways over the years.

Elder now holds three jobs, attends community college and votech--this is the kid who was never expected to hold a job. We're trying to figure out younger's way forward. And he will surprise us all, because he always does in his own quiet way.

Mental health is a thing. Bullied people tend to either internalize their (ill) treatment or boil over into sometimes wildly socially inappropriate behavior. People are generally quick to assign blame to the bullied, that they a) somehow brought it upon themselves and b) deserve it.

Do you see a pattern?

And if the bullied stand up for themselves or (god forbid) treat their offenders as they have been treated, they are told that they are either over sensitive or need help.

That happened to me.

I'm still working my way through the decades that led to that moment.

I am hoping my boys will have less to work through.