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Jail

Last night, I went into Elijah’s room to put him to bed.  He was sadly drawing a picture, while sitting on the floor of his room.

“What are you drawing?” I asked.     

          “A picture about why I am sad about tomorrow,” he told me.

“Is that you in the picture?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“It looks like you are in jail.” I said.

“A jail called Highland,” he explained with sadness in his eyes.

I immediately had to hold back tears. Highland is the name of his school. He feels like he is in jail when he is there. On a Sunday night like this one, he was full of anxiety about going back to a place where he feels all alone and misunderstood. I had to do what I do every Sunday night, which is get into bed with him and give him a pep talk, pray with him, hold him tight, and tell him how much I love him until he falls asleep. Then, I have to carry his pain with me as I leave his room, my heart heavy because I can’t fix any of it for him.

Over the weekend, things had been good. He played with playdough, painted pictures, played his favorite video game, played “Big Mouth Academy” (a game he and his brother invented together) with Owen, and watched Disney movies because we just subscribed to Disney Plus. We had good family time. He was happy. Things were so normal. Someone seeing only this picture of our weekend wouldn’t even know that there is a side of Elijah who is so completely different that he can barely function at school. They would have no idea that he spent part of the day Thursday repeatedly hitting himself in the head during class, followed by lying in a fetal position on his classroom floor during their reading lesson, or that on Friday during their morning work he spun in circles the entire time, humming, and completely in his own word, tuning out everyone and everything around him. They wouldn’t have a clue that he spends a portion of almost every day in the nurse’s office because he needs a break from the sensory overload that is his classroom. But, this is his reality. And now, with this testing being drawn out another month, there won’t be much help for him until the diagnosis is reached. I just have to keep sending him off to his “jail,” as he calls it, and pray he survives that day. As a mother, this is not easy to do. At least by working full time, I stay busy, but sometimes, the quality of my work probably suffers for it. I know my health does. I lose sleep, I stress eat, I lie around and don’t get enough exercise because I feel exhausted all of the time, and my migraines are frequent.  Don’t even get me started on my mental health. As someone who already has anxiety, you can imagine what I must be like right now. But this isn’t about me, it’s about my son, whose suffering is much greater than my own. I cannot imagine being six years old and feeling the way he does. These answers can’t come soon enough.

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