Oh, Kyle!

Where is the resistance organizing?

I'm torn between "I should watch the inauguration because it's historical" and "can I please shove my head in the sand as long as possible so I don't have to hear Trump?"

That was fast

TikTok is banned, for now. Some are sad, some are devastated. Let them feel their feelings.

It’s a huge change for many and a major loss for the neurodivergent community.

How many times have you opened TikTok to check if it's working again?

I've mainly used this platform as a way to document my personal saga of supporting my neurodivergent son.

So here's an extremely brief update:

With some intense interventions and total change of medications, things are much, much better. Shockingly better.

*outnumbered

I'm a sucker for generosity. If you've given something to me of meaning, you've got a fan for life.

Which makes me think...if any of the companies I've worked for even once showed true generosity to me, I'd have likely stuck with them for life.

It's sad that work is so transactional.

About 3 years ago I did a presentation at work called "The Hardest Year" that detailed the trials and then success we had with my son after understanding his PDA diagnosis.

I definitely did not title that presentation correctly, but I guess then-me couldn't know what 2024 was going to be like.

What will we regret more: keeping my son home as long as we can physically and mentally withstand regardless of the damage is does, or sending him away to the state?

It really seems like there's no in between. Both result in massive amounts of emotional turmoil.

We are in a serious crisis.

Another sad update on the fam.

My son is fully out of school until further notice. I am fully off of work until at least the new year.

Things continue to get harder every day despite seeing the impacts of new medications.

We are having conversations we never wanted to even consider.

We are in despair. We are in pain. We live in fear.

I apologize for so many of my posts focusing on the negative. This isn't helpful content. But it's all I have right now. Yelling into the void.

Thanks for being my void.

This has been the hardest couple of weeks of our lives at home. My son's OCD fixations and violent responses are worse than they've ever been.

Couple that with the hopelessness we feel about the lack of outside support, and it's starting to feel like there is literally no way to crawl out of this.

The older I get the more honest I am. Used to be "fine" to "good." Now it's anywhere from "exhausting" to "it's complicated, you sure you want to know?" 😂

For the first year ever, my youngest sat with us while we ate our thanksgiving meal.

A few days ago I was advocating to have him sent to a full time mental health facility.

I never know what's right. Am often wrong. And am thankful for the good moments we have along the way.

Did anyone actually have one of those fabled "horrible family conversations over Thanksgiving" experiences? Or is this some sort of Boogeyman we all believe in without any proof?

Eating too much cake is the sin of gluttony. However, eating too much pie is okay because the sin of pi is always zero.
🖖

He's too big. Too smart. Too strong for us to endure. But according to the healthcare system he needs to be bigger, smarter & stronger before they can help. Our lives need to be in immediate danger.

We are the frogs boiling in the pot, screaming that the water is getting too hot. But we will boil.

To be abundantly clear, I love the hell out of my boy. He is deeply unhappy in his own body and mind and I want to help him be happy, because if he is happy we can all be. But we cannot do it alone any more.

What we need is constant, every day support. We don't need respite a few times a month. We don't need another psychiatrist.

We cannot handle our boy's violent responses to the smallest demands. They are constant and it is destroying our house and destroying our souls.

It broke my heart to admit we were so far beyond our own capability to care for him. To get to that point tore me apart.

And then to realize there is no help and to be sent home back into the same harmful situation feels criminal.

They said to wait until he threatens to kill himself or us. Great.

On Monday we took my son to the hospital after another violent meltdown seeking help. We were to the point we were willing to do almost anything

The hospital handed us some pamphlets and said "good luck." Unless we wanted him committed for a week with none of his supports, there was nothing for us

It does seem like we should rely on the will of the people to decide if a crime is disqualifying or not. I just don't know how a criminal record will change minds if people lose all faith in the justice system.

There's a bell curve of sense experiences...it seems acceptable to talk about where people fall on that bell curve and to have terms for that.

It feels incredibly selfish to think about the sacrifices we make as parents to children with high needs.

There was a moment where Chase said "When you become a parent you choose to parent the child you get." To which Cameron replied "Nobody would choose this life."

YES! To both of them.

We watched an old episode of House last night that featured an autistic child who was sick and focused on House's suspected autism as well as the sacrifice the parents made for their family

The father was a real ass and both parents didn't really understand autism very well.

But I felt so seen.

Gaetz out was so obviously the plan all along. Now he can just be a suspected sex offender instead of a confirmed one. Trump strikes again.

Got a call to pick my PDA kiddo up from school early today - and I AM SO THANKFUL.

His BCBA there saw he was having a great day and wanted to end on a high note so he was more likely to return happily.

It's not often school staff gets it. Embrace and celebrate the ones that do.

I'm at that age where my mind still thinks I'm 29, my sense of humour suggests I'm 12, whilst my body mostly keeps asking if I'm sure I'm not dead yet.

When there are no consequences, why would they care? With a misogynist in the white house there's no reason to expect his team to have any more morals than he does.

Voting brought no consequences, so what's left?