This isn't what I signed up for

"I can't handle this anymore."
"Why is this happening to us?"
"What are we going to do?"
"This isn't what I signed up for."
"How can we keep going on this way?"

These and many other thoughts go through my head on a daily basis. Why does my only son have all of these problems? What else can I try to stop it? Who else should I call? Maybe there's something we haven't tried yet.

On days when his school calls and they tell me he has been put in seclusion, or when we are restraining him at home so he won't hurt himself or others. Why is this happening to my family? I wish I knew the answers to these questions. I wish I had a magic wand. I wish I could go to sleep and wake up when it was all over.

Today he got upset at church and hit another teenager with his shoe. WHY?!?!? Why does he do that? A couple of days ago he got mad at school and broke the legs off a table. WHY?!?!? What have we done to deserve this?

I am just tired.... I am so tired.

But, he has come so far. This past year has been a nightmare. Since he turned 13 a year ago his whole life has been crazy. I swear his birthday is a major trigger in his life. When he turned 12, life was difficult, when he turned 13 it was like a devil was let loose inside of him. This year has been a roller coaster. Between the major tantrum episodes, hospital and residential treatment stays, and restraining him up to 3 times a day some weeks, I felt like we may not be able to keep him in our home. But then things started to change. We were able to get him into a good nuerofeedback routine, and his ABA therapy really started to show results. Once he was accepted into Spectrum Academy (an autism spectrum school) things started to calm down. He still had problems, he still has problems. We still have a long way to go. But one day at a time we are making things work.

The past few weeks have been especially hard. He has been without his nuerofeedback for 3 weeks now, he's been in brain balance for 5 weeks now (they say they usually hit their first rough patch at week 4), and he had a birthday which ALWAYS makes him act out. So things have been hard, really hard. But I keep trying to keep perspective about where we are and where we have been.

Just keep breathing, just keep breathing....