the years before bullys.
the years before school work got dumb.
the years where all kids loved each other the way they were.
the years when the hardest decision you made was what are you going to eat for snack that day.
I also agree those years were the best. she compares every stress she has to those exact years. When she went into middle school, her first year was fine in general. She had lost her 2 best friends to a different school in the transition and they were no longer part of her life. That she took the hardest. Ending of friendships is never easily understood even for adults. I didnt even know what happened. But that was the start of the slow slide into her journey of mental health.
It was there she found her new best friend. But the demands of middle overwhelmed her. Even being in special education. everything being modified. IEP's do not control peers. Kids who loved her in elementary destroyed her in middle. TRACK 3 specifically was her worst group of kids. Kids she did not know. Kids who go to our pool and she clams up if she has to see them. They all look like they have rachet hearts so I'll just move on.
Maddux went through these stages:
-staying in her room
-dark. curtain closed with blankets on top
-would wear sunglasses so people couldn't see her
-lost 20lbs
-mad at literally every question you asked her
-sometimes she would wear a wig to cover who she was
-stopped running bc people and her actual gym teacher made fun of her run (she has still never run to this day)
-she had a pinterst board that looked like the poster child for depression
-never smiled
-refused pictures or videos
literally nothing made her happy, except when she found Jesus in all that. I will let her tell that story bc she has always had a frienship with Him. The imaginary friends she would talk to from an early age, like all kids, turned out to not just be imaginary. That story is for another day.
So, long middle school years ended in me knowing her local high school would eat her alive. So we opted for a smaller charter school. We started her out in the regular setting but quickly learned it also was NOT for her. We placed her in the vocational program a few weeks in and it was the best decision we ever made. But the start of the school year is where I knew she was really mentally struggling. Yes she had done all those lists of things above you have to realize... I am not working with just depression. I am working with autism.
The lines are blurred.
The understanding is off.
Do I say thats just her autism. Do I say oh thats just her teen years. Do I say I think she has depression. What do I say. Its never straight forward with her. Its a twisted maze of hill and valleys in a brain that thinks and interprets differently coupled with Maddux. Who the heck knows.
Before the shifting around to vocational a few weeks into highschool I have to backtrack to her first day of high school. It was a half day on Friday. They went to each class for about 20 minutes. Monday would be her first full day. Knowing Maddux is autistic the school did not send anyone to help guide her to class. it was a hot mess. not one person helped. not one person seemed to care. I could see in her face she was not gonna be able to do this. So I went in. In her classes. Sat with the 9th graders and not one teacher seemed to notice. I left there so hot mad. But this is the set up to Monday morning.
We talked it up all weekend. I had to really tell her it was all going to be okay. Be excited. The whole nine yards. She goes to bed. I go in to wake her up for school at 6:30am. As i walk in I see something on her forehead. Then I turn the light on only to see what her insides were feeling. She took her scissors and instead of cutting herself she rubbed them over across her forehead over and over still she got what looked like an eraser burn. She said it was the only way the pain in her head would stop. She had to cause it on the outside to distract from the inside. I sat downstairs the night before probably watching tv while she sat in her room agonizing over what the next day would bring. the anxiety of it all was too much. She did, what I learned later, was a coping mechanism for her but did it in a place I could see and everyone else, too. And this is when the journey to her mental health started.
stick around.
it gets better.
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