flowmom | shifting from devastated to rebuilding

[avermont]

Hey Flowmom-

I just want to add to the admiring chorus--to move from "devasted" to "rebuilding" so fast is amazing.

You are doing tons of work on, and for, yourself, and it shows.

Thanks for the inspiration!

[flowmom]

flowmom, how do you feel about your DB coaching session? I've been considering it. What can you share about it?

I've had 2 sessions with Dotty. I did find them very helpful. She can definitely read between the lines and figure out the lay of the land quickly. First of all, I was in a total panic and she helped me to calm down and focus on a plan rather than freaking out and assuming the worst. She has had the benefit of hearing my voice and communication style, and I'm sure that helped her to read into what some of my H's issues with me might be. She helped me to map out a very specific strategy for dealing with H, and made some interesting connections between my son's sensory issues and H's high reactivity. Even though a lot of time was used up by covering background, after the first session I felt I had a plan, and I did get positive responses from H based on following that plan. She advocated a very gentle, soft, roundabout way of communicating with H. She correctly identified that Gottman's "harsh startup" is a problem for me. I appreciated that she was able to meet me where I was at and respect where I was at on the shock/grief continuum. The second session was mostly reinforcing that I was getting positive results, and we talked about how I could handle some of the situations I was afraid of (H pushing for formalizing the coparenting plan, for example). She also cautioned me against freaking myself out about what kind of legal strategies H might be involved in...she said that my suspicions might be true, but that dwelling on them would poison my DBing efforts. I discussed my second session somewhere in thread #2. I feel unsure about when to have the third session. I'd like her input on whether to follow through on my IC's push to have me bring H into a session to discuss the terms of the separation (incl. dating). And also her reaction on how I should respond to H talking about dating (i.e. his desire to).

I just want to add to the admiring chorus--to move from "devasted" to "rebuilding" so fast is amazing.

Ummm, I thought I'd use a more optimistic thread subject line . But actually I don't feel devastated all the time right now so time has done some work. I roller coaster between optimistic and defeated about my M and about my personal future.

[flowmom]

OK, the fantabulous sgctxok has been helping folks with their DBing goals (as discussed in DR), and this is the refined version of my goals (1-2 week time frame):

=======================================================

1. H greets me with a relaxed expression on his face

2. H smiles at me

3. H makes a joke

[Butterfly1]

Great goals. They are very achievable. I have achieved many such goals! Now keep us posted for when they occur!

[flowmom]

So, there was an incident today where I actually did achieve Goal #1 and got a glimpse of "my" H. H was running late to pick up the kids. I remembered all the times that it was tense when he'd get home because of my annoyance at him being late , so I decided to go out and buy groceries with the kids around the corner. In case he got home before we did, I emailed him to let him know that we were popping out to buy food. In typical "old H" fashion, he surprised us by meeting us in the grocery store. D3 saw him first and jumped into his arms. I turned around and he just looked like himself, and I kind of grinned at him because it was fun to see the kids' reaction to being surprised and it felt great to have a positive, spontanous interaction, even one as tiny as that. It's one of the first times that he wasn't acting grim/ultra-tense/freaked out around me. I think the moment happened because 1. I did the 180 of not waiting around for him watching the clock 2. I wasn't punishing him for being late and 3. we were interacting outside of our home, which is a very hard place for H to be right now (feels guilty? bad memories?). He even asked me to drive his car home so that he didn't have to get it later after taking the kids out for lunch (it's a smart car and doesn't fit 3 people).

I just realized that he's asked for 2 favours in 2 days! The other one was asking me to buy him some soap yesterday (a brand that I started buying after he moved out). I left it in his car and he made a point of emailing me his thanks.

He is relaxing a bit, in both positive and negative ways. Negative -- him trying to bait me into an argument yesterday about scheduling and how I was spending my time. Positive -- doing something fun around me, asking me for favours.

I'm scared to hope, yet I am...

[Butterfly1]

See, the goals are taking hold! That is great. I totally get where you are coming from. It was Xmas before I saw that "old H" poke back through. I remember it. Asking for favors is new to us too - it's a good sign. You're recognizing "what works" and that is something to try again next time. And as you see, at the same time there is hope, there is the baiting! lol. Keep it up anyhow and stay calm and cool. Pull out that "inner b**ch" like the book says!

But seriously, little things like that can have huge weight and I believe they will increase. Just keep up your changes!

[rr22]

What a great story. I feel very happy that you got some normalization. It helps everyone feel better. Don't get tempted to offer any favors now that he felt comfortable enough to ask for one. You'll get burned on that and get withdrawal. That happens to me sometimes still.

[june72]

Hi Flowmom,
Sorry, I haven't posted in a while.

Personally for me- what helped was a secret deadline. I was all in, committed to working on the marraige but if by a certain date my hubby was still decided to be done than I would initiate a D. With the knowledge in my heart that I did everything I could to make the marriage work and would have peace in my heart about it. The deadline was the 2-3 years away when our youngest started kindergarten and our lives would be easier- I know a very long deadline but my hubby was still in the home and I felt most of our problems were parental stress and lack of sleep with a sick son... things bound to improve.

[june72]

Completely off topic....
I was wondering why you felt that home schooling your son was better than sending him to school?


Just curious b/c I recently asked my hubby (who works special ed and has worked with autism for many many years) if a person can home school a child with autism.

He responded that it takes years of education and student teaching to get to the level where you are really competent dealing with autism. I mean he has so much additional certification and always is attending one day conferences on sensory processing or other stuff.

He has been able to get communication going with children where parents have been able to get nothing for years.


I do not want to come off as challenging your decision to home school. Just I was curious as to the reasons. Anxiety about the school district? Worried about the quality of education?

I just wonder if home schooling added to the stress of the marriage. If you and hubby were spent and had no time for each other... just wondering.

[flowmom]

Completely off topic....
I was wondering why you felt that home schooling your son was better than sending him to school?

We are in the process of getting a formal diagnosis so we aren't yet eligible for services, and there's even a possibility that we we won't get them. Without the autism diagnosis from a formal assessment, my S will not be elegible for any services in spite of a lot of visual, motor, and sensory issues. Without services, my S would not be able to function in a public school environment and specialists that we have talked to have been supportive of homeschooling. Specifically my S gets "maxed out" in group situations, even ones like family gatherings, potlucks in our cohousing communities, playdates, crafting groups, etc. He goes to a class with other children and a teacher for 2 hours each week, but after that he needs quiet time at home to regroup, and we avoid social situations for the rest of the day. In his little class, it's a very high teacher to student ratio, and even in that situation he needs a lot of attention from the teacher to be successful. We are used to it, but he is dependent on us in areas where most 6-year-olds can self-regulate. Although he can beat me at chess and is very smart and ahead of his age in many areas, he needs a lot of prompting to eat his food, use the toilet, and generally use expected behaviours.

There's a reason that our homeschooling community has a very high proportion of special needs students. Even in our middle-class housing community, most of the children go to private school, not out of snobbery but because most of the parents feel that our local schools are not meeting the needs of the whole child. Although there are wonderful people in the school system, our schools are underfunded and simply don't have the appropriate class sizes to deal with the number of ESL (english as a second language) and special needs students (diagnosed and not).

Just curious b/c I recently asked my hubby (who works special ed and has worked with autism for many many years) if a person can home school a child with autism.

He responded that it takes years of education and student teaching to get to the level where you are really competent dealing with autism.

I totally agree and I have a lot of respect for special needs experts. Keep in mind though, that not every school district has a great special needs program. Yes, they are obligated to help special needs students, but the implementation of that varies a lot in my region.

One of the huge benefits of the educational system here, though, is that my S can be home educated, and our family can use his educational allotment to hire specialists who can do interventions (if the diagnosis sticks). Rather than the resources going to helping S to function in the school system, I would have the option of using the resources directly to work on occupational therapy, art therapy, and other interventions that we believe may help with the underlying causes. We would also work with special needs educational consultants to design learning plans for him. We would not be "doing it by ourselves", but rather we would be working within a team of people who can help us with strategy and interventions. We have an autistic neighbour in the public school system, and although he is high functioning, it's sad to see that he spends his whole day in school, then comes home and does more sitting work with a therapist after school. My child is super high energy and a lot of our day is taking him on nature walks, going to gyms, taking him swimming, etc. If he doesn't get enough exercise and nature time we are guaranteed to have more behaviour problems with him. We are also very lucky that the large homeschooling community creates a lot of social and activity options, so our child is getting probably just the right amount of socialization for him (he can't handle too much).

I just wonder if home schooling added to the stress of the marriage. If you and hubby were spent and had no time for each other... just wondering.

What added to the stress of the marriage was having a special needs child. The M problems started when S was one year old, and they got worse. H and I both grew up with undiagnosed brothers with serious problems and we know the damage that a "problem child" can do to a family. We decided together to invest a huge amount of energy into meeting our child's needs, in the best ways that we could. He did not react in "normal" ways to anything and no one gave us a guidebook as to how to meet his needs, so we've been doing the best that we could for the past 6 years.

With the benefit of hindsight I wish that I had done more caretaking of my M in spite of our children, but H didn't make that easy given his withdrawal. And frankly, what I did might have been the best that I could do. I went through years and years of being woken every hour all night long, of not being able to have a 5 minute conversation with my own husband while S was awake because of his disruptive behaviour, of not being able to have a chat with other mommies and get support because my S was wigging out. People always recommend getting support and taking care of oneself, but my only family member in this city, my wonderful supportive sister, has only taken care of my S about 5 times in 6 years because he is hard to handle.

Having a special needs child has been draining, exhausting, expensive (made it harder for me to earn money), isolating, discouraging, and confusing. If we had had an early diagnosis, we might have been able to put some of our struggles into context and figure out how other families deal with it. But our struggles have mostly been invisible to other people and we've had to deal with the usual assumptions that our parenting is at fault.

H is only in grade one, and he would have only been in half days last year (and I would still have had my little D at home). So I don't think that homeschooling itself is to blame for our problems.

Thanks for your interest in our sitch, June. Our parenting choices have definitely been a part of our M issues so you are on the right track with bringing that up.