Insanity, cont'd

So, remember when I wrote about how all these kids and cats loved me so much that they were all smothering me practically to death? Well, you may have noticed that I talked about 3 cats and only 1 kid who were doing this. There's a reason for that, but I saved it for a separate post.

It's funny because of all the small creatures who live in my house, the only one of them that I wouldn't mind smothering me would be Child 1, except he practically never comes near me any more. Oh, he'll ask for food, and he'll ask for help getting Child 2 to leave him alone, but he never "hangs out" with me, and he never spends extended periods of time in the same room as me. He spends time with Child 2, in the mancave, playing Mario Kart, but otherwise he's usually in his room by himself drawing or something.

It's frustrating. I'm very frustrated. I can see in his face that something is going on in his head, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is or how to get him to tell me what it is. I know he doesn't like school, I know he doesn't like doing homework, I know that the workload in 4th grade has massively increased over last year, so I can only assume that these are the things that are bothering him, but I don't know for sure and I feel so shitty about it. I've talked to everybody at school and nobody has any clue.

I ask him what's going on and he always says "nothing." I sit with him and ask him what he's doing and how he's feeling, and he says "please leave me alone now" (one of the first skills he learned in ABA: to verbalize when he wants to be alone. Great job?) I stop him and make him look me in the eye and promise me that he's okay, and he does, but I know it's not true. I know he's feeling bad, because I look at his beautiful face and I can tell. I'm his mother and I know something is going on. He has red circles under his eyes and he's constantly pretending to be sick so that he doesn't have to go to school. I want to know what it is. I want to know!! I can't help him feel better if I don't know why he's feeling bad. I feel awful, and helpless, and frustrated, and sad; most of the time.

I don't know what to do. Any suggestions? 

UPDATE: I've talked to everybody at the school and they're all totally perplexed by this because, they say, at school he's perfectly fine. He's happy, he's compliant, he does the work, he does a great job, all is well. Then WTF????????? We're going to have him talk to the school psychologist and see if she can get anything. I'm totally at a loss and I feel like a total failure. I'm a shitty mom, I can't even get my kid to tell me why he's falling apart emotionally. I suck. I feel like shit. FUCK!!!!!!

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