Angst, ennui, desolation and other words I found in a thesaurus

Child 1 is depressed. He had an awesome winter break; I can't remember the last time I saw him so happy. There was no school, no schedule, he could do whatever he wanted and wherever he wanted, he got to ride BART all the time, he went sledding in the snow, it was fan-fricking-tastic.

Now he's back at school and he's really sad. It's awful. I haven't seen him smile since Sunday, I think. He's pale; he looks horrible. I try to talk to him and he tells me to "go away." Yesterday he literally pushed me away. I ask him if he's sad and he says "I don't want to talk about it." I ask him if he's happy and he says "no." Then he tells me to go away. I'm not even allowed in his room.

Probably the greatest gift I have received from this blogging thing is having become friends with adult autistics, who can (do their best to) help me understand what's going on in his head, because they've been there, too, for the most part. (I call them "Rachel and the Two Emilies." Okay, that's what I call them now. What happened to Laura, though? I miss her.) I can't remember which Emily once commented here that she always hated when her parents would constantly ask her what was wrong, because she couldn't tell them and yet they kept asking, and ever since she told me that I have stopped asking; stopped asking constantly, anyway. I have this problem, you see, and that's I'm really bad at not knowing stuff. If there's some piece of information that I know is out there, I want it. I want to know, good or bad, I want to know what it is. But I can't know, in this case, so I need to stop asking him. I need to leave him alone and just not know.

It's fucking killing me.

I hate this; I hate this, I HATE THIS!! I want to fix it... but I can't. Even if he told me "I'm sad because I hate school so very very much," there would still be nothing I could do to fix it, but at least I would know. I wouldn't be playing this constant guessing game; thinking that I know what the deal is and hoping that I'm right. But there's nothing I can do. I'm totally helpless. I HATE THIS.

I've been thinking lately about how raising your children is about making them be farther away from you. When they're babies, you know about every poop, every pee, everything they eat, every time they smile... and the older they get, the less you get to know these things, and that's apparently the mark of good parenting. That you know nothing about what they're doing and thinking and you just have to hope that one day they'll come back to you. I'm constantly fighting the urge to grab them up and run home with them to safety. But that's not what I'm supposed to do, as a "good" parent; I'm supposed to let them make their own way and hope that I've given them enough skills and self confidence so that they can do it.

Fuck that. Seriously. My baby is sad! I want to know why! Maybe I can fix it? Surely there's something I can do to help?? But he doesn't want to tell me, and I know that he hates it when I ask, so all I can do is sit here helplessly, waiting for him to smile again, which might be on Friday after school. I hope.

Stupid autism. :(

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Just in case you thought today's post wouldn't be even a little bit funny, here is a haiku that I wrote last night while seriously under the influence of muscle relaxers (which work really well, by the way, my back is much better). I actually considered making it today's post, but that's really pathetic; even for me!


Brain no worky good
Can't make fingers do blog post
Okay, Jill sleep now

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