post

Getting Through The Wipeout Zone

September 28, 2013 By

521210430_3fff35cbd4

As I sit down to write this post, I am feeling emotionally bruised and mentally exhausted. The last few months have been rough. There has been a lot of life going on, and that life has included death and other forms of loss. I’ve been responding to it all in the way I usually do when things go wrong: by launching myself into frantic motion, partly in a quest to move forward, and partly because I’m afraid of inactivity.

What it means, though, is that I often don’t give myself enough time to process the stuff that’s happening in my life. Four months ago I lost my job. Within 24 hours I had an appointment to see a career coach, and the very next week I was knee-deep in résumé consultations and job-search workshops. Every time a life event has came along and knocked me off-kilter, I’ve just gotten up and kept going until the next thing has thrown me off-balance. It’s like being on an emotional version of Wipeout.

Eventually, of course, everything kind of caught up to me and I was forced to come to a screeching halt for my own safety. I had to give myself time to evaluate and plan, to have and resolve conflicts that had been waiting in the wings, and to go through the angst and the crying and the sadness that I had been trying so hard to fight. It’s made the last two weeks or so particularly brutal.

Of course, the world hasn’t come to a standstill while I’ve been going through all of this. I’ve still had laundry to do, meals to cook and a house to keep in some kind of order. Kids have gone back to school, IEP information forms have been submitted, a 10th birthday has been celebrated.

Life has gone on. And so, in spite of all the loss and gut-wrenching stress of the last few months, have I. I don’t believe in that line that “God only gives us as much as we can handle”, but I do believe that in general, human beings are resilient creatures. I’ve been through a lot worse than this in the past, and I’ve survived.

As much as it sometimes feels as if this rough patch will go on forever, I know that this too shall pass, and my life will return to a state in which I can wake up each morning and know that everything is OK.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: Pengannel. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

Filed Under: Chaos, life, Loss, Mental Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
post

Back To School Musings Of An Autism Mom

August 26, 2013 By

George writing words

A week from now, the kids will be going back to school, and I’m not sure whether to jump for joy or quiver with worry.

On the one hand, the kids being back in school will mean more time for me. Being home with them for the summer was a circumstance that I found myself in due to my unexpected unemployment, and it’s been quite a revelation. I have enjoyed it, but I do have new respect for stay-at-home moms – especially those who homeschool their kids. I am looking forward to being able to spend time by myself to focus on my job search efforts.

On the other hand, back-to-school time is always a bit of an ordeal for my older son George. After two months at home, his school routine has gone completely out the window. He has to relearn the whole process of getting up at a certain time, getting onto a school bus and being expected to spend each day in the classroom. For most kids – like my younger son – this represents a resumption of an already known routine. But for kids with autism, it’s like starting a whole new routine all over again.

Autism and new routines go together about as well as tuna and chocolate syrup. In addition to the daytime disruptions, George goes through insomnia while he’s adjusting to the transition. Which means we’re in for about six weeks of not sleeping.

With George going into 5th grade, this is old hat to us. We do whatever preparation we can. We use social stories, drive through the school parking lot from time to time throughout the month of August, and start easing into school-like morning routines during the last two weeks of the holidays. And then, when school resumes, we just brace ourselves and deal with it as best we can.

We go through the transition with the attitude that “this too shall pass”. Because it always does. We won’t necessarily see things get easier from one day to the next, but one morning George will wake up and be completely OK with going to school. He will get dressed and stay in his clothes instead of changing back into his pyjamas at the last minute. He will calmly get onto the bus and fasten his own seatbelt. When he comes home in the afternoon, he will be happy. That night, he will sleep. For the whole night.

Once George gets over the bump of going back to school each year, he does quite well. His brain is like a sponge, and although progress on his speech and social skills is oh-so-slow, it is definitely there.

I am nervous about the start of the school year, but I am excited to see what the year will bring for George.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit to the author.

Filed Under: autism, back-to-school, Routines, Transition Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
post

This Too Shall Pass

February 26, 2011 By

From time to time, my mind goes into a dark place. The reasons why are not important – well they are, but since I only blog about them anonymously, in a whole other place, they are not important for the purposes of this blog. Suffice it to say that sometimes I get plunged into this darkness, and it can be a struggle to come out.  Many late nights and early mornings find me wandering restlessly around the house while everyone else is sleeping, trying to outpace the darkness and bring myself back to – well, at the risk of sounding like a hippy, back to a happy place.

Sometimes, when I feel bad, I have an almost irresistible compulsion to go for a hectic run, no matter what time it is. It’s a compulsion I have to fight, of course, because it wouldn’t be safe. Even in the midst of the darkness, I never completely lose my common sense.

At the end of the day, what gets me through is the fact that despite this periodic bleakness, I am a natural optimist. There was only one time in my life – a long time ago – when I could truly say that I lost all hope. Apart from that one terrible time, I have always lived by the credo that no matter what is going on, this too shall pass. I have a permanent assumption that all bad times are temporary. Sometimes they may last for longer than I would think reasonable, but they always – eventually – pass. And when they do, I am hopefully a stronger and wiser person for it.

At times my life has taken the scenic route. There has been rough terrain along the way, and sometimes I have fallen down and I haven’t been able to get up right away. But I’ve never been one to just lay down on the side of the trail and give up. I’ve gathered my strength and forced myself to surge forward, sometimes at a sprint, other times at a snail’s pace. As long as I am moving forward, I am going in the right direction.

The thing is, when I get through those rough patches, the view I get at the end of it can be absolutely spectacular.

No matter what makes me fall, it’s always – ALWAYS – worth my while to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep going.

I just can’t seem to shed the baggage I collect along the way.

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
post

This Too Shall Pass

February 26, 2011 By

From time to time, my mind goes into a dark place. The reasons why are not important – well they are, but since I only blog about them anonymously, in a whole other place, they are not important for the purposes of this blog. Suffice it to say that sometimes I get plunged into this darkness, and it can be a struggle to come out.  Many late nights and early mornings find me wandering restlessly around the house while everyone else is sleeping, trying to outpace the darkness and bring myself back to – well, at the risk of sounding like a hippy, back to a happy place.

Sometimes, when I feel bad, I have an almost irresistible compulsion to go for a hectic run, no matter what time it is. It’s a compulsion I have to fight, of course, because it wouldn’t be safe. Even in the midst of the darkness, I never completely lose my common sense.

At the end of the day, what gets me through is the fact that despite this periodic bleakness, I am a natural optimist. There was only one time in my life – a long time ago – when I could truly say that I lost all hope. Apart from that one terrible time, I have always lived by the credo that no matter what is going on, this too shall pass. I have a permanent assumption that all bad times are temporary. Sometimes they may last for longer than I would think reasonable, but they always – eventually – pass. And when they do, I am hopefully a stronger and wiser person for it.

At times my life has taken the scenic route. There has been rough terrain along the way, and sometimes I have fallen down and I haven’t been able to get up right away. But I’ve never been one to just lay down on the side of the trail and give up. I’ve gathered my strength and forced myself to surge forward, sometimes at a sprint, other times at a snail’s pace. As long as I am moving forward, I am going in the right direction.

The thing is, when I get through those rough patches, the view I get at the end of it can be absolutely spectacular.

No matter what makes me fall, it’s always – ALWAYS – worth my while to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep going.

I just can’t seem to shed the baggage I collect along the way.

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,