Reality Check

I was praying last night at my son's bed in the ER.  After me and a couple of police officers tried to keep Alex home over the weekend, he went to the ER late Sunday.  It was a tough trip.  Alex had another dystronic reaction once they gave him meds he doesn't really need and that reaction came with blindness and severe hallucinations.  It was a very severe reaction.

After it subsided and we were left alone in the room, I prayed to God to help my son.  And then the answer came to me - he already had.  My son is home, with me.  I am there to watch over him.  I am God's help for my son.  I am the one that remembers what he told me about his before life when he was still so young and did not speak English.  Those are not monsters he sees, they are memories that the boy he is today views as monsters. 

When he could not see me and he was screaming about what he was seeing, I understood those hallucinations were from his reality in the "before time."  Through it all Alex knew I was there with him and telling him the truth.  I know it was not hallucinations per se because those are the memories we worked on in the first year of therapy with all the specialists.  Alex is struggling to with his memories that are seeking a definition in his current life.

One of his most valued long term mental docs notes that Alex is in a stage of his development of self identity where his mind is seeking to understand, and then incorporate, his memories of his past and what happened to him. 

What happened to Alex was brutal.  What happened to Alex was horrifying.  What he saw and experienced is beyond a nightmare. 

My reality check is this - my child is coming to terms with his past.

It is not easy on any of us, especially Alex.  Even the day treatment program is at a loss and ready to suggest hospitalization which is such a wrong choice at this point.  I would suggest to other parents experiencing this to buckle down and refuse the easy solution of hopsitalization. The long-term mental doc is right, Alex is seeking to understand his memories.  He feels safe enough in his life now to totally blow apart his daily family and extended life to try and come to terms with having lived in hell.

I asked him today when he woke up from the heavy meds if he knew why we had gone to the ER.  He told me it was because the monsters hurt him in his dreams, even in my room, and he wanted to go somewhere where they wouldn't hurt him in his dreams - like maybe the hospital. 

I spent a lot of time convincing Alex, my very medically complicated cleft palate son, that hospitals are safe.  It is irony now that they are where he desperately seeks safety.

Alex loves me and his family life but he is running from the monsters.  He is seeking safety from them.  The day treatment program is reluctant to push the monsters back hard away from Alex's reality.  I say the monsters that are Alex's memories of the past are moving faster than they realize.

Alex is home safe with his Mom - me.  I will climb into that emergency vehicle every day if necessary for Alex.  Until he is able to live with what he knows.  

That is my ultimate hope of course - is that Alex and the rest of us find a way for Alex to live with what he knows, and has seen.  He has already done the hardest part, he survived.

He and I just need to hang tough and get through this.  The line in the sand is drawn now - the monsters will be confronted and acknowledged.  They will be vanquished.  Alex will get that normal life he so desperately wants. 

After all, Alex is just a nine-year-old boy who is gentle and kind.  And collects snails and has a dog who adores him and lives to play fetch with him.  Alex is just a normal little boy who knows too much about things little boys should not know.  Alex is my hero and he is beginning to understand why. 

I am a lucky mom.  I got to Alex's mom.