Forcing my chin up

I woke up a little stressed this morning. Like I was in a hurry and was forgetting something. Today was my open house and I felt very out of control because I hadn't been a part of the planning process this year. I knew I had plenty of time to be ready but I still was anxious. Perhaps because I had neglected some tasks the night before and I was trying to keep a bunch of little projects in check in my head. I also was overcome with grief for various reasons. Particularly the death of a 55 day old baby due to Strep infection and a college friend's child undergoing a major surgery scare. To top everything off, I'm extremely exhausted. You would think that getting an extra hour this weekend would make me less tired, but I'm finding myself unable to stay up later than 9pm. And I'm cold.

I think the gloomy attitude started on Sunday when Eric didn't have a good "report" in church. I hadn't had to defend him in a while and I guess I took for granted that "relax and enjoy" feeling was going to last. All of a sudden I couldn't get the scenario out of my head long enough to stop tensing up. Monday he came home with mostly "Hard" marks. I'm meeting with the teacher tomorrow and I had requested that she help us with church situations, both sunday school and cherub choir. But she wants to discuss strategies for home first and get that under control before we move onto the community. I'm thinking - We're good at home. it's the community that is stressing me out! (I wonder if she can help me strategize for Ryan's NT meltdowns - sometimes I think his are just as stressful or more because he is so sensitive (read: melts down often) and so strong (read: painful to others))

I took out some gloominess on my poor husband. I got a little frustrated that I had everything up in my head and if I stop thinking even for a moment to grab a pen and paper to jot it down, my mind literally goes blank in 2.5 seconds. I know he wanted to help, but he just stood there and I had to stop thinking about everything so that I could give him a detailed enough direction to jar him out of paralysis. And then I lost my train of thought (very easy to do, period, but add stress to the mix and it is just a given). Sometimes I wish I could think and allllll those thoughts somehow miraculously wrote themselves down on a piece of paper. These are the times when neither one of us can think straight and it gets chaotic in the household. And we as parents have to be responsible for 2 boys. These are the days that we call the "bad days." I feel unbalanced, out of control, overwhelmed, and just want to lock myself in my room.

I read an article that I linked off of Autism Vox that really got to me. This article really got to the core of my stress I think. How Autism is hidden, especially Asperger. Both Eric and Terry appear so typical, not just outside appearance but even in activities and roles that they have learned to do from watching a movie, or a similar social situation. But during "bad moments" it is so obvious that they are struggling with communications and social appropriateness that they may or may not even be aware of themselves, depending on how severe the meltdown. They are brilliant, yet can't answer simple questions or learn from their mistakes (unless of course it pertained to their special interest!).

I'm pretty confident that something amazing is going to come from this. Maybe not in my lifetime, but I believe that lives will be changed for the better because of our "hardship" right now. I wonder if Bill Gates or Einstein's parents knew what Billy and lil Al would do for mankind?