Set this up a while ago, and have been pondering posts for awhile...even written a few in my head. But I've stalled and stalled and stalled...
I am a strange mixture of public and private: I talk about things that others don't, reveal stuff that others don't because I resent being held back and trapped by the things of the world over which I have no control. That sounds confusing...that is to say, when I was young, and my father was an active alcoholic who would come home, smashing up the house and cutting the phone cord in an attempt to keep my mother from phoning for help, I would actually mention it to a friend at school the next day. They didn't want to know--that was a time of deep, dark secrets. No one talked about alcoholism, no one talked about wife-abuse...there was no such thing as "child abuse"--that was just disciplining your children. Sometimes, I vaguely think about the fact that I was going to school with huge bruises--and no one ever asked how I'd got them. No one.
And no one who ever came over to the house ever asked why our phone cord--that old curly cord that ran between receiver and base--had electrical tape wrapped around it, keeping the two cut ends together.
All this is to say that I think there are certain things that need to be out in the light of day; not hidden away, talked of in whispers, becoming bigger and bigger anxieties. So, it stands to reason that I would want to talk about the fact that one of my children suffers from what the DSM IV lists as a personality disorder, but most would consider a mental illness: he has a severe Anxiety Disorder with OCD. (His AD/HD is just one of those bonuses to make sure we never get a break!). As I learn more about his disorder, as I deal with it more and more, it strikes me as the sort of thing that could benefit from the light of day--certain nasty unpleasantnesses die in the bright light of day. To have those around him understand what it is that he goes through--frankly, to have those around us understand what it is that the entire family goes through...
But, this is my child. This would not be his choice. Especially now, in the midst of his teenaged years. He's endured the taunts of actual close friends--turning on him in their school hallway, mocking him for his anxieties, mocking him for his medication, mocking him even as they go home and line everything on their desk up in a precise order, furiously upset if one thing has been moved one iota while they've been out of the house. He's endured the loss of some of those friends--scared of what he is, what they think he is. Or the loss of friends whose parents have found out--and they're scared of what he is, what they think he is, and don't want their own precious child anywhere near him. It would be "too stressful" for their son to be be friends with him...
Obviously, I could just write and put all my thoughts in a little folder on my computer and that would be that--but even under the guise of imposed anonymity, I think there would be some sort of freeing feeling in posting these thoughts and letting them wander around the world...and so I shall.
