Christmas

Christmas is the time that brings out the best and the worst in people.  It is the time of excess… food, alcohol, money, gifts, company, memories, emotions, dysregulation, you name it and there will be more of it at Christmas.

Emotional regulation is a skill that we learn when things are calm, and we encourage further calm in order to fully “practice” the skill of regulation.  Meditation, yoga, breathing exercises… are all about being calm, in an already calm moment.  They are awesome routes to maintaining calm, alas, they don’t work so well when you are dysregulated.

Excited that Santa is coming in the morning?  “Try some deep breathing exercises” is not going to work

Completely over stimulated by gifts, lights, noises, people, food, whatever?  “Have you tried a downward facing dog?” won’t cut it.

The things we learn when we are calm can all work together to help us regulate faster, or be more aware of our lack of regulation but the coping mechanisms that are needed to attain calm are not the same as the self care practices that we use to maintain calm.

Expecting someone to figure out, in the middle of Christmas dinner, how to bring themselves back to calm is like expecting snow in the Northern Hemisphere is July.  It is just not going to happen, and if it does it won’t last very long.

Coping mechanisms are learned, they are planned, they are discussed, they are collaborated on (if assistance is needed) and then they are practiced… which leads to a little tweaking and then it is back to the practice step.  Every event needs a coping mechanism.  Many of them will be interchangeable because visiting Aunt Mabel is similar, but not quite the same, as visiting Uncle Alfons and they are close enough for the same mechanism to apply.

It all takes practice and that does not start on December 20^th.

I started laying out the schedule for Christmas Day about 10 days out.  The general structure at first, without specific times, and with more detail as times went on.  We discussed coping mechanisms that may be needed:

–          lying on your bed, listing to your book
–          Getting some exercise
–          Watching YouTube
–          Having something to eat

I think I ran through the timed plan for Christmas Day 5 times on Christmas Eve.  The Boy likes things the way he likes things and I am stunned to discover that if I give him all the details, all of the schedule we are wide open for flexibility.  When he was smaller, when he wanted things the way he wanted things and I wasn’t offering that up (because I didn’t know it was needed) he would get so stuck, so rigid and nothing would get done.  With too little information he just builds a wall with the information bricks he has.  With all the information he can build an elaborate hollow structure into which he can fit the semi fluid nature of a day like Christmas Day.

He didn’t need any coping mechanisms, I suspect because he knew they were there.  I am so proud of how together and present he was on Christmas Day.

And I am delighted he got his phone months ago because there is no way I would have been able to set up his phone while cooking for a dozen people.

My Life Rules

I will expand on all of these over time but I thought it might be nice to have a list

• You Can Lead A Horse To Water, But That Won’t Make It A Duck
• Would I Say That To Fred?
• MMOB
• Don’t Take It Personally
• Mouth Full Of Water
• You’re Going To Have To Have A Conversation
• Humans Do Well When They Can
• Don’t Give It Away For Free

I Am An Shape Shifting Plant Pot

There are many visual references used to describe the connection between a parent and child.

A Piece of Elastic – They move away, the elastic stretches, they come back or you move in to ensure the elastic doesn’t stay over stretched and lose it’s elasticity.

An Anchor – A place of security for the child to return, knowing you will be there.

Scaffolding – A structure surrounding the child supporting their growth and development.

A Platform – A solid base on which they grown and develop.

I prefer to think of myself as an plant pot.  Not a terracotta or plastic pot, but a flexible, elastic pot.  I deal with the nitty gritty, the roots of all growth and development, while he grows up into the sunlight, knowing I am there supporting him in the background.  Sometimes he needs the structure of my support to be more flexible as he figures out how things work, what life feels like with a little more freedom.  Sometimes he needs my support to be more rigid, when it is time for me to be the mom so that he can be the kid, when for safety or age appropriateness, the answer has to be no.

Odo is a Changeling in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  His resting state is a puddle in a bucket.  He changes shape depending on the need at the time, ranging from liquid to solid.

My plant pot is from the same material that Odo is made from.  I change shape depending on the need at the time.

Bedtime & school attendance?  I am a solid (they are fixed in space and time)
Trying on new clothes that are outside his comfort zone?  I am a semi solid (and give him a time frame in which to have completed the task)
Putting on clean socks on a day when getting out of bed took all of his energy?  I am a liquid (I would rather he go to school in yesterday’s socks, than not go because I insisted on clean socks).

Choosing where I am on the liquid to solid spectrum requires paying attention to what is going on at the time.

Fairy God (Parent) Coach

What would I do without her?  Where would I be?

I was referred to her, at the end of being referred to so many other places and being sent away.  I felt disposable.  I felt The Boy was disposable.

She told me she would be there until I didn’t need her any more.  I didn’t believe her.

I fought her, and she was still there.
I cursed at her, and she was still there.
I cancelled at the last minute, and she was still there.
I called her, desperate for help, and she was still there.
I used her as a sounding board, and she was still there.

In the beginning I saw her once a week.  Now, months pass.  I don’t need her as much, but she is still there.

She asked me once why I kept coming back.  Looking back I know it was because she was *my* plant pot.

Let us call her Marie.

Fighting Fires

When you live in chaos all you ever get to do is crisis manage, put out fires constantly.

Occasionally there will be a quiet time, a time when all is peaceful and you hold your breath and hope it will last but it doesn’t because you don’t know how it became calm and so you don’t know how to keep it that way.

A word, an action, a thing moved, something, anything, nothing and

You are off again.

A life preventing fires or putting them out, or a combination of both, is exhausting.  I was exhausted.

I bent over backwards, I made the *right* dinners, we stopped going to the *wrong* places, I did everything I could think of and while it might work for a while, nothing was a lasting solution, because, let’s be honest.  I had no idea what I was doing.

I was groping around in the dark hoping to find a magic solution that would just make him stop feeling bad all the time.

It took a long time to see that by doing what I was going, I was adding to the chaos, I was adding to the unpredictability, I was adding to the explosions.

There was nothing structured.  There was nothing routine.  There were no stated expectations.  I just lurched from passive (do the *right* things, avoid the *wrong* things) to authoritarian (go to your room, I am taking the iPad) and we all rode around in the emotional roller coaster.

I got really good at fighting, and avoiding fires.

So many skills that I no longer need.  I am more than happy to leave off my breathing apparatus and fireman suit.  They are really heavy to carry around and significantly impede normal movement and function.  Now that I am not holding the hose, I am free to make plans for the future.

A Pain In My Feelings

I work hard to remember not to take things personally.

I am, for the most part successful.  Even when I am successful, I may still end up with a pain my feelings.  This is the part that is actually about me.

Lashing back at the source, or out at the people who surround me with love and caring, is not productive and will lead to more hurt feelings.

And the cycle goes on.

What I do with that pain is on me.

And that is how I found myself coming home today to explain to The Boy that I have a pain in my feelings, that it was not caused by him, and that I was working hard on making sure that it didn’t escape and hurt the people around me.

And so I stopped the cycle.

My feelings are still a little hurt but I haven’t had the feedback loop that ends with me feeling worse, and so begins again.  So I am on the mend, because I chose to feel better.

My Wish For My Boys

Robert says it way better than I ever could.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ggyO-OFXU]

If The Light Shines Through

That is how you know if you are dealing with a wood or a forest.  If the canopy is complete and day light cannot get through the foliage then it is a forest, otherwise it is a wood.  There are also regional variations in what people typically call a gathering of trees.

All of that is irrelevant as both are made up of trees.  They both need the same component parts.

Too often we don’t look at the individual trees, we see them together and call them by their collective noun.

Different trees need different saw blades to cut them down.

The Boy didn’t go to school yesterday morning.  In my head (and from my experience) that is refusing school and therefore there must be an issue with school.  I looked at the forest and decided the trees were pine and that I needed a saw blade suitable for pine.  This sent me down the wrong path, both within my head and practically, because I MUST sort the school problem and then he will go back.

The Mom: Is there something wrong in school?

The Boy: No

TM: If there is something wrong in school we can go in and sort it out, you just have to tell me what the problem is.

TB: There is nothing wrong in school

TM: OK (thinking “But if it isn’t school what could it be?”).  Is there something else wrong?

TB: No

TM: Then why did you refuse to go to school this morning?

TB: I didn’t refuse to go to school this morning.

TM: You did, that is why you are sitting here at noon instead of being in school. (starting to sound a little frustrated)

TB: I didn’t refuse to go to school. (starting to sound a little annoyed)

TM: OK.  Did something stop you going to school?

TB: Yes

TM: Can you tell me what that was?

TB: I wasn’t fully awake until you got back from dropping The Brother to school

TM: Ahhh, so you didn’t not want to go to school, you just couldn’t wake up properly and get out of bed for school

TB: YES!

TM: OK, so that is the problem we need to solve because you are OK with going to school right?

TB: Yes

TM: Is there a problem with your alarm clock?  Is it not going off in the morning?

TB: It does go off, but I turn it off.

TM: Is it too easy to turn it off?

TB: Yes

TM: What if it wasn’t that easy to turn off?

TB: I was already thinking about that.  I was thinking about moving it to the top of the storage unit because then I would have to get out of bed to turn it off and then I would be awake because now I can stay under the covers and turn it off and I don’t really wake up.

TM: That sounds like an awesome possible solution and I am really impressed you came up with it on your own.  I had the same idea but I am glad you said your idea first 😉  You know where Uncle Percy* put his alarm clock, right?

TB: In the pot on the top of the wardrobe

TM: Yup, a clanger alarm clock in a pot on the top of the wardrobe because he couldn’t sleep through the noise and had to get out of bed to turn it off.  You’re not the only one that has a hard time getting up in the morning.

TM: Right, put on your shoes.  We need to go to IKEA to get a long extension cord so that we can plug the clock radio in on top of the storage.

We went to IKEA (he talked the whole time), bought the extension cord, moved the alarm clock, fixed the time on it, and he went to bed on schedule.  He went to school this morning.

I am not assuming that this will be a lasting solution but it is a solution to the ACTUAL problem, not what I decided the problem must be.  It is too easy, as the adult, to decide what the problem is and set about solving it without stopping to figure out what the problem actually is.

I saw a problem, decided what the issue was and set about solving it.

Only problem with that plan was… I got the issue wrong and therefore came up with the wrong solution and in the process I didn’t let The Boy know that I was happy to listen to him, to hear him and to help him solve the actual problem.

There is no need to fell the whole forest.  Find the tree you are looking for, figure out the right saw blade needed, grab hold of a handle each and start sawing together.