It is so hard to believe that there are only 5 days left to
Cam’s school year. This has been a very up and down school year. It started out
ok, turned horrible and is ending on a great note. There are many experiences
that we went through that though they weren’t easy they taught us so much. This
has not just been a year of learning and change for Cam, but for our entire
family.
Cam started out this school year in his old school. This is
a decision that my husband and I went back and forth on all summer. We had
discussed homeschooling, public school, private school, you name it we talked
and talked and talked some more about our options. But at the end of the day we
decided that his old school was what we thought would be best. Now looking back
our own fears for Cam were what held us back, but we can only learn from our
decisions. About two months into the school year we were hit with so much. Cam’s great grandmothers passed away and he was very close to her in his own
way so that was harder for him than most would ever realize. This was also his first
dealing with death. Our family dog then passed away, which was Cam’s best
friend, so that was another hard loss for him. He was being very bullied at
school to the point where my husband and I heard words come out of his mouth no
parent should ever hear. “I want to kill myself! Everyone hates me, thinks I am
a freak because of my Asperger’s! I just want to be dead!” For any 7 year old
to EVER feel this way is horrible, but for our own child to feel this way rips
a huge part of my heart away.
The next few months we did our best to show him more unconditional love, to
help with the bullying situation at school, to just keep him from continuing to
spiral down this deep depression that he was in. The bullying just continued to
get worse. You don’t realize how bad bullying is these days in school until it
is happening to your child and you don’t realize how little some schools will
do until you as the parent are fighting for it to stop for your child.
Everything we were trying to do didn’t seem to be helping. So, on a Tuesday I
picked him up from one school and on Thursday he started at a new school.
For a child who hates change you can imagine our concern
with how well he would do with this abrupt change. I dropped him off at school
that first day with my heart in my stomach and got to parent pick up about 2
hours early. Yes, I was THAT mom that day. Him coming out to my car with a huge
smile on my face was all I needed to let me know we had made the right
decision. Since that day there have been a few bumps in the road but for the
most part it has been an amazing transition. He is happier than he has ever
been and he is back to loving school and more importantly loving life.
Yesterday we had a discussion about his birthday coming up
in July and I was reminded though that no matter how happy he is there is still
so much further we have to go. I asked him if he wanted a party this year and
his response brought tears to my eyes “mommy no one will come, so I just want
to go somewhere special.” I tried to explain to him that he does have friends,
he has made a couple of wonderful friends at his new school so I was a bit
surprised by his answer but then his next sentence helped me realize he is
still struggling “they are my friends but I still don’t think I am good enough
for them to want to come to my birthday party.” Those words broke my heart in a
million pieces. Why does my child feel this way and will he ever feel
differently? It is my job to do everything I can to make sure he one day does
feel so much better about himself and I can promise him and whomever reads this
that I will do just that.
I started writing this blog as a therapy for myself and to
try and allow people to see how our life is with Cam. I have learned this school year that my
therapy isn’t really in writing this, it is in making peace with Cam’s
diagnosis and the life that I had planned for him when I was pregnant with him
was going to be completely different than what his life will be. My therapy is
mending broken fences with family and more importantly making my family, my
husband, son and daughter a priority. I was so worried about pleasing others,
about spreading the word about Cam’s struggles that I lost sight of what’s
important. Living and enjoying the most amazing moments with the ones who
matter the most are what is truly important. I have learned through this blog journey that some people can
read my words every time and will always treat my son differently. They will
always watch him closer than other children when we have play dates. They will
always talk slower to him because for some reason they feel they need to. This
blog has taught me that people who I never thought would read our journey have
and those people have reached out to me and their words have changed my life
for the better. This blog has been a wonderful journey for me.
Cam has a long road ahead of him but instead of sharing
every step, instead of trying to change peoples minds who will probably never
be changed, instead of focusing on everyone else….I am going to focus on living
our life with Cam and enjoying it. I am going to spread awareness in different
ways because that will always be a passion of mine but for now it won’t be
through writing. I have enjoyed sharing our journey thus far but now it is time
for me to live it and put my focus on what is really important. Thank you to
whomever reads this, thank you to those who I never thought would read this and
thank you to any of those that might be looking at children in a different
light because of anything they have read here. I am signing off….in the words
of Cam’s sister, “peace, love, donuts and sunshine!”
