By Ilina
As a parent, we are often reticent to ask for help when we need it. For a mother, that reticence is exponentially amplified because we all struggle to reach the pinnacle of perfection. We too often view motherhood as a destination and forget that it's a journey. With potholes, detours, red lights, construction zones, and speed traps. There's just never a finish line.
And as a culture, that help is hard to find.
Wake County offers an amazing FREE service to parents of preschool age children. Free support, counseling, education, resources, and an awesome library. Project Enlightenment. Read on to see how it saved my family. (Cross posted at Dirt & Noise.)
I posted this to Facebook this morning when I read about the drastic cuts proposed for Project Enlightenment:"My
family was in crisis when our son was 3. Not medical or financial
crisis. Behavioral crisis. It is no hyperbole that we would not be who
and where we are today without Project Enlightenment's support and
care. Without those counselors and programs, our son would not be
thriving in first grade now. The impact of that experience
fixed what was a potential shattered relationship with my son at that
tender young age. I'm emotional even harkening back to that time. These
programs are not just for those people whose paths you don't cross.
"Those people." These programs are for ALL of us. And they work."
My
fingers quiver on the keyboard as I conjure up the memories of when
Bird was 3. He had violent raging temper tantrums. I'm not talking the
I-Want-Candy variety. He'd overturn furniture and fling books out of
his bookcase in a head spinning rage. He would yell like a banshee and
writhe in fits of fury. 15 minutes would pass. Then 30. 40. Most rages
lasted 45 minutes to an hour. Full on screaming, flailing, kicking,
hitting. Deal was an infant then, cradled snugly in my arms for fear
he'd be in the path of Bird's destruction.
Destruction.
Not just his room and his belongings. Our family. Our relationship.
I
sat in tears, quaking with stress, worry, fear, resentment. I never
knew what would tip the scale to make Bird fly into a tantrum. I
tiptoed and spent every waking moment anxiously awaiting the rage to
begin. He saved it all up for me. Bird didn't demonstrate this behavior
at school. Whatever he corked up at school came gushing out at me. He
spewed all his emotional venom and bile upon me. We spent many hours
huddled in his room sobbing. Feeling helpless. Alone. Defeated. Guilty.
And just terribly sad.
All while tending to an infant.
I was alone. No family support. A husband at a new job.
Bird's
tantrums were escalating. It was as if he were possessed. Seriously out
of control and a danger to himself. I began to resent this behavior. To
resent my own son. Do you know how that feels? I feel ashamed admitting
it now. My heads hangs, by whole being awash of guilt. I defied all
truths of motherhood; suddenly I was rewriting what unconditional
looked like. I loved Bird, of course, but I didn't want to be around
him. I didn't want to cater to him and fear him. I wanted to instead
protect the sweet baby Deal who was innocent and vulnerable. And yes,
easy. Easy to love. Easy to care for. Easy to adore. Then I was swept
with such guilt for feeling so that I mentally collapsed.
Once, just once, I slapped my son.
In
the midst of one particularly violent rage I slapped Bird across the
cheek thinking I could get him to snap out of it. It didn't work. He
didn't even take note of my hot hand on his wet cheek. I still feel the
sensation of my sweaty shaking palm making contact with his tear
streamed soft skin. His face. I literally shake my hand to get rid of
the sensation as if it were an EtchASketch. My eyes well with tears and
a coal-like lump rises in my throat as I write this. I've never said
this before. I never talked about what hell it really was. For all of
us.
But that afternoon I called Mac Daddy. I told him I couldn't
do it anymore. I wasn't fit to be a mother. I was overwhelmed and under
supported. In retrospect I am most certain I suffered remnants of
undiagnosed and untended-to post partum depression. I was the camel,
and my slapping palm was the straw.
We called Project Enlightenment.
Our
counselor saved us. Saved me. Saved our son. Saved our relationship.
Without the skills and insights and therapy we received....
I'm afraid to even think what might have been.
Project
Enlightenment gave us specific tools, words, exercises to manage Bird's
tantrums. We learned how to handle anger, fear, anxiety, in him and in
ourselves. We learned how the parenting we were a product of made us
the parents we were becoming. We learned how to repair what was
shattered. Just yesterday I opened my Project Enlightenment file to get
a quick refresher on how to teach empathy to my sons.
That file
has sat atop my desk for almost four years. Its contents are dog eared
and highlighted. Those resources have given me my son back. Project
Enlightenment served a need, a desperate need, that no doctor or
grandparent or teacher could have filled. Or fixed.
If our
counselor at Project Enlightenment hadn't helped us, my resentment
toward Bird would have surely escalated. I know this much is true. I
find myself still battling it at the times he's particularly difficult
or defiant now. My brain takes me back to those fits when he was three,
and I think, "Haven't we been through this? Haven't I paid my parenting
dues?" But now I know how to change. Now I know what resonates with
him. Now I know. The self loathing I have from that time still haunts
me. There are times I want to rewind, words I want to retract, steps I
want to retrace.
Project Enlightenment, while unable to
magically erase or rewrite the past, has enabled us to walk into a
shinier future. Hand in hand.
Bird is now a thriving first
grader. He has no behavioral or medical or psychological issues. Well,
he does pick on his little brother and talks too much in class, but
that's all normal, right? My Bird is bright, curious, eager, and
awfully funny. He knows he is loved and adored. I still call him my
first baby when I kiss him good night. We exchange Eskimo kisses,
butterfly kisses, and lip kisses. Then he blows me a kiss from his bed,
and I pretend to catch it and put it on my cheek. This is our ritual.
And we have Project Enlightenment to thank.
Join the Facebook Group here.
Send an email to the school board. You'll find their contact information here.
Write to the paper.
Raise
your voices, people. Cutting funding for early childhood development
and education will prove to be disastrous, and expensive. Our children
are an investment, not an expense.
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