I almost didn't make it again this year. Son, our radical, decided to pull a drama king event on Feb.4th which led to the E.R., psychiatric hospital, state psychiatric hospital, three days at an emergency shelter and would have been held at the CPS offices, sleeping there, living there, had we not taken him home while they looked for an RTC. I'm sorry, this is a seventeen year old, hairy-legged, tall boy on the outside but on the inside, it's a child who moves back and forth between about six and thirteen depending on the stressors. So, no, four placements in less than four weeks while waiting for a fifth one? Our mental health system, especially for kids, needs so much overhaul. Even up to getting on the toll way to head to the airport, I questioned myself. How could I head out to Florida for almost six days when my son could get "the call" about which RTC he would be sent to and I wouldn't be there? How could I leave my husband there to handle it? What if my son lost his shit and things spiraled totally out of control? You know what? I.am.not.super.woman. I am not. I am a person who has a limit on how much my heart and my brain can handle. I'd already hit it. I also couldn't stay home because if I did, my message to my son would be loud and clear.....happy anything, jack with it, ruin it and they will put aside their needs every time and jump through my hoops. Nope.
I needed my girlies. I needed my house girlies to hug and cry and most of all laugh. I needed the other girlies in other houses to hug and cry and most of all laugh. I needed to tell the stories of our travel through trauma and know that gasps would not be had, shrieks would not be heard and eyes would not look at me as if I'd sprouted an extra head. I needed to go somewhere that I could feel normal. (Meh, as normal as I'd ever want to be.) This was for me. This was for my tribe of moms who "get it".
The goodbyes just suck as we come from all over the U.S. and Canada. The goodbyes suck because as funny as we all know we are on facebook, or blogs, or email, there is so much more conveyed through a nod, a giggle, a guffaw and most of all, a look. These ladies are my sisters. I will never stop going to BeTA until maybe, they can't get my old body out of the nursing home. I declare we need a BeTA assisted living facility so we can all wag our finger at our radicals and their broods and cackle.
