Californiablonde
Well-Known Member
Thought I would give a little update on my family since so much has changed in the last week. First off I posted earlier about ex wanting to take custody of easy child. At first I was dead set against it. Then I thought a little bit more about it and my current instability. To be honest, I really have a lot on my plate right now with difficult child and her stomach issues, instability, and just typical typical teen behavior that really needs my attention right now. Add to that I have a hormonal preteen boy who is getting more and more defiant by the day. He absolutely will not listen to me. He walks all over me. Right now I have no backbone due to my depression. I don't have the energy to fight him about anything, so he has been getting whatever he wants. His dad does not have issues with him. When he is at his dad's, he is well behaved. Once he comes back into my care, all hell breaks loose again. Basically I can't control him. Ex really wants a chance with him. He grew up without a dad for the most part, so he wants to give easy child/difficult child the life he never had. I feel like I can't give easy child what he needs at this time in his life. He needs a strong disciplinary role model in his life and right now I feel like I can't be there for him. I feel like difficult child is enough for me to handle without adding undue stress of a preteen boy who is defiant, strong willed, and plays me for a fool for the most part. I have decided that my son is better off at his dad's for now.
This was a hard decision to make, and I really prayed about it. I prayed hard during my vacation time last week. I have made up my mind to split up my kids, and that's not an easy thing for me to do, but I really feel like it is in all of our best interests. I have not told easy child yet. He sees his dad next weekend for visitation. His dad and I are going to sit down with him and tell him together. easy child/difficult child will not take it well at first, I'm sure. He is a total mama's boy. He does not like his dad's authority. He likes having no rules. His dad will be a strict enforcer of many rules and I'm sure easy child will resent him at first. So hopefully easy child doesn't feel like I am giving up on him (even though I feel like I sorta am) and I hope he understands my reasonings for what I am doing.
Next, as you know, my apartment complex is choosing not to renew my lease. I have a little over a month to move out. I have decided to get another one bedroom apartment and live closer to where I work, meaning difficult child will transfer school districts. She will be attending the same school where I work. This is one decision that I hope and pray really works out for us. I am still not happy with her current school and her placement. We just attended another IEP on Tuesday to discuss possibly putting her in a gen ed math class so she could be integrated with more girls and have the least restrictive environment. Instead of moving her to a gen ed class, they want to put her in a very small, self contained "special class" with only three kids, all boys. Ummmm, hello? The whole purpose of this meeting was to put her in a lesser restrictive environment. The class they are offering is even more restrictive than the class she has now, which contains 8 kids. So basically difficult child will stay in the same class she is at now. So we're back to square one again. I think difficult child will benefit from the Special Education classes we have at my school. The classes are larger and have more girls. They do not consist entirely of mentally ill students. It will be a mixture of different kids. The school psychiatric here is amazing and I know difficult child will love him. So the move will happen within the next few weeks. The apartment search is on.
Then there's the medication changes I have been going through. My very last dose of Geodon ever was a little more than a week ago. So far not good. My main withdrawal side effect was major anxiety with no sleep. I stopped taking it over the weekend before my one week Presiden't vacation. Basically for the first several days I was popping Xanax like candy to get rid of the symptoms. Not only was there anxiety, but I also had simultaneous feelings of mania and depression all at the same time. I felt like texting and calling every one of my friends and family to tell them how much I loved them, felt very social and wanted to go out and about, but at the same time I felt like taking large amounts of sleeping pills and going to sleep for days on end without talking to anybody. My emotions, were, and still are, very conflicted. I wasn't even stable enought to call psychiatrist so I had my mom do it for me. He ended up prescribing a medication called Saphris to help with the withdrawals. So far all the Saphris has done is make me sleep. I still have the mixed manic feelings and the anxiety attacks on and off. So psychiatrist says give the Saphris a week to see if it works. Well it doesn't. So I need a higher dose or another medication to help me. I would rather be totally 100% depressed than this horrible feeling have now. So it's back to psychiatrist to see what he can do. And as if that isn't enough......
A week ago Friday we had an encounter with a man with a gun at the school I work at. The incident ocurred just before vacation. I had a parent come to my counter asking to take his daughter out of class for a doctor's appointment. Right away I got a creepy feeling about him. He looked like he hadn't washed his hair in weeks and there was something about the nervous way he talked that got my anxiety going. So I asked for his ID. He immediately put his hands in the air and told me he had nothing on him. Again got a very bad feeling. Normally when parents come to me without ID I tell them they cannot take their child out of school until they go back home, get proper identification, and show it to me. The feeling I got with this guy was that he was dangerous and I couldn't trust him. Planned on calling an administrator for back up. First I told him to wait while I went to my computer, still acting like everything was fine. I looked up his name in our system and saw that he has a restraining order filed against him. Right then my boss happened to be walking by and I told him I needed to speak with him urgently in his office. I then told him this man had a restaining order against him and was not to be allowed on campus.
My boss took it from there. I sat back down at my desk while my boss went over to the man, standing just a few feet away from me, and told him he couldn't be on campus. The man suddenly lunges forward and pushes my boss hard in the chest. Then he announces he has a gun. Suddenly I see my boss wrestling with the guy, and I see a black gun waiving around. I freaked out and hid underneath my desk while someone else called 911, Then the principal came on the loud speaker and announced we were all on lockdown until further notice.
I look up and see my boss lying on top of the man while another principal came there to back him up. My boss singlehandedly restrained this guy until a bunch of police showed up minutes later. The police comfiscate the gun and come to find out it's a freaking BB gun. But it sure looked real to me! So the police takes our statements and a bunch of people, including staff and teachers, come up to congratulate me for keeping our kids safe. I don't feel like the hero they are making me out to be. My boss is the hero! He did all the work. All I did was turn the guy in. So now a week later I am back at work. People keep coming up to me asking me how I'm feeling. I was a little bit worried about the guy making bail and coming after us with a real gun and shooting up the whole school. I have been assured that this guy will never be released anytime in the near future so I am worried for nothing.
So that's been my life for the last week. A bunch of changes going on right now and I am far from stable but still, somehow, functioning. So I need some good luck and prayers sent my way that the psychiatrist can help me out of this feeling. I would take my depression back in a heartbeat rather than feel like this. And with all that's going on, I need some stability. So hopefully psychiatrist has some magic tricks up his sleeve. So anyway that's what's been going on with us the last week or so. Hopefully all is well with everyone else.
This was a hard decision to make, and I really prayed about it. I prayed hard during my vacation time last week. I have made up my mind to split up my kids, and that's not an easy thing for me to do, but I really feel like it is in all of our best interests. I have not told easy child yet. He sees his dad next weekend for visitation. His dad and I are going to sit down with him and tell him together. easy child/difficult child will not take it well at first, I'm sure. He is a total mama's boy. He does not like his dad's authority. He likes having no rules. His dad will be a strict enforcer of many rules and I'm sure easy child will resent him at first. So hopefully easy child doesn't feel like I am giving up on him (even though I feel like I sorta am) and I hope he understands my reasonings for what I am doing.
Next, as you know, my apartment complex is choosing not to renew my lease. I have a little over a month to move out. I have decided to get another one bedroom apartment and live closer to where I work, meaning difficult child will transfer school districts. She will be attending the same school where I work. This is one decision that I hope and pray really works out for us. I am still not happy with her current school and her placement. We just attended another IEP on Tuesday to discuss possibly putting her in a gen ed math class so she could be integrated with more girls and have the least restrictive environment. Instead of moving her to a gen ed class, they want to put her in a very small, self contained "special class" with only three kids, all boys. Ummmm, hello? The whole purpose of this meeting was to put her in a lesser restrictive environment. The class they are offering is even more restrictive than the class she has now, which contains 8 kids. So basically difficult child will stay in the same class she is at now. So we're back to square one again. I think difficult child will benefit from the Special Education classes we have at my school. The classes are larger and have more girls. They do not consist entirely of mentally ill students. It will be a mixture of different kids. The school psychiatric here is amazing and I know difficult child will love him. So the move will happen within the next few weeks. The apartment search is on.
Then there's the medication changes I have been going through. My very last dose of Geodon ever was a little more than a week ago. So far not good. My main withdrawal side effect was major anxiety with no sleep. I stopped taking it over the weekend before my one week Presiden't vacation. Basically for the first several days I was popping Xanax like candy to get rid of the symptoms. Not only was there anxiety, but I also had simultaneous feelings of mania and depression all at the same time. I felt like texting and calling every one of my friends and family to tell them how much I loved them, felt very social and wanted to go out and about, but at the same time I felt like taking large amounts of sleeping pills and going to sleep for days on end without talking to anybody. My emotions, were, and still are, very conflicted. I wasn't even stable enought to call psychiatrist so I had my mom do it for me. He ended up prescribing a medication called Saphris to help with the withdrawals. So far all the Saphris has done is make me sleep. I still have the mixed manic feelings and the anxiety attacks on and off. So psychiatrist says give the Saphris a week to see if it works. Well it doesn't. So I need a higher dose or another medication to help me. I would rather be totally 100% depressed than this horrible feeling have now. So it's back to psychiatrist to see what he can do. And as if that isn't enough......
A week ago Friday we had an encounter with a man with a gun at the school I work at. The incident ocurred just before vacation. I had a parent come to my counter asking to take his daughter out of class for a doctor's appointment. Right away I got a creepy feeling about him. He looked like he hadn't washed his hair in weeks and there was something about the nervous way he talked that got my anxiety going. So I asked for his ID. He immediately put his hands in the air and told me he had nothing on him. Again got a very bad feeling. Normally when parents come to me without ID I tell them they cannot take their child out of school until they go back home, get proper identification, and show it to me. The feeling I got with this guy was that he was dangerous and I couldn't trust him. Planned on calling an administrator for back up. First I told him to wait while I went to my computer, still acting like everything was fine. I looked up his name in our system and saw that he has a restraining order filed against him. Right then my boss happened to be walking by and I told him I needed to speak with him urgently in his office. I then told him this man had a restaining order against him and was not to be allowed on campus.
My boss took it from there. I sat back down at my desk while my boss went over to the man, standing just a few feet away from me, and told him he couldn't be on campus. The man suddenly lunges forward and pushes my boss hard in the chest. Then he announces he has a gun. Suddenly I see my boss wrestling with the guy, and I see a black gun waiving around. I freaked out and hid underneath my desk while someone else called 911, Then the principal came on the loud speaker and announced we were all on lockdown until further notice.
I look up and see my boss lying on top of the man while another principal came there to back him up. My boss singlehandedly restrained this guy until a bunch of police showed up minutes later. The police comfiscate the gun and come to find out it's a freaking BB gun. But it sure looked real to me! So the police takes our statements and a bunch of people, including staff and teachers, come up to congratulate me for keeping our kids safe. I don't feel like the hero they are making me out to be. My boss is the hero! He did all the work. All I did was turn the guy in. So now a week later I am back at work. People keep coming up to me asking me how I'm feeling. I was a little bit worried about the guy making bail and coming after us with a real gun and shooting up the whole school. I have been assured that this guy will never be released anytime in the near future so I am worried for nothing.
So that's been my life for the last week. A bunch of changes going on right now and I am far from stable but still, somehow, functioning. So I need some good luck and prayers sent my way that the psychiatrist can help me out of this feeling. I would take my depression back in a heartbeat rather than feel like this. And with all that's going on, I need some stability. So hopefully psychiatrist has some magic tricks up his sleeve. So anyway that's what's been going on with us the last week or so. Hopefully all is well with everyone else.