Wednesday, August 26, 2009

And today's theme song comes to us courtesy of the Cure...

My preoccupation d’jour is a riff on an age-old lament known by all parents of a child with special needs: whatever I do, it’s never enough. (And yes, I can hear the Cure playing on an endless loop in my head as I write this.) But let’s aside the self-pity for a second and examine the sentiment.


I know myself. I know that I can only direct my energies in so many areas at any given time. Looking back, I see a scattershot of different therapies, ideas, and approaches. There was the 6 weeks I focused on eliminating all casein/dairy products from Blink’s diet (No change). And who could forget the Wilbarger brushing regimen (did seem to help), or the 5-point-scale (should have tried harder), not to mention experiments with behavior charts, sensory diets, Therapeutic Listening, supplements, etc., etc.


I’m exhausted just thinking about this list, which is hardly comprehensive.


And yet.


And yet.


The battle rages in my head.


On the one hand, I make a concerted effort to tell myself it’s OK to be exhausted. I’m only human. I’m a single mother raising a challenging kiddoo; I’m certainly no superwoman. We will muddle through this just fine in the end.


On the other, I can’t shake that nagging feeling that (wait for it) I’m not doing enough. I could do more. It’s up to me, after all. Nobody is going to advocate for Blink like I can. No matter how many therapy appointments I manage to add to the mix, it’s up to me to make it all work, to integrate everything I’ve learned in theory into our daily lives.


I know it’s not healthy walk around with the weight of Blink’s Future as a Human Being on my shoulders, so I try to keep it in perspective. No longer do I beat myself up when I have to retreat from autism-land for a bit. The guilt, it still circles me, but I dodge it. And then I dodge it some more. I don’t need any more weight to carry, thankyouverymuch.


But I do find myself wondering how to decide where to focus my energies. Pick your battles is a mantra drilled firmly into my head, but how do I choose when there are so many?