broken...

When Zachary was born, he had this little indentation on his breast bone, sort of a small thumbprint. I used to place my finger in the small spot and watch him breath. At his one year well checkup I asked his pediatrician about the spot and was told that Zachary had Pectus excavatum, the most common congenital birth defect of the anterior wall of the chest that creates an abnormal formation of the rib cage that gives the chest a caved-in or sunken appearance. Our pedi had known it since birth, but chosen to not tell us, because he felt it wasn't an issue. I went home and spent countless hours online researching this defect, reading about surgeries, looking at graphic images of serious cases and surgeries. I was heartbroken.  My baby was broken.

Over time, we've come to realize that the defect is fairly benign and not serious at this point. But the feeling of my child being broken was so unbearable.

Today I am back at that place. We have come to learn that Zachary is again "broken". This spring I began to look into having psychological evaluation done for Zachary. I was watching our bright son struggle in schoo. His self esteem began to diminish, he was getting into struggles within his peers and teachers, taking off from class, becoming withdrawn and upset at school and home. In his classroom I saw other kids turn away from him when he'd come to play with them and roll their eyes. A friends child told me a classmate didn't like Zachary and my heart broke.  I found an incredible psychologist and we started the process.

In the end, we've learned that our son is bright and intelligent. Despite GT tests at his previous school where he was deemed not Gifted and Talented, Zachary has is highly intellient, sort of scary intelligent. We learned where he has his strengths and weaknesses. His struggles in school with writing and multipart instruction make sense after seeing his results. So much comes easily to him, like reading, comprehension, spatial tasks, but when tasked with writing a story, doing 30 math problems, spelling, Sitting in a room with dozens of others, he gets overwhelmed and his emotional responses are too big and out of the normal range. Zachary is also experiencing anxiety and mild depression, which are secondary to his intellectual challenges. We have to learn how to stimulate him but also help him with processing speed, short term memory and writing. Not an easy challenge.

And then,the harder part. Zachary has high functioning autism, previously known as Aspergers. His social emotional responses to the world are not in line with the rest of us neurotypical folks. He is easily frustrated by what he deems as his imperfections, by injustice and unfairness. He seeks exact answers, no estimations. His world is black and white, hot and cold. There are not many shades or degrees in between.

I am working on learning how to help him and to also manage my own grief. My child is broken, I know that things are better because now we know. I know I can't fix those behaviors that he has that are incongruous with the the others around him. I can't ask him to come home and wash his hands, out away his back pack, get a snack and do his homework - I have to take it one at a time. I can't be mad at him for blowing up at a friend when he is over stimulated but once again emulate the better behavior. I can't insist he out away his books, because they are his coping mechanisms.

My child isn't going to be fixed by new teachers, new schools, different parenting books.o I'm not a terrible mama who broke her child. But now we have a new way of looking at him and working with him. We are more patient these last few week and even over the summer while we did the evaluations... I knew this was coming. I've suspected it for years, but his intelligence and superior vocabulary and sponge for knowledge made it challenging to see. So we start to help him in new ways. I start with an understanding of why my boy sees and feels the world So. Big. Why everything seems so much more with him - because neurologically it is. That's Aspergers. That's also a GT child.

We have new challenges in front of us with him and our whole family needs to learn together how to navigate this portion of our journey together. We will get there.