Before the Horizon

It’s 4am. Before the horizon fills with light, and I am filled with dread. A thousand little bits of worry and fear.

Do you have a child? Look at them. Look in their eyes. What do you see? Light? Hope? Brightness? Wonder, excitement? Peace…God, the Peace. I never noticed the Peace before. And now I miss it. Now I would do whatever it takes to place the Peace back in his eyes, his heart.

As a mother, they say you can feel your child’s pain and sadness.

As a young child, wobbly legged and attempting to perfect his walking, I kissed many of his bumps and bruises. Hoping to soothe his pain and calm his fear. But that pain was a fleeting pain. Perhaps it was preparation in small, manageable doses. Training for the harder, much harder days to come when the bumps and bruises turn into crippling emotions and cracked esteem. The wounds are much deeper now. And they never seem to heal.

We have periods of time that the pain subsides. Or seems to. I always worry and wonder – is it really gone or is it just buried so deep under the facade of normalcy that we don’t see it?

This last time we made it six weeks. Almost seven. No major depressive ‘episodes’. That makes it sound so sterile. Unemotional. Yet the episodes are nothing but emotion. Like a pot of water boiling over. The pain and sadness erupt. With no place to go. They held on, held in – as long as possible.

I was hopeful.  Maybe this time. Maybe. Maybe this time we’d found the magic pill. Magic dosage. Magic mix of therapy, medication, support.

It was good while it lasted. A brief respite for my mind and body. And of course for his.

After a relatively calm six weeks, there was an episode a couple of weeks ago; seemingly out of the blue. I was hopeful it was an anomaly. Just a ‘normal’ preteen mess of feelings.

Then yesterday happened. All day I felt a little off. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say I felt more ‘on’. More emotional than normal. I couldn’t place why exactly. Perhaps it was the impending parent/teacher conferences. They give me anxiety. I brushed this overwhelming feeling of sadness that was nagging me all day aside.

But it kept building and building. It was so tangible it couldn’t be ignored. I was filled with this overwhelming feeling of connection to sadness with Noah. I don’t really know how else to describe it.

Then I got the call. The school office. Asking me to come get Noah, he was having a hard day. This should’ve been my first clue. When it isn’t his teacher or support team calling me. Because they are managing him. Trying to prevent more trauma. Trying to keep him safe. So the office needs to call.

“How fast can you get here,” she said, “Umm…so I can tell him.”

“I’ll get in the car and be right over.”

Six minutes later I’m walking in the school. His case manager meets me at the door and as we walk to the room they’re holding him in, she begins to tell me about the steady unraveling of his day. She talks about what a hard day it has turned into. I’m a bit surprised, I didn’t really see it coming. Sometimes, I can. Sometimes, like a summer storm brewing in the distance, you can see the world turn darker, the clouds roll in, gentle rain falling. But we really didn’t have a summer storm rolling in, that I could recall in that moment.

We walked, she talked. In that moment, the details were important. Really they still are. Information that is pertinent to his doctors to determine what is going on inside his brain. But sitting here now, thinking of yesterday afternoon – those details now seem muddled. Hushed. Muted in a way. Just a layering of random undertones compared to what came next.

“And then, I walked back in the room, and he had his grey shirt tied around his neck, his face was so, so red. He was trying to strangle himself.”

This is why the previous details seem less important now, like a faded memory. Because this is all that is stuck in my head. A visual of my son, trying to strangle himself. That Peace, see it is gone.

We stop walking. We are near the room Noah is in. This information settles in my head. My heart. And tears fill the corner of my eyes. There is noise. Kids around me. Teachers in the hall. It is near the end of the school day. Kids walk by laughing. Smiling. Seems like they are in fast forward, while I stand there, the world gently revolving around me and my pain.

This is what I’ve been feeling all day. I guess I did feel it building. But he wasn’t with me, so how could I know? I didn’t know. Yet, I felt overcome with such sadness yesterday, growing, steadily building to the point I began to feel panic. Shortly before I received the call from school, I had started to have trouble getting a breath. Almost grasping for air.

Now I know why.

We walk into the room where Noah is. He’s lying on the floor, face down, under a giant bean bag. Crying. Pouring his sadness into the ground in which lies.

“Hey Buddy,” I softly whisper.

“Go away…GO AWAY! I want to be left alone!”

Then the gentle dance starts between the two of us. Me trying to honor his needs while ensuring his safety. We spent some time in silence. We spent some time sharing words. A mother’s first instinct is to wrap her arms around her child when he’s hurting. I desperately wanted to reach out and hold him, but in this fragile state, that isn’t always what he’s ready for.  I nearly need to sit on my hands to keep from reaching out to touch him.

It took about thirty minutes to get him to a state in which he was ready to go home, ready to make safe choices. We can’t rush this. The car is a dangerous place when in the middle of an emotional breakdown.

The rest of the evening was yet another unraveling of sorts. Better said, a rebuilding. After he sheds the amount of emotion he does in these episodes, it is a slow build back to a sense of normalcy. We usually have more tears, but they are subdued. Based in guilt for putting me through what he did. Based in exhaustion for the effort he expensed while suffering. Slowly, he builds himself back up. His energy is low, but his spirits gradually raise themselves to a more content state. Not happy, but content. We may see a smile or two. But mostly we see a kind of bland existence. One in which he’s satisfied that he’s made it through another day.

I on the other hand now feel the slow build of emotion in myself. Because the previous several hours have been about me being steady and strong for him. Holding emotion in when I can, because my sadness sends him deeper into the darkness. He feels and finds fault in himself for causing that. So I hold it together, best I can, when he’s struggling.

Late at night, when the house is quiet, and his mind is resting, his heart holding steady and the only time he seems with Peace…that is when I let go. That is when I feel sadness and anger, frustration and at times, hopelessness creeps in.

Eventually, the tiredness overwhelms me and I drift off to sleep. My eyes dried of tears. And I rest.

Ready to start a new day. And hope we don’t have to do it all over again.

Before the horizon fills with light, and I am filled with dread. A thousand little bits of worry and fear.