{"id":847,"date":"2007-08-02T06:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-02T06:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2007\/08\/in-the-thick-of-it\/"},"modified":"2007-08-02T06:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-02T06:38:00","slug":"in-the-thick-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/in-the-thick-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Thick of It"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s that little souvenir<\/span>
of a terrible year<\/span>
which makes my eyes feel sore.<\/span>
–The Sundays<\/span><\/p>\n

This will probably go down in my history as the worst summer in my life. I have been battling my own depression and Nat’s anxiety, as well as dealing with Max’s new teenage attitude of distance. That is not to say that every single day has been bad, not at all; but I have never felt so discouraged for such a long time. I am discouraged about how to help and reach Nat and I am discouraged by my own inability to remain positive and avoid self-destructive behavior. The worse things get, the more worn out I get, and then I am less able to do what I need to do for anyone.<\/p>\n

And yet I see that there has been an improvement in Nat. The pre-warn is a very good thing for him, by which I mean a simple reminder of the salient points for the following day. He was happy this morning. Ben, however, has just about had it with him and has been yelling back at him when he starts to obsess. Ben feels like Nat pushes him around. There is alot to balance here; Ben is not allowed to be rude but he certainly can feel however he feels about his brother. So I talked to him for a while last night in the privacy of his room to get a sense of how he’s doing. I tried to point out Nat’s good qualities but Ben does not want to appreciate Nat these days. Still, I think it’s important to remind him of Nat’s overall sweetness, helpfulness, and progress. I have to hope that this helps somehow.<\/p>\n

I check in on Max however much he allows. He is building a computer for Ben (it is a surprise) and I am so blown away by this. I am so glad that he is kindhearted and wise. Even though he has his flaws (he is very sedentary and technology-oriented) he is a delight. I love the way he loves Ben. The two of them fit together like a puzzle. I wish they could include Nat more, and I am trying to come up with more things they all three can do together or have in common. Ben’s therapist suggested even going around the dinner table once and telling a joke (or trying). I don’t know. I don’t want Ben to become even more exasperated with Nat. Maybe we can vary it, and each person do their favorite stim, instead. Mine would be either twirling my hair or clicking “get mail” on Precious. Nat’s is probably squeezing words into different shapes and creating a rhythm out of them. Max’s is maybe rolling his dreadlocks; Ben’s got a funny little throat-clearing cough. Ned’s favorite stim? Humming and tapping. It’s my clue that he’s feeling happy. <\/p>\n

I have a feeling that when this period in my life is over I am going to have learned a lot. But right now, I’m in the middle of it and just holding on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s that little souvenirof a terrible yearwhich makes my eyes feel sore.–The Sundays This will probably go down in my history as the worst summer in my life. I have been battling my own depression and Nat’s anxiety, as well as dealing with Max’s new teenage attitude of distance. That is not to say that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-dF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}