Mom

My little brother Thelly (age 10) has some mental....issues. He has no official diagnosis, but many symptoms of ADD, OCD, TS, and probably several other combinations of random letters. All Autism-related stuff. He's a really sweet kid but... he has, for want of a better term, 'problems'.

He needs everything being right. The right order, the right wording, doing everything right, every one around him doing every thing right, everything written right, keeping up the right schedule in the right order everyday, etc. When something happens wrongly enough, he can't wrap his brain around it and freaks out and has a tantrum. He screams and bellows and sobs and hits/breaks things, etc.

And Mom has to be there to try to calm him down. I guess Thelly has no problem taking out his anger on her, or else he doesn't realize that's what he's doing. It's really hard on her, I can tell.

Here's an example:

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Scaffy wanted to do his writing (they have to practice writing every day in the summer so they don't forget) in the car and Thelly didn't think he should. And I was not as patient and attentive as I should have been at explaining the concept of agency. So he had a total melt down because he could not understand why I let Scaffy make choices that Thelly doesn't like. I don't know where the blood was coming from. I think it was his mouth and not his arm which he had been biting......

I ended up on the phone with Dad (My Dad, her husband) crying because "no one knows and no one understands and I just go on everyday and pretend like everything is fine because I don't know what else to do and I think it's easier to ignore it than get upset."......

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Look Mom, I know you're gonna make me take this down and I'm ok with that, but I just want to let you know how much I love you and appreciate all the hard work you do with Thelly and our whole family and I'm sorry I get mad at you sometimes and I know Thelly loves you too and I'm sorry I didn't blog about your birthday and.... and I love you so much and I'm so glad you're my Mom.

I just wanted you to know that I see how much your struggle through for Thelly and for all the rest of us to and I wanted you to get some recognition for it. Thank you, thank you for everything. I love you, Mom. I'm praying for you.

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