The Mindstorm

Category: parenting

  • Ten Minutes for Mom

    I called my doctor last Monday morning and got his answering machine.  Most people who don’t have urgent care near them and aren’t sick enough for the emergency room wait with scrapes and sniffles and coughs over the weekend to see their primary care doctor on Monday.  So I wasn’t surprised I had to leave…

  • Really Nice Weekend

    Tim was struggling with his voices last week.  Last Monday he got agitated over something seemingly small, and put his hands around a therapist’s neck as if to strangle them.  He was about to grip when they said he crumpled to the floor, sobbing, hands on his head, complaining that they won’t go away.  His…

  • Constantly Trying to Remember That We’re Not Alone

    I’m watching the Oprah Show dated February 18th, with Laurie and her son Zach.  Laurie says, right off the bat, she knew something was wrong, right off the bat.  Zach raged out of control.  He was a threat to his family and classmates.  He brandished a knife at his mom.  He was so violent with…

  • Guest Blog for CABF: Letting Stuff Go

    My parents were with us over the holidays.  It was a nice time – they live in Arizona and us in Chicago, so we haven’t had the ability to spend the holidays together in five years.  My parents understand Tim’s condition well and do a great job of understanding how to handle his moods and idiosyncracies,…

  • Tim’s Story – My Guest Blog on Our Journey Through Life

    How do you explain when it began?  I didn’t know at the time what was going on.  But hindsight, as the saying goes, is 20/20.  I often wonder if we’d not taken things our pediatrician said as gospel, not questioned a specialist who made a judgment call, pressed more for information, if we wouldn’t be…

  • Missed

    Photo by bottled_void I am not happy.  I miss Tim more than usual.  And even though our last phone conversation (by the way, follow up on my last post, he’s doing ok, just “busy mom, gosh…”) went fine, I can’t help feeling that I need to be near him.  I wonder if, for the first…

  • WTF, or Transitory Irritation

    So, Tim’s caseworker emails that she wants to have a family session by phone to talk about what happened the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  I know, I’m repeating myself, but that’s where today’s freak out (on my part) starts. I set up a time with her for tomorrow, and off-handledly mentioned in my email that they…

  • Paranoia

    Tim’s caseworker emailed today and wants to schedule a time next week when we can have a family therapy session via telephone.  It’s a four hour drive round trip to ODTC, so by phone is easier to schedule, but a family therapy session rarely goes well, by phone or in person.  Tim hates it when…

  • Gratitude

    These are the railroad tracks that run behind the high school my children attend. That’s Graham Clarke under the sheet. Graham was 17 years old, literally a week from starting his senior year of high school to hang with friends, play lacrosse, and graduate on to his adult life.  Read the rest at CABF’s website.

  • Mom FAIL

    I am THE worst mom in the whole freakin’ world, according to the evidence.  If you work in retail support, as I do, this time of year is IN – SANE.  Freakishly insane.  Crazy, insomnia-inducing, working 80 hours a week, never home, living on fast food, forgetting what your husband looks like and ignoring your…