Raising to Residential

When you get pregnant for the first time, you plan. Even sometimes unknowingly you plan a child's entire life before they are even out of the womb. You plan how you will raise them, what sports they will be in, even what it will be like to send them off to college.

That is why there is a grieving process for parent of kids who experience Mental Health disorders. I will never say that is is comparable to the loss of a child because it is not. I do think its important for parents to know that it is natural to grieve the life that you had planned for your child.

I started writing journals when I was pregnant with my son. I had an interesting situation in my pregnancy when our family was having four or five other babies that year all within a 3 month time frame. My grandfather said that he wanted to see his great grandchildren before he passed. My son was born first. The others all followed within 3 months and my grandfather met every single one of them. He passed two days before my son's first birthday.

Due to the amount of kids born in the same time period , I was able to watch the kids grow in milestones that my son wasn't reaching. As a first time single mother, I took a lot of that onto myself. I thought that I was doing something wrong. Going over the checklist in the doctor's office made me anxious in a way that I cant even explain.

Then, I recieved his first diagnosis of Autism. Autism is something that is tested and leveled over years. I had to learn an entirely new way of living for him. We moved to Arizona at the time a few years before Covid hit. A month before Covid hit my life with my son changed forever.

I had already spent years getting used to Autism, and beginning to homeschool him. Then in February of 2020 I woke up in the middle of the night to something that I will never forget. My dog woke me up and I realized that my son was not on the other side of the room in his bed. I assumed he was sleepwalking again so I went to go look for him. I found him in the kitchen, a month before he turned six years old holding a sharp object to his stomach.

I still thought that he was sleep walking and you should never disturb someone who is no matter what age they are. So, as calmy as I could in that moment I askede him what he was doing. The next words he spoke are words that will never leave me.

"I have to make the voices go away."

So, I took him to the emergency room at the Phoenix Children's hospital. I was hoping for some kind of rational explanation. They immeadietly took him to the back and I went into a room with a doctor and a social worker due to his age. They asked me what he was watching, I told them that he had limited screen time and I monitored everything that he watched. But sure, no parent was perfect and I was happy to accept any rational explanation.

So, I was out pacing the halls for what seemed like forever when they went in to talk to my son to find a rational reason for what was happening. When they came out of the room, the looks on their faces said everything that I feared as a mother.

My son was experiencing psychosis in a way that they had never seen someone his age describe. That began his first inpatient stay. I will tell you they dont diagnose that young. He is 12 years old now, diagnosed with Schizophrenia and Autism. He is currently in his 17th inpatient stay and the time has come.

We have our fourth meeting for Residential Care for him. I was told when he was very young that it would not be safe for me to raise him forever. His last inpatient stay began when he threatened to unalive the entire family.

My son lives with a mind that most people would not survive one day in. He loves so hard and he tries so hard to make it through everyday until he cant. Over the past seven years, no medication has ever fully helped his psyhcosis. Its hard for him, if he leaves the house he winds up in an episode at home.

Now, we are looking into long term care and as a mother, this is one of the hardest journeys that I have ever had to go through. I miss him and I also don't really know who I am when I am not taking care of him.

Now, its the time to start figuring that out.