Trying to understand. Trying to be understood.

Everyday I rush home after work. I have to get home exactly at 3 o'clock to meet Grant on time. I have to get on his bus to help him off. I block him from the bus driver so he does not try to grab the wheel or touch any buttons. He slowly, methodically steps so very carefully down the steps. He wants to take in every possible second from this bus experience. As this IS the most exciting part of his day. Once we get off, he turns around to play with the doors. I have to block him and carefully move him away from the bus so he can watch it drive away.

Every time we are alone, it is full of ups and downs. There are these beautiful moments after school where we run, chase, and tickle. But then there's a moment where it might turn and I cannot get him back into a playful, happy place.

On this day (Dec 5), I decide to give him a bath. We have been doing this schedule since September. This is not new to him to wait for his dad to come home. Today he is not excited to take his bath. I eventually talk him into it and I can tell I have spiked his anxiety to a very high level and yet now in my own stubbornness I don't want to turn around. I don't want to find something else to do. I want to give him a bath. This should not be complicated. Grant is not content. He is no longer playful and his stress is causing him to hit his head more and more. I have to make a decision and I decide that we will just wash his hair and get out of the bath. The fact that this is going so horribly, makes me decide to relinquish myself from the duty of bath time for some unknown time.

This is extremely stressful for both of us. I cannot get him to lie down to get his hair wet and I cannot get him to do anything that I'm asking. I have to dump the water carefully over his head and as I do this I increase his stress level more and more. But I follow through, I have been told by many professionals that when I tell him to do something that I will have to follow through. In this moment, I am stressed, angry, and I want to be done. And that is what we do. We get it done and he hates every second of it. He is pounding his head so hard I am pretty sure he could cause a concussion if he kept at it. I start looking for bruises.

It takes some effort to get him re-dress. I want to dry his hair. The boys have been using the blow dryer for over a week now with success. I try. I fail. He wants nothing to do with the blow-dryer. Every second, every minute that is going on he pounds and pounds his head. My fear is very high. I realize he could at least wear his gloves. He is naked now as I try to move on to the next task. And this time, remarkably, he is cooperative and briefly gets dressed. In my hope that Grant understands my words I sit down next to him and talk slowly and carefully. I tell him that it is time for him to go to a hospital far away where Mommy and Daddy are not going to be able to stay. Tears stream down my face as I lose my composure that I had a just a moment ago. I'm trying so hard to get him to understand that there is no alternative anymore. I attempt to explain that his behavior with the self-injury, hitting us, and his refusal to eat food means that he has no other choice but to be hospitalized across the country. He stares at me; he seems to be taking something in. But I really don't know. If you don’t know Grant, you might not know his communication level. He can talk and he does say things. Typically they are one or 2 word combinations. Some things make sense and others do not. It takes time to learn how he makes words (articulation). He can be quiet for long periods.

He has been quiet for some time after his bath. About 10 or 15 minutes pass and he says “airplane”. Now I am wondering if he might have understood my attempts to explain the hospital to him. As “typical”, I don’t really know.