She's Come Undone.

A big dose of reality hit me yesterday in the afternoon and again in the evening at my Bible study while telling my friends about it. But I wasn't prepared for the onslaught of emotion when I was finally able to spend time alone with Sean and tell him about my experience.

I won't go into detail here because, quite frankly, I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about my special needs boys and their issues. I don't have any reservations about going into it, but honestly - do you really want to know? That's what I thought.

Let's just say this. I'm not new to this arena, but doggone it, if it doesn't blindside me every so often.

When you have any type of special needs child, you go through a range of emotions that never ends. In my life, I have dubbed it "cycling." For example, with me it is fear, panic, denial, anger, realization, resignation, and finally - absolute resolve. And then it starts over again, perhaps triggered by some event, or simply the daily grind of dealing with it wearing me down.

This cycling can be months long or just weeks for me, depending on many factors. But I am usually aware of it and deal with the emotions accordingly in various ways. I've been doing this as the mother of an autistic child for three years now.

However, Joel's issues and diagnoses are fairly recent and, in fact, still being worked out. I have been cycling through this with him now for a short time, but amazingly, didn't realize it. Yesterday a situation made me feel crazy and stupid and blind and completely like I'd never been through any of this before. Like I said, it blindsided me and made me realize that I'm in the middle of a whole different cycle of emotions with Joel's issues. I'm in the beginning.

I foolishly thought that going through these things with a second child would be "old hat," and that I'd handle it all very differently and fine. How very naive of me. I've been somewhere in the denial area and just fell backwards, down a hill, and into the hole of anger and realization yesterday and last night. Now it's time to start digging my way out.

Common sense would dictate that it should be easier this time around, or somehow less upsetting. But much of the time when dealing with the autism spectrum or emotional problems, things make little to no sense at all, much less any of it being "common."

Do you know what it's like to feel crazy? I mean - the actual definition of crazy: foolish, idiotic, ridiculous, unwise. That's how I feel.

Like I said - time to dig out.