Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs Read Online Free PDF Page B

Josh’s Eyes
     
F orget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.
William Durant
     
    After years of doctors, counselors, and visits to the school, the word “bipolar” should have been a relief. My thirteen-year-old son had always been different and unusual, but the problems had escalated. Even if it was my fault, as one doctor told me, our family and my son needed help, and we weren’t getting it. Not until now. The words hung in the air, and I swear I could touch them— they were so heavy and dense.
    Josh sat with my husband and me as the doctor told us what bipolar disorder is, described the symptoms, and outlined the line of treatment that was needed. But all I remember hearing were two words—bipolar disorder.
    After our meeting, my son and husband were picking up some literature and filling out paperwork, so I offered to go warm up the car. There was snow on the ground. I remember feeling like my whole life was in a frozen picture. I couldn’t think; I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t cry. I was numb.
    At that very moment, my husband and son jumped into the car, and I remember looking into the rearview mirror and seeing my son grinning from ear to ear. He jumped into the seat and said, “Mom, let’s go celebrate.”
    At that very moment, I knew that my son was in the middle of what the doctor had described as a “manic episode.” Why else would he say something so ludicrous?
    As calmly as I could, I turned to him and said, “Son, I’d love to go celebrate, but what exactly are we celebrating?”
    And with the most sincere voice I have ever heard, he looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t you get it, Mom? We’re celebrating because I am sick. I’m not evil.”
    It was in that moment that I realized it was time for me to start seeing things the way my son did. I thought we had been striving for normality, but all along he had been fighting for his soul.
    Deborah Rose
     
    Deborah Rose is a private investigator, spending her free time advocating for people with mental illness. She is heavily involved with the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Texas as an educator and stigma buster. Deborah enjoys reading, writing, debating, and eBaying. Full-time writing is next on her agenda. Joshua is now a twenty-two-year-old college graduate with a degree in business management and marketing, working as a case manager for the Salvation Army while working toward his master’s degree in business. He is also working on a documentary that focuses on the shared problems of teens and young adults, whether they have mental illness or not. Please e-mail Deborah at [email protected].
     

The Voice of Reason Wears
SpongeBob Underpants
     
I n the book of life, the answers are not in the back.
Charlie Brown
     
    “Oh, my child will never behave like that in public,” I remember smugly telling a friend over lunch one day. “I simply won’t allow it.” Seven months pregnant with my first baby, I watched in horror as a preschool-aged girl screamed, kicked, and flailed while her humiliated mother tried to drag her away from the play area and out the door.
    “I tell you, I’ll never let a three-year-old run my life!” I smirked as we got back to our discussion of nursery themes.
    Looking back, I seemed to have all the answers regarding child rearing before I ever had one of my own: when and what they should eat, the proper cartoons to watch, which toys they should be playing with, the best way to potty-train. If it concerned children, this expectant mother had an opinion about all the “right” ways to do things, and shame on anyone who disagreed!
    So sure was I that badly behaved children were the direct result of bad parenting that nothing short of a whack over the head could have convinced me otherwise. And, as karma would have it, that whack occurred late one night in June 2003 in the form of a four-pound, nine-ounce screeching baby boy.
    Difficult from the