You'd think no reality can come close to the worst imaginings that the old devil can plant in an empty heart. The realities of attention deficit, oppositional defiance, and obsessive behavior disorders are coming close.
Being the genetic source of his disabilities, and having coped with them myself fairly successfully for 36 years without diagnosis and treatment before crashing. I though I was equipted to not only understand him but to help guide him through it.
It's taken him less than 90 days to disprove my notions that I'm as screwed up as I am because I have had extreme circumstances that induced civilian and combat PTSD which layered over and intertwined with my (&his) genetic problems.
I believed that with the help of clinicians who were better trained and equipt that he wouldn't have to blindly struggle through as much as I did.
What I see is such a good clone of myself that I would have blamed myself for having taught him by example if I'd been around him.
I see a bright capable young man with exceptional intelligence that don't have enough common sense to see that the roof needs patched unless it's raining.
His immediate needs or requirements and consideration of the steps involved take second place to actions and ideas externally motivated. This keeps his focus and priorities on things and people around him, making him more help to others than himself.
How he's feeling at any given time seems to play a large role in this. If he helps other it's gratifying and feels good. If he takes prescribed actions for himself, like filling out an application or other paperwork it's frustrating trying to decide what to put down and makes him feel nervous.
He seems so anxious about saying or putting the wrong thing and screwing it up that he'll avoid putting anything and guarentee that it will be a screw up in that he won't even be considered for the service (or whatever) that filling out the form acommodates.
Did I mention that I'm also talking about myself as well? Does it sound like I'm reading myself into him?
Is it possible that he could have PTSD too? He was only 7 month old when he got burned over 30 percent. That incident was one of the stressors that led to my big crash.
There was another stressor that overlapped it for me too. In that same time frame my youngest brother was shot in a hunting accident by our cousin. They were out deer hunting. Alvin had an open sight 22 and was to take a kneeling shot while the cousin was to follow up with his scoped 22 from a standing shot. Alvin made a good shot and jumped up in excitement just as Ted squeezed off his shot. Ted is one of those guys that closes his off eye.
The bullit entered behind his left ear. The largest frag lodged behind his right eyebrow. Although he was concious the whole time my cousin carried him out of the woods and until they were in the ambulance, Alvin was in a coma by the time they reached the hospital.
Because Alvin was young and fit, they put him on a ventilator even though he showed no activity on and EEG. He hadn't signed the donor blank on his drivers liscenes and they wanted us to authorize them to harvest his organs. We decided that Alvin made the decision not to donate by not signing and we refused to authorize it against his wishes.
Alvin didn't have good insurance and our family don't have the kind of money to pay for long term care so they pulled the plug right away.
This stuff on the news about Terry is raising lots of personal issues. They weave and relate back to issues involving Matthew and Alvin.
His mother's law suite has been postponed once again until mid-June. She's suing me for $35,000 because I stopped paying child support when she went into hiding with Matt.
The child support agency started returning my checks and suggested I open an escrow account to put the payments in. I was having hell trying to keep a job and had already pawned or sold everything I owned that she didn't take in the divorce. I couldn't even pay rent, so of course I didn't bank any money 'just in case'.
With my disabilities and lack of work, I had lawful cause to have the payments reduced to a minimum or stopped all togather. I didn't pursue the paperwork. Now I'm forced to.
My dad loaned me the money to hire a lawyer. The lawyer says that I can not only beat her case, but that Matthew and I have strong grounds for a counter-suite. Realistically, I don't think I'll do that paperwork either.
I just want to be left alone to build the family a place with my hands and a little salvage while my mind drifts here and there as it's prone to do. I may even get some of the projects finished. Eventually.
