Overwhelmed

Have you ever felt the squeeze in your chest that insane urge to cry, the need to scream, and either fight back or run away? That simple feeling of being overwhelmed...

What is being overwhelmed?

 overwhelm o·ver·whelm

1. overpower somebody emotionally: to affect somebody's emotions in a complete or irresistible way

and

3. overcome somebody physically: to use superior strength, force, or numbers to defeat somebody completely

 Recently this has been where I am. Overwhelmed. I feel the demands on my back keep getting heavier and heavier with little to no recourse. No-one to help shoulder the load. It's not that others don't try. I am blessed beyond measure with friends and family that help where they can. Unfortunately though right now the beast that is being fought can only be fought by two people. Me and Frog. That beast is Autism.

Frog is having a hard time in school. He is at the point where he is failing two classes out of four (he was failing 3 but finally got papers turned in to one of them). The issue lies not in him knowing the work, but in him actually getting that point across to the teacher. You see Frog is very smart, but like every person on this earth he has weak points. 

One of Frog’s weak points is organization and process.  Frog can identify a mathematical pattern a mile away, but he has a hard time with procedures like every morning turn in your paper.  He will forget to put his name on it, he will forget to finish it, or he will just plain forget.  I can look at his school grades online and I feel anxiety when I see he is missing 5 assignments.  When asking him why, I get a reply of “I Forgot”.  We can stay up for 4 hours one night working on homework, just for him to “forget” to turn it in the next day.  I know.  This happened Monday night.  Last night he went back in the class to get something and set his math book down.  He forgot his math book.  We have tried memory aids, notes, and reminders, but unfortunately without them being interactive, he tunes them out just as quickly as he tunes them in. 

Another of Frog’s weak points is word problems.  With his ADHD on top of Autism, he has a difficult time deciphering what is important in word problems and what is trivial information.  The current math program by our local school district is called “Every Day Math”.  It is 90% word problems.  The concept is that kids will grasp the concepts of math better if a question is stated “When Anna was 11 her bedroom has one wall eight feet long and one wall ten feet long.  If Anna’s room is a rectangle, what is the area of her room?” Vs. Find the area of a rectangle 8”x11”.  Frog gets stuck on the fact that Anna’s 11 and so is he and she has her own bedroom and what color are the walls and ohh I need to do my spelling tonight, hey can we read a book, speaking of books when are we going to watch The Hunger Games? 

Four hours.  Four hours of trying to get his homework done, and helping Monkey with his homework, and playing with ladybug, and doing dishes, and and and.  This is where it is my problem, my issues, my fault.  Finding time for fun, for excitement, for happiness in the evenings for both me and the kids.  Right now we are full of obligations.  Church, Boy Scouts, Icecream Monday’s, Cub Scouts, Piano Lessons, Choir, Physical Therapy oh and regular therapy needs to start back up, and we still have to do that blasted four hours of Homework. I am better; I can do this.  But sometimes, sometimes I am Overwhelmed.