Enough worrying already

I have barely worked this week. Well.......appraisal work anyway. I have appraisal work that needs to be done, but I have set it aside and made Jennica, and my sanity, the priority this week. Honestly.....I'm wondering if its back-fired on me. Without the distraction of being absorbed in appraisals, I've had time to let my brain run away with its worst fears. But then I have also realized that those fears, worries and anxieties are always there, and that I usually just shove them aside to focus on the immediate need of the moment by telling myself that I'll think about it "later." But "later" never comes and I fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day. So.......with my hands busy during the day this week, I have had my brain free to reflect on all the things that worry me.

1) I worry that Jennica is not truly improving, despite all the monumental efforts we're making. SPD is not like a common cold, where the symptoms disappear. It is more just an ever-changing landscape of tolerance. So..........I worry that Jennica hasn't improved as much as we have just catered her world around her to keep getting through each hour of each day.

2) I worry that the monumental efforts we are making for Jennica's SPD is taking away from the quality of time I have for my other three children. Especially Tiersten.

3) I worry that the financial burden of SPD, the sensory tools, the diet, the supplements, the medical bills, the therapy bills, the cost of driving to all these appointments, and the toll it all takes on my workload and earning power is going to "swamp the boat" at some point.

4) I worry that the decision to delay medication is not the right one. And then I worry that if we try medicating again, it will be as disastrous as the last time we tried it. But how do we not try something that might help her?

5) I worry that I have a closer relationship with our OT than I have with any friends right now.

6) I worry that one of these days I'm going to punch some higher-than-thou parent figure that tries to tell me that all children should be fully vaccinated and that dietary intervention is a crock, but then when I push them for why they have that opinion, they can't speak fluently about IgG food intolerances, thimerosol, aluminum, leaky gut, or anything else remotely related to the medical side of neuro-developmental disorders. And then they haul off and make some dumb remark about how they watched some segment on ABC News...........live the life and walk the walk 24/7/365 before you try to sell me some information you got from watching 15 minutes of TV!

7) I also worry that I'm going to scream at a school staff member one of these days when they tell me that they just don't understand why she's having a bad day, and then give me a whole list of things that have happened at school that could have easily sent her reeling and could have been avoided if they would only utilize the tools we've given them.

8) I worry that Jennica really needs to be home-schooled, and admit that this scares the heck out of me because I don't think I can meet her educational and social needs in a home-schooling environment. I also worry that if we were to home-school her, she would never become a functional adult. How do you build tolerance for sensory input by putting a child in an environment that meets their precise sensory needs? You don't!

9) I worry that there simply aren't enough hours in the day to grocery shop, prepare meals for my family, get everyone where they need to be wearing clean clothes, keep the house clean, help with homework, pay the bills, make the bank deposit, finish three appraisals, feed my horse, make Jennica's gluten-free lunches, do her vision therapy exercises, actually converse with my husband and children about their days AND not be grumpy and tired 100% of the time. I don't want my children to remember a mom that was always stressed out and at the end of her rope.

10) I worry that I can't keep Jennica safe. As she is getting older, her "comfort zone" is naturally expanding as she sees her peers getting more freedoms. However, many of her peers have triggers in their brains that tell them where to stop. I worry that I'm going to finally allow her to go to the concession stand at a football game with her sister, and she'll be 1/2 a mile away and happily talking to complete strangers before we catch up with her. Or worse. Much worse. (Never thought I would consider a GPS device for my child, but this child is changing my mind.)

11) I worry that everyone thinks I'm crazy and that Jennica just needs some "good discipline".

12) I worry that one of these days I'm going to start sobbing and not be able to stop.