November 4, 2007...it's blurry

We got moved into the new house and I hoped that things would miraculously improve. Maybe there were just too many changes in our lives and once we got into the house and settled, everything would calm down. Maybe I was just a nervous nelly and seeing things that weren't really there. I always did have a pretty active imagination so maybe I was just imagining things that weren't abnormal at all. And I did trust everyone that was telling me that he was fine and honestly, I liked hearing that.

It's funny. I can vividly remember so may times in my life from a very young age, through high school, college, my first few years in radio, my wedding. But those first few years with Jakob are a different story. I remember panic attacks, uncontrollable crying (his and mine) and an overall feeling of helplessness but that's pretty much it. That time period seems more like an out-of-body experience. I wasn't really there. I mean, I couldn't have been. I was a happy, fun-loving, positive-thinking girl with not a worry in the world...not the girl that was living in the new house with Jakob. That girl was anything but in control. That girl was lost. And that girl wasn't having any fun at all. I certainly tried but it sure seemed like nothing was going as planned.

I had never known stress like that, the kind that never lets up. Every waking moment was filled with anxiety and I wasn't sleeping much. Jakob would wake up in the middle of the night and be up for hours. The only thing that kept him happy were Baby Einstein movies so we owned the entire library.

I've never done well with sleep deprivation and I was definitely suffering from it. Work was hard, home was hard, everything was hard. I kept up with the medication.

The bickering between his dad and me kept getting worse and worse. We didn't agree on anything...especially anything to do with Jakob or money. I knew the conflict surrounding Jakob had to be affecting him so I tried not to fight in front of him. But we were fighting all the time, so it was hard to shield him from it. Even when we weren't arguing, you could still cut the tension with a knife. If he didn't hear it, he had to feel it.

Since Jakob was only 18 months old when we moved into the house, we were still rationalizing all his different behaviors. He wasn't talking yet, but the doctor said not to worry until he was 2. Whenever we'd try to take him somewhere and he'd freak out, we'd write it off to he's hungry or tired. When he ignored other kids, we said that he just wasn't used to being around other kids. When he'd ignore adults, we figured he was just picky and if he didn't take any interest in them then they weren't doing anything interesting.

I kept up with all my research, still leaning toward Autism but at the time, all the research said that it usually didn't get diagnosed until the age of 3. I was playing the waiting game and hoping all the red flags would go away.

Looking back, I'm pretty proud that I made it through as well as I did.

I don't beat myself up for that time anymore. I was absolutely doing the best that I could. I was in new territory. I was still using the old problem-solving skills. This was just a whole new kind of problem and the answers weren't coming as fast as I wanted them to. And the problem was of a completely different nature. There was something wrong with my child and I believed it was my fault. Tough pill to swallow. But every waking hour, I was doing the best that I could...and I knew Jakob was doing his best too.