I'm amazed.
Savant, with his new determination to move forward, and the help of many kind people on campus, and his Dad and me, seems to have reversed his withdrawal from school.
I think he had not wanted anyone to know about his condition, but the Disabled Student's office has been amazing, once he contacted them. I contacted them first and urged him to work with them. They worked to stop the withdrawal process that was already in motion.
He met with the teachers of the last two classes he had not officially withdrawn from before he decided he wanted out of school. They were kind enough to let him know they would let him stay in the classes (Art History, and Fiction Writing). He is so happy.
I'm sorry that I mistakenly thought Mr. Buckley had taken over his body, when I talked to him on Monday. His Dad had to drive to the college to drop off his Rx refills last night. When he got back, I asked him how Savant had seemed. He said he seemed 21. I said that was wonderful!
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Peeking Out From Behind The Clouds
Savant just called me.
He sounded good. He said he can read and study now. He was panicking before, because he had lost that ability, and it had always been easy for him before.
He wants to continue taking one of his classes, and if he gets an F for all his absences, so be it. That sounded, to me, like a mature decision, if the withdrawal from school has not been completed by the offices mentioned in the last entry.
He has completed a bit more than half of the make-up work for the class he wants to keep. I suggested that he find out if they can un-do the withdrawal. Hopefully, it didn't go through yet. Then talk with his teachers.
I am so happy that he wants to TRY. He wants to go, even if he has already earned an inevitable F. There are worse things than a bad grade, and if all this has helped him get his motivation back, I'm thrilled. I just hope he is still enrolled. He needs to be around other people, live on his own, take care of himself, etc.. and not much of that kind of growth will happen if he returns to living at home with Mom and Dad.
One foot in front of the other..
He sounded good. He said he can read and study now. He was panicking before, because he had lost that ability, and it had always been easy for him before.
He wants to continue taking one of his classes, and if he gets an F for all his absences, so be it. That sounded, to me, like a mature decision, if the withdrawal from school has not been completed by the offices mentioned in the last entry.
He has completed a bit more than half of the make-up work for the class he wants to keep. I suggested that he find out if they can un-do the withdrawal. Hopefully, it didn't go through yet. Then talk with his teachers.
I am so happy that he wants to TRY. He wants to go, even if he has already earned an inevitable F. There are worse things than a bad grade, and if all this has helped him get his motivation back, I'm thrilled. I just hope he is still enrolled. He needs to be around other people, live on his own, take care of himself, etc.. and not much of that kind of growth will happen if he returns to living at home with Mom and Dad.
One foot in front of the other..
Monday, February 20, 2006
Wake Me From This Dream
I have the kind of brain that gets knocked down by the sad things. I have many joys in my life, but I won't list them. A heart that breaks for my child, takes my focus, when I know that all my tears won't change a thing. Will they?
We are living the lives our ancestors dreamed of. My life is more comfortable than, perhaps, the royalty of ancient times. I don't have to swelter in the heat of summer or freeze in the winter. Swat mosquitoes all night or have my food fouled by rot and vermin. Bathrooms, lights, refrigeration, photographs. I don't have to watch my children die from many of the illnesses that took our grandparent's children from them. Didn't they weep and ache for their children's pain, and their own helplessness to save them. Someone was so moved by that pain that they vowed to look for ways to spare future generations from that anguish.
I know I'd be one of the ones saying, "Why do we have to walk so far to gather water? Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could put dirty clothes or dishes in a box and then open it later to find them clean? Or some easy way to cook food without gathering wood to make a fire?" I'm just someone who thinks of impossible things, but I haven't the slightest idea how to accomplish them. What a miracle to give a potion to a sick person and have them come back to health, from the edge of death. I would have thought it impossible to have a box that plays music or shows pictures and tells stories. Or a device that would let me talk to someone far away. Wished that a journey to a far-away place could be faster and safer. I would have wished for a way to take the pain away from the injured; to fix a wound without it festering, maiming, and killing. These were some of the dreams of our ancestors. Impossible to them, but they dreamed them for us, and now they are real.
I don't think Cleopatra had it so good.
All the tears shed for the suffering are, in part, what has led to so many wonderful things. As you know the greatest sadness in my (and my husband's...) life is watching our youngest son experience schizophrenia. I thank all those people who develop new medications and, perhaps, someday, cures for all the incurable conditions that our loved ones suffer from. But today, I weep.
Savant is slipping away, but even he doesn't know where the stream is taking him. He has been panicking and miserable. I called his big brother and his wife to see if they could help him a couple of weeks ago. His sister-in-law has lots of knowledge about Savant's condition and how to help calm some of the panic. They took him to their house and fed and cared for him for a few days. They were wonderful.
He dropped class, after class, hoping that fewer classes would be the answer to his inability to concentrate, the panic and fear that has hold of his body. There are no classes left to drop. He was hoping that going back to school would be the answer to his boredom and feeling of directionlessness; to help him get... back. Can he get back?
School can wait forever, it's not going anywhere. It is not necessary for him to go.
But, this series of events, has brought home, again, that his struggles are so real, so lonely and painful for him. We haven't had a chance to move Savant's things out of his dorm room and he wanted to spend a couple of days there, so his Dad drove him to the town where the college is this weekend and dropped him off.
We spent last week going through the process of withdrawing him from school, through the Disabled Students Office. They said that for him to be able to withdraw, in good standing, the Withdrawal Office would need a letter from his psychiatrist. It was near the deadline to withdraw from classes with just a W, not a WP or WF; so as soon as Savant could get the letter to them, they would make his withdrawal date retroactive to the day I talked to them.
Savant had called us frequently, saying that he was miserable and just couldn't concentrate enough do the work, and he had not been going to many classes, and he hadn't been able to remember to take all of his medicine. Friday I took him to his psychiatrist's office and his counselor had the letter ready. He sighed the release and she faxed it to the University.
I wrote this entry in the morning. At 3:00 PM I called him to see how he was doing and Mr. Buckley, or Savant on --??, answered the phone. He has been writing, getting ready to go to his Fiction Writing Class. He said he had some realizations last night and he thinks he can do all the make-up work and is ready to be serious about taking this class and continue to live in his dorm room. I said I thought he had dropped out of school last week. Did he remember having the letter faxed to the school? Now he has me confused. He thinks he has to get on the school's web site and personally hit the button to finalize the withdrawal; and since he has decided to keep taking this class he won't be withdrawing. I'm confused. He sounds muddled. I assume he's not thinking rationally, so I tell him that I'm glad he's decided to buckle down and I hope his class goes well and hang up the phone. I'm frightened, confused, and I can't stop the tears. I call his Dad. His Dad calls him, and decides that we should leave him alone for today, hope for the best, and talk to him tomorrow, and hopefully he will make more sense, and we'll have a better chance of sorting it out if we aren't talking to Mr. Buckley.
Can't kiss this booboo and make it better.
We dream of an end to war and evil and suffering; for everyone to have food, health, shelter, love and to only weep for joy.
We are living the lives our ancestors dreamed of. My life is more comfortable than, perhaps, the royalty of ancient times. I don't have to swelter in the heat of summer or freeze in the winter. Swat mosquitoes all night or have my food fouled by rot and vermin. Bathrooms, lights, refrigeration, photographs. I don't have to watch my children die from many of the illnesses that took our grandparent's children from them. Didn't they weep and ache for their children's pain, and their own helplessness to save them. Someone was so moved by that pain that they vowed to look for ways to spare future generations from that anguish.
I know I'd be one of the ones saying, "Why do we have to walk so far to gather water? Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could put dirty clothes or dishes in a box and then open it later to find them clean? Or some easy way to cook food without gathering wood to make a fire?" I'm just someone who thinks of impossible things, but I haven't the slightest idea how to accomplish them. What a miracle to give a potion to a sick person and have them come back to health, from the edge of death. I would have thought it impossible to have a box that plays music or shows pictures and tells stories. Or a device that would let me talk to someone far away. Wished that a journey to a far-away place could be faster and safer. I would have wished for a way to take the pain away from the injured; to fix a wound without it festering, maiming, and killing. These were some of the dreams of our ancestors. Impossible to them, but they dreamed them for us, and now they are real.
I don't think Cleopatra had it so good.
All the tears shed for the suffering are, in part, what has led to so many wonderful things. As you know the greatest sadness in my (and my husband's...) life is watching our youngest son experience schizophrenia. I thank all those people who develop new medications and, perhaps, someday, cures for all the incurable conditions that our loved ones suffer from. But today, I weep.
Savant is slipping away, but even he doesn't know where the stream is taking him. He has been panicking and miserable. I called his big brother and his wife to see if they could help him a couple of weeks ago. His sister-in-law has lots of knowledge about Savant's condition and how to help calm some of the panic. They took him to their house and fed and cared for him for a few days. They were wonderful.
He dropped class, after class, hoping that fewer classes would be the answer to his inability to concentrate, the panic and fear that has hold of his body. There are no classes left to drop. He was hoping that going back to school would be the answer to his boredom and feeling of directionlessness; to help him get... back. Can he get back?
School can wait forever, it's not going anywhere. It is not necessary for him to go.
But, this series of events, has brought home, again, that his struggles are so real, so lonely and painful for him. We haven't had a chance to move Savant's things out of his dorm room and he wanted to spend a couple of days there, so his Dad drove him to the town where the college is this weekend and dropped him off.
We spent last week going through the process of withdrawing him from school, through the Disabled Students Office. They said that for him to be able to withdraw, in good standing, the Withdrawal Office would need a letter from his psychiatrist. It was near the deadline to withdraw from classes with just a W, not a WP or WF; so as soon as Savant could get the letter to them, they would make his withdrawal date retroactive to the day I talked to them.
Savant had called us frequently, saying that he was miserable and just couldn't concentrate enough do the work, and he had not been going to many classes, and he hadn't been able to remember to take all of his medicine. Friday I took him to his psychiatrist's office and his counselor had the letter ready. He sighed the release and she faxed it to the University.
I wrote this entry in the morning. At 3:00 PM I called him to see how he was doing and Mr. Buckley, or Savant on --??, answered the phone. He has been writing, getting ready to go to his Fiction Writing Class. He said he had some realizations last night and he thinks he can do all the make-up work and is ready to be serious about taking this class and continue to live in his dorm room. I said I thought he had dropped out of school last week. Did he remember having the letter faxed to the school? Now he has me confused. He thinks he has to get on the school's web site and personally hit the button to finalize the withdrawal; and since he has decided to keep taking this class he won't be withdrawing. I'm confused. He sounds muddled. I assume he's not thinking rationally, so I tell him that I'm glad he's decided to buckle down and I hope his class goes well and hang up the phone. I'm frightened, confused, and I can't stop the tears. I call his Dad. His Dad calls him, and decides that we should leave him alone for today, hope for the best, and talk to him tomorrow, and hopefully he will make more sense, and we'll have a better chance of sorting it out if we aren't talking to Mr. Buckley.
Can't kiss this booboo and make it better.
We dream of an end to war and evil and suffering; for everyone to have food, health, shelter, love and to only weep for joy.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
NOVA The Perfect Corpse PBS Bog People
I don't think I have ever written to a TV show with a comment, but part of this entry comes from an email I wrote to the PBS show NOVA after seeing this week's show on the well preserved bodies found in peat bogs. I love this kind of thing.
There will always be puzzles about them. Many other culture's had peculiar ritual killings as well as just plain old murder. But, it has always bothered me, that so many things assumed about ancient cultures, are supposed to do with the harvest, or religion, or pleasing angry gods or kings, or fertility, or warfare between neighboring rivals. Sometimes, can't it be something more simple? A mentally ill person would live in close contact with the members of the smaller communities of ancient times, and their behavior would have been very scary.
When possible theories about who these bog people were and why they were killed are postulated, one that is not mentioned is schizophrenia.
In our time, we have medication to help people with such conditions, but they still suffer, just not as horribly. Imagine the places they may have held in ancient societies. I can't even imagine the former, goode people of Salem, MA seeing it as something purely blameless and physiological.
It is truly awesome and frightening to witness the manifestations of schizophrenia. Some of the speech can seem prophetic, or rebuke the religious ideas of the community; foretell of attacks from "others"; hearing voices that could be interpreted as coming from good or bad spirits, etc.. They were probably revered in few cultures and persecuted in most.
When they were saying that the bog people were well fed, but their nails showed little evidence of manual work, high status was given as a possible reason; but think, also, an insane person would not be able to manage manual labor either. Perhaps they had family members that loved and cared for these difficult people, who might have been among the first in line to be sacrificed or culled from the community.
There is probably no way to tell yet, from DNA, or any other evidence, if it was a factor. But a burial, away from the other people, and in the bog, may have signified that the person might have been thought to possess an evil spirit, that did not belong among the living or the normal dead.
I would love to know more about the beliefs of ancient groups, trying to make sense of the transformation of a previously rational and intellegent person, when they became schizophrenic, and how they were treated.
There will always be puzzles about them. Many other culture's had peculiar ritual killings as well as just plain old murder. But, it has always bothered me, that so many things assumed about ancient cultures, are supposed to do with the harvest, or religion, or pleasing angry gods or kings, or fertility, or warfare between neighboring rivals. Sometimes, can't it be something more simple? A mentally ill person would live in close contact with the members of the smaller communities of ancient times, and their behavior would have been very scary.
When possible theories about who these bog people were and why they were killed are postulated, one that is not mentioned is schizophrenia.
In our time, we have medication to help people with such conditions, but they still suffer, just not as horribly. Imagine the places they may have held in ancient societies. I can't even imagine the former, goode people of Salem, MA seeing it as something purely blameless and physiological.
It is truly awesome and frightening to witness the manifestations of schizophrenia. Some of the speech can seem prophetic, or rebuke the religious ideas of the community; foretell of attacks from "others"; hearing voices that could be interpreted as coming from good or bad spirits, etc.. They were probably revered in few cultures and persecuted in most.
When they were saying that the bog people were well fed, but their nails showed little evidence of manual work, high status was given as a possible reason; but think, also, an insane person would not be able to manage manual labor either. Perhaps they had family members that loved and cared for these difficult people, who might have been among the first in line to be sacrificed or culled from the community.
There is probably no way to tell yet, from DNA, or any other evidence, if it was a factor. But a burial, away from the other people, and in the bog, may have signified that the person might have been thought to possess an evil spirit, that did not belong among the living or the normal dead.
I would love to know more about the beliefs of ancient groups, trying to make sense of the transformation of a previously rational and intellegent person, when they became schizophrenic, and how they were treated.
Friday, February 03, 2006
The Mandarin's Beautiful Translations
I just read The Mandarin's latest publication in the magazine "Renditions", and found it very moving. It is a collection of quatrains written by women who lived within the confines of Tang Palace life.
His thoughtful translations open a personal view into the lives and thoughts of these women. Once the Emperor's ardor shifted to a new lady, most of the thousands that had once held his attention, languished in loneliness and isolation. That is why so many of these short poems are sad or melancholy. And beautiful!
Imagine writing a poem on a leaf and setting it to float away in a stream that runs through the grounds. Isolation, like that, would have led me to write poems and suffer. What a waste of beautiful, talented women. I have the feeling that an illicit relationship might have resulted in the woman's death, or demotion to latrine cleaner.
I look forward to reading his two new works when they are published:
"White Crane: Love Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama" and "Broken Willow: the Complete Poems of Yu Xuanji".
I'm particularly curious about "White Crane", because I thought the Dalai Lamas were celibate. (Personal Opinion: Celibacy seems like such an unnatural rule to impose on these bodies we are packaged in.) Are they songs of spiritual love?
His thoughtful translations open a personal view into the lives and thoughts of these women. Once the Emperor's ardor shifted to a new lady, most of the thousands that had once held his attention, languished in loneliness and isolation. That is why so many of these short poems are sad or melancholy. And beautiful!
Imagine writing a poem on a leaf and setting it to float away in a stream that runs through the grounds. Isolation, like that, would have led me to write poems and suffer. What a waste of beautiful, talented women. I have the feeling that an illicit relationship might have resulted in the woman's death, or demotion to latrine cleaner.
I look forward to reading his two new works when they are published:
"White Crane: Love Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama" and "Broken Willow: the Complete Poems of Yu Xuanji".
I'm particularly curious about "White Crane", because I thought the Dalai Lamas were celibate. (Personal Opinion: Celibacy seems like such an unnatural rule to impose on these bodies we are packaged in.) Are they songs of spiritual love?
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