Haunted(10)

Joey’s autism was the perfect example of how my depression unfolded. Eric told me Joey started growling and pushing the kids at school again. We cured him of that with taking away his PlayStation, but now he was pushing and growling again. Kids didn’t like that shit. Some kids with autism only liked to be around people who followed the rules. My kid was like that. When other kids broke the rules, it pissed off Joey so he growled at them, warning them he was pissed. If someone cut in front of him in line, he’d push them, so in turn, no one in his class liked him.

Nothing hurt me more than Joey being ostracized. Several weeks before the kidnapping, I went to the school to have lunch with Joey. I walked into the lunchroom. He sat around other kids but no one was talking to him. He was alone…even with other kids around him. I wanted to grab my baby and take him home—f*ck school—but I didn’t because I knew he needed the interactions with others. I could not let Joey see my pain over this. Finally, I walked up to him and we went and sat down at the table that was reserved for students and parents, I asked him if he liked sitting with the kids at the lunch table. He said that he mostly felt alone. I almost cried on the spot. That was all I could think about for the rest of the day.

The next day as I packed Joey’s lunch box, I put his favorite book inside. When he was leaving for school, I pulled Joey to the side and bent down to his level. “I packed your favorite book in your lunch box.” He looked confused and asked why. I told him, “As long as you have a book, you are never truly alone.” He smiled and to this day he still carries a book to lunch.

From the moment Joey was diagnosed, we tried to help him fit into society. It wasn’t as though we wanted to disguise him, but the goal was to make him not stand out. For him, this was an important task to learn: fitting in. He needed to learn not to push people, to be able to get a job one day. He would have to learn certain social queues, like not growling at people when they pissed him off.

I felt so helpless and sometimes so hopeless. How many times could you tell your son to stop growling at people he didn’t like? My worst fear was that kids would make fun of him and not like him. I could protect him from anything but that. Don’t get me wrong, I would take down a kid if he hurt my baby’s feelings, but then I would have to go to jail.

I worried that Joey would always be awkward and would be rejected by society. What if he didn’t make it, learning to fit in? What if he had to live with me for the rest of his life? That was okay, but what about for him? He might want a wife and kids one day. These were the times I really missed Eric. When one of us would worry, the other would be optimistic. It was a nice, even trade.

Fuck!

It was like the bar of soap in Joey’s bathroom. He sat in the tub and destroyed it. Every. Single. Night. I thought it was a texture thing. My week would go like this:

Joey, don’t tear up the soap.

Next night, Joey I told you not to tear up the soap.

Next night, you will be grounded from your iTouch if you tear it up.

Next night, Joey why did you tear up the soap? You’re grounded. He cried.

Next night, he tore up the soap again.

Why? OCD maybe. So I figured out that I couldn’t keep him from tearing up the soap. Soap was now a metaphor for his life.

Was it fixable or was it soap? Soap being the thing I couldn’t fix. “Fix You” by Coldplay came to mind. When I heard that song, I always teared up. I wanted to make everything good for my baby. Eric and I had spent so much money on listening therapy, ABA therapy, speech therapy, early preschool, DAN Doctors, fish oil, and I could just go on forever.

What people didn’t know was that every parent of autism wanted their baby to learn to speak. After a child spoke, the parent thought the battle was won, but it was not. The battle never stopped. Now he could talk, but he couldn’t really talk, not like a real conversation. How did I help him? I prayed, but God didn’t listen or perhaps he didn’t care. Or at least that was the way I felt sometimes. Why Joey? Why? A helpless little boy.

The doorbell rang, but I didn’t get up. Then I heard knocking.

“Get up or I will pull out my spare key,” Phoebe yelled.

I got up because I knew my spare key was at the bottom of Phoebe’s huge ass purse, and she would be pissed if she had to go through all the shit she had in there.

When I stood, I wobbled on my feet. Maybe four glasses of wine was not such a good idea? I opened the door and saw Phoebe and Eve.

“Hey, this is a pity party of one! Who the hell invited you?” I slurred my words and went to sit on the couch. My ribs still hurt but the pain meds helped a little.

“We invited ourselves. What kind of friends would we be if we couldn’t pity you?” She smiled.

I looked at her but didn’t smile in return.

“What’s wrong?”

I knew Phoebe was asking a rhetorical question, but I still just stared.

“Where to start? I was raped. The love of my life is on tour screwing young groupies. Joey is not doing well in school. I have an ex-husband now. I have a black hair growing out of my chin. Bloody hell…shall I go on? Oh, I think the real question is what is right!”

“Stop thinking about every negative thing in your life!” Phoebe sternly pointed to me as though I didn’t know to whom the f*ck she was talking.

“Well…give Beth something to sing about!” I sang out to her.