Panic Attack at 4 AM
I was going to get out of bed at 4 am and start writing this but I convinced myself to try to go back to sleep and I did finally fall asleep. It took a while but I laid in bed breathing and thinking calming thoughts. I woke up from some sounds and I didn’t think anything of it until all of the sudden my mind was flooded with thoughts. I couldn’t stop thinking, millions of thoughts tickering through my brain and they wouldn’t stop. My heart was racing and I then felt the pressure in my chest. I could feel the adrenaline flowing through my brain and then I was struck with the “I am crazy” thoughts.
I know why this happened and thankfully I knew that I was just having a panic/anxiety attack.
I am still quite sensory sensitive, well lets say my usual sensory issues are heightened at this moment for some reason. Yesterday was hard for me and about noonish everyone was feeling it. The weather was kind of mixed cloudy/sunny may rain may not and that usually makes for entertaining days when that happens. My head was a cloud, I couldn’t think very well, I was irritable and very tired. Then just when I had resolved all of my issues from the Sunday at church thing and my Monday being a bit too much I received an email from the Children’s Leader/Pastor I am not sure what to call him.
They have made yet another change.
This change sent me into a whirlwind of complete confusion. My first response “We are done with this church”. They have made a change that to most is not a big deal but for us it adds another whole element of inconsistency and constant unknowing. They have issued team leaders, which is fine and dandy I have no problem with that but the one over Daniel/Ariel’s class is a person that we have not had much positive experience with. Somehow she is involved with autistic children in her occupation and she is set in her ways on how to “handle” an autistic child. We do things a lot differently and out of the many months that she has been in class with Daniel the bad experiences out weigh the good.
I have nothing against her, she just doesn’t know Daniel and she doesn’t care to know how we interact with him.
I know she doesn’t care or she thinks she knows better because she has not implemented any of the information I have asked her to in class when there is an issue. I sent a long email of why Daniel is doing certain things that he is doing, how to handle it and about Asperger’s to the Leader/Pastor and he sent out all that information to the teachers who are in Daniel’s class. She responded back to him talking about all of her experience and how she would be happy to help blah blah blah. I say blah blah blah because he forwarded me the email, I contacted her thanking her and asking her for any information to help Daniel.
She was nice enough and sent me to all of these places but it was very cold and our interactions were very evasive after the whole “helping” went down.
The problem we have is that we do not trust her. She doesn’t get us when there is a problem, she purposely left Daniel out of a craft because she didn’t want to deal with the situation. She ignored him as he was flopping on the floor and his pants were falling off and these kinds of things we find both humiliating to our child and unacceptable. So now that she is “in charge” what does that mean? What does it mean for Daniel? If teachers are having a problem understanding what is happening with Daniel, will she trump us the parents and do whatever she feels best? There are just so many questions.
Though I have all of these questions it is not main source of concern.
Daniel has been doing so well in class but I have sacrificed everyone in the family for the sake of Daniel getting to class on Sunday’s. I am not even sure if he likes it that much, I asked him but he doesn’t understand the question. Ariel could care less and Joshua said he would be sad but I am not sure why he doesn’t really play with any of the kids and that class is turning into a chaos fest. Joshua can’t even sit in on the music anymore because it is too loud. So I have this added anxiety that our family is the “problem” family. Everyone would be happy and less stressed if we just left. I would leave in a heartbeat but I don’t know what else to do for the kids to socialize.
We live in a small town and the ideas, philosophies, beliefs are very limited and rigid. Ha ha ha A different rigid than myself.
Then I think about me and I wasn’t that socialized, most of my socialization came from adults and I liked it that way. I liked it when it was just me and my mom most of the time. Would our kids be satisfied with this? I am so confused and concerned that I may fail Daniel if we do not go but now the church is not safe. They keep changing things and I am starting to get real anxiety at the thought of going. I don’t want to talk to people or look at them. I can’t worship freely, I am constantly concerned with what is going on with kids. It was safe just the other day and now just like that everything is unpredictable, inconsistent, full of unknowns that are waking me up and causing me to have freak outs!
There is nothing against the church or the people they are all still very nice people.
We just don’t belong, the story of our life. Our children know more about the Bible and God than most people and they don’t really understand the point of the stories told to them in class because they don’t talk about it. At home we discuss why something happened or if the story seems very off and say wrong at times. 
We discuss the Old Testament and the cultures going on during those ancient times we discuss the teaching of Jesus and why it is so important to accept and love others no matter how different they are from us but we do not really learn that at church. We are uncomfortable an alienated. It is mostly our doing, it is our fault we are well aware. We cannot go to small groups and idly sit back and talk about things that seem to be profound. We ask hard questions and we cannot stop ourselves from doing it. We ask why do we believe in God? What is the differences between evolution and creationism? Do they even compare? Is the existence of God our own fabrication of some genetic make up that has been passed down in our DNA?
Why do we love God and would we still if there was no after life?
I got that question from another Aspie who does not believe in God “Would you believe in God if there were no after life, no reward, no anything after this, just this life?” She said that most religious people would answer “yes” without a thought so her challenge was to think about it before the question was answered, really think about it. So I did for over a week and I am still pondering with it. I came to terms several months ago with the whole no afterlife thing, it really doesn’t matter to me. If this is it I am perfectly satisfied and thankful for this whole life on earth, I do not love God for rewards or the promise of living for an eternity I love God because He saved me from a life that was destructive and brought me into this life with David and our children and revealed to me that I am not crazy after all of these years, I just think differently.
I love Him because I found out about Asperger’s and it has brought me a life of freedom NOW not later.
There are many other reasons but they have nothing to do with after life or rewards. But these are some good questions that we cannot ask in the spiritual place right now, I mean we cannot discuss it with others in this place. Do not question anything, God is everything, I am nothing blah blah blah. (I am using that a lot today.) I am writing all of this stuff because it is all of this stuff that is making me have anxiety. The bottom line I cannot be myself, David cannot be himself, our children cannot be themselves, completely and I just don’t think it is a good idea for everyone involved for us to be a part of it any longer.
That is how I am feeling right at this moment, which is always subject to change.
Although, I am pretty sure our time at this church is done because David hasn’t wanted go, on several Sunday’s the kids haven’t wanted to go and now my mom who has been an avid “you NEVER miss church” person, since she became a Believer, has been saying for several weeks now that she thinks she needs a break from church. None of us want to find another church, there is no point they are all the same only in a different package. We just don’t belong. I guess I really need to weigh the pros and cons. I do know that I have sacrificed myself for the sake of getting Daniel to class, this past Sunday was the first time that I was so bad that I couldn’t force myself to go in. Maybe that is a big sign right there that it isn’t the place for us right now.
I get conflicted though because I see Daniel doing well and think I HAVE to keep doing this, I just wish that we could find another outlet for socialization than I would have more peace about leaving.
