Different Lenses

Between my world of emotionally troubled kids at school and my world of epilepsy and its tentacles at home I think I have a skewed view of the world.  That comes with years of one foot in either of those worlds...and I have 23 in the former and 17 in the latter.

My kids at school are aged 12 to 21.  Most are bright and all are hurting.  Some have arrest records, some are having sex at 13, some are traumatized and others are traumatizing.  I counsel one young man I like very much who is cared for by a woman to whom his mom turned over custody in a grocery store when he was three.  Terrance has wicked seizures, just wicked.  He has two shattered hips from a tonic clonic in which he did not fall: the fractures were purely from the seizure.  He doesn't take his meds, not regularly.  Terrance is shoplifting and hanging out on the street.  A judge attempted to "place him" but the facility wouldn't take him because it would cost them too much in medical care and supervision.  My son has a cakewalk compared to Terrance.

I see a young man of 13 who is ravaged by mental illness and is the dearest boy I know.  I have been counseling him for five years and he is becoming less and less functional.  He yells and demands and bangs his head when he is frustrated.  He cannot sustain himself for a school day or dinner out with his family.

Bri is a 17 year old alcoholic, bulimic,  depressed young woman who sees the world through yearning eyes.  She keeps a razor by her bed to remind her of where she does not want to go.   Her parents keep the fridge locked.

My very dear friend and colleague at school, who is my teacher-hero also has a challenged daughter at home.  She tells me she feels like she is teaching middle school inmates.

Social skills, social graces.  Aspirations, proposals and graduations.  This is the stuff of the typical world.  Through my lenses though, the typical world is the world of challenges, differences and small successes.  The baby steps, the one day without a seizure, a drink or an arrest.  These are the kids that I love.  I do, I resent my town newspaper that profiles a graduating senior every week from my sons' class.  They trumpet the certifications, the athletic awards and the college acceptance letters.  Not one, not one, is ever of a differently abled senior for whom one day without binging  or for whom making a new friend should be the headline is ever profiled.  Shame on them.  For these are the kids who deserve the praise and the love.  Even if it kills us.

PLEASE add your child's headline below in the comments section.  Do it anonymously if you'd like. Add pictures!