Can you hear the music?

A little bit over three years ago the Washington Post conducted a perception, taste, and people's priority experiment.  In a busy corner of the Washington D.C. Metro Station a man whom would appear to most as a common street performer opened the case of his violin, took out the instrument, and played for the cold morning passing by folks on their way through to board their train.  For 45 minutes one of the greatest violinist in the world, Joshua Bell, played six of the most intricate and acclaimed musical pieces ever written in history on a $3.5 million dollar violin, while dressed in jeans and wearing a ball cap.  By the end of his performance only 6 individuals had stopped to listen for a brief moment, and 20 donated a total of $32 dollars into his violin case without even slowing down their early morning pace.  Amazingly, just two nights before the master musician had sold out a Boston theater at an average of $200 a seat, yet on that morning not one single person recognized him or the true beauty of his music.  What does it take for us to see true beauty?  Our lives are so full of urgency towards most moments and we live at such a hectic pace.  If a world renowned master violinist can pass off incognito while performing some of the most beautiful music ever written by Bach, what chance do we have ourselves in recognizing so many of the amazing things that surround us daily?

It was already past 10:00 p.m. when he finally stumbled in through the front door barely being able to keep his balance.  Earlier I had sent a short text message to his mother letting her know that he was not home yet but since I had to get up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning I was heading to bed.  I was not trying to disregard my parental role.  I was simply exercising my fatherly instinct which had already told me that this night was not average and that since he rarely ever answers my calls or text messages when he is with his friends but typically does his mother's, it would be wise to find him and bring him home soon.  I was right and her efforts to find him paid off quickly when he answered in a recognizable intoxicated voice.  As soon as I heard the front door of my house open I got myself out of bed to assess the situation.  It took me less than five seconds to recognize that he was drunk and that the odds of it being a restful night had dropped significantly.  Almost as soon as he had walked in through the front door he was already walking out through the family room back door while mumbling some incoherent words which probably had been bouncing inside his head after some disagreement with his friends that night.  I instinctively followed and in less than a minute we were both back in the front yard after he exited through the side gate of the house.  More incoherent mumbled words, but this time they were much louder and I feared disturbing the neighbors so I demanded he go back into our home or at least the our back yard.  Reluctantly he conceded and walked back and sat at an outdoor bench all the time talking to himself about some nonsense that just would not find any meaning as of yet.  The best I could tell, he had gotten into some kind of discussion with somebody and his already complicated mental process was now even more confusing because of the alcohol for the other side to understand.  I used every ounce of self retrain to remain silent as to not make things worse.  Even though my efforts paid off I took advantage while he sat outdoors to collect all of the kitchen knives and utensils that might be tempting for him to use as a weapon if things would turn out violent as they did last time almost two months ago under similar circumstances.  Eventually he came in and poured himself a large glass of orange juice while he warmed up some leftover pizza.  Again he stumbled outside with the plate in hand and sat at the patio table to eat while the poured juice never left the kitchen counter until I discovered it still intact in the morning.  I kept wanting to go to bed but knew that it was too soon and if he got a second wind he would be heading out to the front of the house where inevitably someone would call the cops and the drama would extend itself into much later hours.  Suddenly I could hear the family room TV with at least twice its customary volume playing the movie "UP," which he had started to watch at least five hours earlier but never finished.  A few more discrete trips to the family room revealed him laying on the smaller couch watching the movie which eventually was my cue to lock my door and try to get the three remaining hours of sleep before I would have to wake up to go to work.  As I went to feed the cat in the morning I found him sleeping on the floor next to the same couch he had been watching the movie, apparently he had fallen off but decided not to venture back on.

Within the chaos I found comfort in the fact that things could always get worse, and they did not.  Sadly that is the state of affairs in which I am currently living.  Comfort in the battles that were not fought, in the words that were not said, in the simple fact that I was able to collapse in my bed for at least three hours before having to go and do my other job, the one I get paid for.  I sometimes wonder if it is just me that lives in this crisis mode?  I did not pick this kind of life and given the choice I would gladly pass it along to someone else.  I am not sure what the numbers might be, but surely I am traveling on a very small raft over an enormous ocean of turbulent waters...at least it feels that way.  It is not just that the raft is very small, but I also feel as if I have only been given access to less that 40 percent of its space to make my journey.  On the other 60 percent of the raft I must carry supplies, and tools, and the necessary equipment to navigate the scary waters.  On my side I carry the few comforts I can afford to have without allowing it to get so heavy as to make it impossible to steer.   Maybe that is why so many people catatonically walk through life without being able to see the beauty that surrounds them.  Maybe it is not by choice and the reason they cannot see what should be amazingly beautiful is because their survival instinct blocks the view.  Could it be that only a handful of individuals are gifted with the ability to take pause and listen to the music?

Every once in a while someone climbs on board my side of the raft for a short amount of time.  It does not take long before they realize that the ability to function with only three hours of sleep and high levels of stress are just a few of an extensive list of pre-requisites needed to ride along.  Patience is not only a virtue, it is a must in the list and without it too many mistakes are made when the pressure is on.  However, I'd say that the most valuable and useful trait needed is faith.  Not just faith that there is something greater at work, but also faith that within all that seems so wrong, there is a great deal of right.  Faith that my life is truly a blessing regardless of whether I can see it or not.  Faith that I am blessed with the right child, even though days like yesterday might seem as if God sent the wrong FEDEX angel when he delivered my son.  Faith that in between the notes of my life a much grander master is playing the most amazingly beautiful symphony for me to enjoy.

PRAYER - I know that I am blessed, please allow me to hear You play out the notes of my life the way You intended it to be heard.  Thank You God!

Dad

The other side...

There is a world that surrounds us that so very few individuals are aware even exists.  The price of admission to this other dimension is much steeper than anyone can imagine.  In order to experience this world a set of prerequisites must be met which most individuals typically avoid in the first place.  Interestingly though, there is a bitter sweet effect in the lives of the select ones that enter this world.  The pungent taste of difficult, painful, and stressful interpersonal experiences come hand in hand with the sweet flavor of an emotional bond that goes so much deeper than other ordinary relationships.  This other world is so foreign to those that have been blessed with living outside of its realm that those that are in it find it extremely difficult to put into the correct context any words that would give a fair description of what it is like to be a part of it.  At the same time, what might originally seem as a blessing many times becomes more of a curse because not having a good understanding of this other world gives the outsiders a false sense of righteousness that typically backfires when they unexpectedly encounter any soul that comes from the other side.

I have been a traveler myself.  Although not by choice, I have spent most of my adult life walking in and out of this strange parallel universe.  In the beginning I had no idea that there would be any ill effects from crossing over.  However, after almost 17 years of doing so I have come to realize that once I took my first steps into this strange place, it was unavoidable to suffer from its eventual side effects.  One of the most powerful consequences can be marginally described as a "mental marker."  Very much like when somebody tells you something that you rather they never told you in the first place.  Once they tell you, they can never un-tell you.  That is also how the "mental marker" works, once it is placed in your mind there is very little you can do about it because it will remain there for the rest of your life, barring brain damage of course.  Each time I have found my way to the other side, the simplest of my actions in that world remain recorded in my mind with a powerful "mental marker" that eventually comes into conflict with the reality of this side.  The conflict is not as much subtle as it is confusing.  It is as if what seems to work on one side, typically has no useful effect on the other.  I should, but I find it pointless, to go on giving one example after the other of the consequences of moving between these two worlds because as I originally mentioned, words cannot truly do justice in describing it.

What is this other world that I talk about?  How did I find the door and gained access to the other side?  Quite simply put, life took its own path and brought it right into my doorstep when my first son was born.  I just kept walking in a straight line thinking that all I had to do was be a good parent and that my devotion would take care of everything else.  Little did I know at the time that walking in a straight line would have nothing to do with my eventual destiny.  Please do not misunderstand me, I do not say this as a complaint.  On the contrary, the discoveries that I have made while parenting my son not only outweigh any of the ill effects from crossing over into the other universe that is his mind, in effect they have saved me.  I cannot count how many times I have wanted to quit, give up, or run away from so much confusion, stress, and heart ache.  However, another side effect that came from crossing over eventually revealed itself in the shape of true understanding, a kind of enlightenment if you please.  The more time I spend inside of his world, the easier it is for me to put myself into his shoes and take a few more steps towards helping him.  I confess though, those are very scary shoes.  The mental process that is constantly taking place in his mind is beyond my ability to truly understand, but just because I do not clearly understand it does not mean that I cannot contribute to his well being.

I know that much of my dedication towards understanding my son, his behavior, and his mental disorders come not only from a sense of parenting responsibility, but also unconditional love.  Maybe this is why I am not surprised when I see so little true understanding from everyone else from which we have asked for help.  There is a much different view when these individuals are looking into our lives from the outside in, while I am constantly looking from the inside out.  The view is not only different to an outsider, it is also mostly un-impacting.  Even worse is the view from outsiders that have absolutely no kind of experience with mental illnesses, to them almost everything that is visible gives the constant appearance of being a consequence of bad parenting and child behavior.  In fact, if it were not because I am parenting more than one child, I too would probably be passing judgement on my parenting abilities and son's behavior.  Fortunately for me, I have another teenage son that brings a great deal of light to the real issues by not having the same condition as my older son.

I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone that is dealing with mental illness in their life.  As if it was not challenging enough to have a medical condition that is complicated to diagnose, treat, and manage, the stigma that is tied to the label of "mental illness" is a heavy load to carry through life all on its own.  Obviously some mental illnesses are more difficult to endure than others, but somehow they all add a layer of hardship and frustration to those that have it and to many of the people that are involved in their lives.  These complicated illnesses seldom come into people's lives all by themselves.  On the contrary, almost every individual that has to endure the unfortunate load of a mental illness is burdened with much more than just one.  Mental illnesses such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Bi-polar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Disorders, Eating Disorders, Major Depression, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia, Seasonal Affective Disorder, and others are somehow interlinked.  It is highly common for one disorder to trigger another one from revealing itself and causing a great deal of distress on its victim.  To make things even worse they also bring with them a higher rate of suicidal tendencies and substance abuse disorders.  What I find to be most heart breaking is the attitude that so many people have towards individuals that are affected by mental illnesses, as if it was their choice to be ill.  I have discovered that even much of the medical community is badly informed on this subject, which only adds insult to injury since they should be the ones advocating the strongest for a better understanding of these disorders.

Sadly there is not quick fix to what I mention above.  The understanding of mental disorders is an extremely slow process even by the experts.  However, I feel obligated, compelled, and deeply inspired to not be part of the misinformed collective and to contribute to the proliferation of a better understanding of the tragic effects that are being endured by the victims of mental illnesses.  The more I read, experience, and expose myself to the reality behind these disorders, the easier it has become for me to understand its victims.  Obviously I have a vested interest since I have been crossing over to the other side by sharing my life with my son's mind and know that the more I understand, the easier it is for me to help him.  Love should not be the only access key for any one of us to use to feel compelled to understand so many souls that are being affected by mental illnesses.  We should also feel driven by a sense of fairness.  Would we be so quick to pass judgement on an individuals behavior if we knew that the main force that drives them to act in a certain manner originated from cancer, diabetes, or some other non-mental illness?  Would we not be driven to a higher level of patience if we knew that so much of what so many are feeling is totally out of their control?  I have learned the hard way that a great deal of what works for me to keep my younger teenager out of trouble actually has the complete opposite effect on my older son.  I know that this is not because of their three year age difference since most of what currently works with the youngest almost never had the desired effect when I tried it with the now oldest when he was three years younger.

I have learned to accept my part-time role on both sides of these different worlds.  Sometimes I wish I could stay on the safe side all the time but the "mental marker" that is now embedded into my own mind cannot be removed without taking with it too much that is too precious to me.  I not only love my sons with every ounce of me, I also love knowing that I can understand them enough to contribute however possible to their well being and happiness.  At least I am fortunate enough to be able to appreciate the fact that in life nobody has to be perfect in order to be well.  If this was a requirement, life would be full of disappointments.

Dad

A Wrinkle in Time and Space...

There is an unusual side effect that comes from parenting a child that is wired differently.  When the waters get rough I get the almost recognizable motion sickness symptoms where it is hard to focus on anything other than the exact moment in time that I am experiencing.  Eventually, when the waters calm down though, there is a peculiar lingering sense of chaos that stays with me for days to come.  Even though the worst is over, I still find myself having difficulty focusing on the rest of my life.  The effect does wear off, and sooner or later I go back to being myself again.  Amazingly though, he's actually recovered a lot quicker than I have from our last challenging moments.  Could this be a sign of youth resilience?  If so, I would gladly accept a transfusion of his life's cocktail to rejuvenate myself.

I am glad it was Saturday night, otherwise I would of spent the entire week trying to catch up with my missed hours of sleep if it would of been Sunday.  Sometime around six in the evening one by one the clan started to infiltrate our home until at least ten or twelve teenage souls occupied every cubic inch of air in my backyard with their happy voices, and of course their music.  The oldest guy in the bunch was turning twenty three years old and they had all come to the consensus that the celebration would have to take place at my home.  Mind you when I tell you that nobody ever asked the owner, the sightly recovered parent of the child that seems to never sleep, whether it was OK to have a birthday party at my home.  Nevertheless, I never mind when they decide to hang out at my place because at least this way I have a sense of what goes on during their celebrations.  I could tell from the music selections that some other teenager's music player was being used and not my son's.  I have heard his taste of music so much that I can almost instantly tell when it is his collection of tens of thousands of songs that is being played.  Early on during the evening the music was loud, but not overly annoying so I made no attempt to get them to tone it down.  At the rate of probably every twenty minutes I would get out of my dad cage and hover over to the kitchen to take a peek out the backyard window that sits over the sink while I would clean up one or two dishes at a time.  The view was that of pure unadulterated happiness and joy which slowly but steadily fed into my own sense of relief and peace.

My bedroom also has a window that gazes out to the hot tub area in my backyard although I do not like to be poking my head through the curtains, since I feel their lives are entitled to some degree of privacy.  However, at least through the thin glass the loud but muffled sequence of events unfolded one by one as the night took its course.  "SPLASH, SPLASH, SPLASH..."  One by one I could hear each of them jumping into the pool while the rest laughed.  They dug into the storage container and pulled out every pool toy they could find.  The intense sounds of happiness of young people was contagious and kept improving my mood throughout the night.  On one of my trips to the kitchen I found every single bottle of dressings sitting on the counter.  They had cooked some veggie burgers and fed themselves.  As I went to grab the mayo jar to place it back into the fridge and avoid it from getting spoiled, the birthday boy walked into the kitchen from the sliding door and backyard, took it out of my hands and said that he would take care of it.  The next time I came into the kitchen everything had been put away.  "This is a new achievement," I thought to myself as another inch of tension faded away from my stressed out forehead.  At ten o'clock in the evening all music came to an end without me ever having to ask for them to do so.  As time carried itself to a later place I found myself amazed that they never turned the music back on again.  Soon I started to wonder if I had been in some kind of accident and the whole thing was just a dreamy part of being in a coma.

It was already midnight and by then I would typically be annoyed by so many kids still hanging out at my home and not allowing me to finally go to bed and get some rest, but their unusually "normal" behavior made up for me being tired and it never occurred to me to ask them to go back to their homes.  Suddenly my son knocked at my bedroom door and when I opened said "Dad, something is wrong with the hot tub, the water level is going down."  Originally I thought that it was just because at one moment in time I had seen eight of them in the hot tub and that since four had gotten out the water that had overflowed into the pool via a small waterfall had not been replaced yet.  It was the funniest thing to watch as I went to inspect the situation the remaining four hot tub occupants where all sitting in bottom center of the jacuzzi like fish hoping to survive a drought.  When I went to check the valves, somebody had turned one to the position that takes the water out of the jacuzzi for servicing purposes.  When I turned the valve back to its correct position, huge jets of water shot from all four directions on to the remaining occupants in the hot tub.  They all laughed so hard as it was obvious that not only did the streams catch them by surprise, but it was powerful enough to almost hurt.  Not one of them got out!  I just had to laugh at their amazing resolution to remain put while the tub filled itself back up again.  They all blamed the valve changes on the birthday boy, probably because it is true that he is typically the one that does things like that, but also because they knew that I would not be upset with the guest of honor.

At one o'clock in the morning I was walking out of my room to give a couple of instructions for the young people to start making their way back to their homes when I realized that the only one left was my son.  What amazed me was that he was coming in from the backyard and the first words out of his mouth were, "Everyone's gone and I cleaned up the mess outside."  Now this my dear friends is a first.  The fact that my son found it necessary to clean up after himself and his friends was an incredible shock that not only amazed me, but left me wondering what part of that day's experience flipped the switch in his mind to do so in the first place.  I don't have an answer, and frankly I am not sure I will ever get one so I'll blame it all to a wrinkle in time and space.  He's back to his messy self, so trust me when I tell you that this was not a life changing experience.  However, when God gives me a break, I just take it!

Dad

My God is the Universe...

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you already know that it is typical for me to avoid writing about my challenging moments with my oldest teenage son until I have had an opportunity to process the moment. I think that if I was able to find a moment in the middle of a crisis to document the event I would probably miss a great deal of the "reality" behind it all because of my heightened emotional state.  I am by my own admission a very emotional individual, which does not help at all for the purposes of objectivity.  The good news then is that it has almost been a week now since I encountered a very difficult and emotional moment with my oldest son and I now feel much more well equipped to share it. Even though six days have passed,the image of my son endlessly weeping is as clear as when it all started. To put it all into the appropriate context you first have to know that crying is a rare event with my son. In the last five years I can probably count with one hand how many times I have ever seen him with watery eyes, much less crying. Even though I believe that he is totally capable of giving a great deal of love and affection, he does not seem that well equipped like most of us that have a sort of emotional sponge which when we are hurt feels as if being squeezed releasing our tears of sorrow. In this respect my son is very much like his mother, which I believe has that same, for lack of a better word, deficit.

A sturdy outdoor pet house sits sideways pressed close against the back wall of my home with the purpose of staying dry and warm during inclement weather for our half indoor, half outdoor cat to find refuge. On top of the vaulted ceiling of the cute pet condo, almost always laying against the back wall, also sits one of those speaker gadgets to which you can dock any kind of iPod type device in order to listen to the music out loud instead of through headphones. It is very common for me to arrive at home after a long day of work to find my oldest son with a few of his friends sitting in the backyard patio chairs socializing while their favorite tunes play in the background on the music contraption. I remember being that age and how connected I was too with my favorite music. In fact, it is often that I hear an old song from my younger days and instantly find myself being transported in time to an exact moment of my youth. This mental link created by music is indeed very relevant to what I am about to share with all of you today.

Even though my oldest son lives one hundred percent of the time with me, every other week my ex-wife dedicates as much of her free time as possible to watching over him so that I can bring my head out of the teenage parental waters and catch my breath. It is almost like when soldiers stand watch in the middle of a heated battle that last too long for anyone to be able to perform their duties past a certain point in time. Sooner or later, even under the attack of artillery, rockets and almost constant gun fire, the strongest men collapse,which is why it is common for some to take turns standing watch while others try to catch a few hours or sometimes just minutes of sleep. During her watch last week, when my ex-wife returned to check up on my son she found herself in a moment of parental desperation and texted me to ask if I would please come over as soon as possible because she could not tell what was wrong with him. In the 15 minutes that it took me to arrive I must of prayed close to half a rosary asking for mercy and compassion. In my mind and on my way home more than half a dozen scenarios played themselves out trying to answer the question of what might be wrong this time. When I arrived my oldest son was sitting on top of the outdoor pet house, weeping, while listening to music on the portable music player. He sat with his back against the outside wall of our home rocking himself in a back and forth autistic type motion. In his almost 18 years I have never seen him do this before which made the moment awkward and confusing. To make it all so much more difficult to process, it almost seemed as if his emotional state was entirely linked to every single lyric he would sing out loud. Once I arrived I pulled up a patio chair and sat next to him in an effort to be able to decipher what exactly was it that he was weeping about. One song after another he selected in perfect order to his anguish intercepting the vocals at the precise moment in which he wanted to reveal something more about his emotional state by then singing along and almost instantly selecting another song to do the same without almost any gap in time in between them. At first it all seemed as if it was being done at random, but the more I listened, the more I realized that there was an incredible sense of logic and order to the way he was choosing his songs and revealing his emotional state in tears as he sang along just the few parts that made sense to what was wrong.

Soon it was past eleven thirty in the evening and it was getting chilly outside. My suggestion to bring his music indoors was rejected so I rushed to my room and changed from shorts to sweats so that I could stay outside and keep him company. Song after song, weep after weep, tear after tear, I found myself immersed in his pain and sadly understanding what he was going through. A relapse, a moment of weakness and despair had taken him down to his knees while trying to stay sober. It was obvious that he was intoxicated in more than one way, but this was not the moment to confront, to get angry. Instead I listened and slowly interjected myself into his anguish trying to comfort him by letting him know that he was not alone and that I would be there for him. He cried even louder and in his sorrow he found more lyrics to tell me how hard it was to stop, to not be entangled with his addiction. The only moment in which he lifted his eyes long enough to focus into my own, he said something that instantly filled my heart with hope. As his teared covered face confronted my heart broken eyes, he said "this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do...this is so hard dad...so fucking hard. I have been praying, not to your God, but to mine. My God is the Universe...this is harder than anyone can ever imagine." Then he lowered his face and stopped the song that was playing and started another one to which he returned to the effort of only singing along to the parts that gave meaning to his pain. Ninety minutes after I had arrived it was already midnight and other than putting my hand on his shoulder, there was really nothing else I could do but wait for his moment of distress to wean itself off. I am not sure what time it was but his mom walked outside and offered him something to eat at which time he turned off the outside music, grabbed the plate of food, took it to his room and closed the door behind him.

On and off that night he kept coming out of his room crying out a song while he constantly raided the refrigerator for more food. The final exit from his room was around six in the morning at which time he apparently fell asleep. I was spent, tired, and too worried to go to work, so I also crashed for a couple of hours taking advantage of the parenthesis in his emotional state. It truly felt as if I had attended an eight hour opera which instead of ending simply faded out after all the participants one by one collapsed in exhaustion. When he finally came back to life he was definitely spent too. He barely had a voice, his eyes were as red as rubies. In all of our years together this is the first time I have ever seen my son fall so low. It has taken him the better part of a week to get back on his feet, but he seems to be mostly functional. I too am trying to find what I need to be well within it all. I understand that part of the recovery process requires that he hit bottom in order to recognize that he truly needs help. It is an extremely scary place down at the bottom. So scary in fact that I myself felt paralyzed, even though it was not me who was in effect the main character. I have so many questions, so many worries, and so many doubts. In fact too many for me to put into words at the moment. This experience will take time to absorb, and even more time to be able to understand its true meaning and value. In the meantime I'll pray some more, because in the end I really believe that only God has the answer to my son's purpose in life. Would you please pray for us too?

Dad