I wasn’t abusing my son. I know it looked like I was. He was obviously miserable and in considerable discomfort, and I did, in fact, have my arms wrapped around him and was dragging him out of the car. I did, in fact, use my leg to knee him in the butt to get him into the elevator.
It felt like I was abusing him, honestly. At least, part of me felt like I was. That’s the part of me that’s just all emotion – knee jerk, straight up, no thought maternal ooze-ing part. The part that just wants my kid happy. Safe, secure, and not afraid.
That part of me has taken a beating lately. Because all of this, the stomach problems all thru the fall, the crippling anxiety of the winter, and then the accident. The pseudo tumor, the vision loss, the pain. That part of me had to be silenced, as much as I could. I had to ignore that part, so that I could hold him down for shots and blood work. That part was dying inside, that part of me was horrified on every single layer. When I had to wrap my arms and legs around him and hoist myself up onto the gurney for transport. When I had to hold him, kicking and screaming, and begging me to please stop, to please take him home, to please just take him home.
That part of me is still there, and still crying. Every time he’s scared, or belligerent, because I know that’s just anger masking the overwhelming fear. That part of me that aches for my little boy.
But there’s another part of me. The part that knows that the doctor knows more than he does, and when Sam insists that he’s fine, he really isn’t. The part that knows that the anesthesia he dreads will be a godsend so that he won’t fight the rest of what’s going to happen. The mom who forces her child to do what he dreads most, the one that drags him out of bed, kicking and screaming, dresses him against his will and forces him into the car. The one who calls the doctors, again and again, begging for answers and treatments and relief.
So I know I looked like the worst mom in the world today. Believe me, I thought I was too. Because it doesn’t feel right to make your child suffer – but I know that Sam doesn’t need to feel better right now, he needs to be BE better. He needs to be able to see, to be able to run around, and feel confident and safe and secure. And it’s only by doing this – by forcing him to do what he hates, by going to the doctor, by yelling at him until he takes his meds, by forcing him to drink, to try the food, to just keep going – even when everything about him wants to give up. I tell him that I’ll be strong for him, he doesn’t need to know that he’ll be okay. I’ll know for him, I’ll do it.
I can be the horrible mom, because I know that it’s only by being the horrible mom, the one who drags kids into elevators when they’re kicking and begging to go home – that’s the only way that the other part wins.
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