Running from the Lion

Let's put it this way. NOT GOOD!

It was the first day back to school from a week's vacation. Conner was an anxious mess from the second hubby told him on Sunday. He was throwing raging fits in the afternoon and said he was NOT going and that he was going to die.

That night, when I got home from work, he was worse. He was turning red in the face with rage, couldn't stop to breath and WOULDN'T stop to breath. He didn't want to. He HATED school. He said WE hated him. He was going to DIE or he was going to end it all himself!!! He didn't understand why we were such wretched parents that we would MAKE him go to a place that he despised so much.

We tried SO hard to stay calm. We tried to hold him. Tried to talk to him. Tried to listen to him. Nothing worked but we couldn't just ignore him either. It wasn't good. Just NOT good.

The next morning was worse. Screaming and crying all the way to school - again without hair brushed or teeth brushed. Barely any breakfast, if at all. My daughter ended up going into her classroom without me (which has never happened since she's only in K) and I sat with Conner for almost an hour in the van. I finally asked his teacher to call the school counselor to help me.

She came down pretty quickly and right away he started calming down and talking a little to her. She somehow lured him with a soft voice into the building. I went with him, holding his hand up to the main doors and let go after a few hugs that he clenched me with.

Right as my almost 9-year-old walked into the building, and only after I looked back a few times to make sure he wasn't going to run back out to me, I started balling so hard from the pain that I could feel from the past 24 hours.

I wasn't crying because I thought I did anything wrong. I wasn't even really crying because of his fear. I was crying because of my fear. My fear that Conner doesn't feel good about himself. My fear that he is hurting so bad that he could hurt himself. My fear that the first TRUE love of my life could leave me someday because of this curse that, most likely, my genes gave him. My fear that my beautiful, sweet, smart and wonderful little boy may someday kill himself because he is hurting so much.

I can't even write this without relentlessly pooling tears on my sweater just to absorb near my heart.

Conner got through the day. I picked him up and he seemed ok. Not great. Just ok. I held him so hard and told him how brave I was of him.

The next days following progressively got better. Thank God.