the unbirthday post (to be followed by the birthday post)

Ive been struggling all weekend with a post about virginia tech. Some great and profound ones like the fabulous miss trix and the hard-hitting xavier onassis and even my sweet sister in dorkhood Pippajo are out there and I felt like I needed to put the mental health perspective out there too. But then, today is Norm's fifth birthday and I want to celebrate. And I was on the computer going through pictures to post a norman retrospective, and I kept remembering one thing about the first time I held him. He was all plugged into babyhelping machines, the news was on in my hospital room at the time, and the local anchorman was speaking. He was a figure known about town, as an old bloated drunken bitter man.(he has since passed on) And I remember looking into norm's face and being completely overwhelmed by the amount of love I felt for him. It was nothing less than surreal, that sense of immeasurable love. I think I said out loud to my friends in the room that it amazed me that someone probably actually held and loved that anchorman and felt the same sense of fear and hope and overwhelming commitment to doing everything she could to make his life perfect. I know that babies are born everywhere who do not have that sense of love surrounding them. But a lot of babies do have it.

What scares the hell out of me as a mother and as a mental health worker is that a lot of times even if a mom feels that love, its not enough to make a kid's life perfect, or even bearable sometimes. When people ask Norm what I do at my job, he will tell them that I teach other kids how to play nice with other kids. (My aunt told him that when he was very small). What Norm doesn't know is that 3/4 of my case load could, with no big stretch, fit the profile of the virginia tech shooter. And what people may not know is that sometimes mental health workers are not overburdened and negligent, nor are we completely lacking insight. But sometimes, something happens to a kid you are working with, and you look back over and over and try to figure out what it was. What you could have done differently. And you look at the parents and you try so hard to make them hear. But they cant hear even though deep down they know. They know. But to admit that something is wrong with your kid is hard enough. To admit something like that is wrong? It keeps a mom up night after night. Talking herself in and out of the possibilities. And sometimes she makes the leap and lets her kid get hospitalized for treatment. But then the kid comes out. And you struggle like hell to reinforce what the kid learned in there. How to cope, how to express feelings, how to stay safe. And you do every damn possible thing you can think of and then some to keep everyone safe. And sadly, sometimes, there are other people in the system that say "oh thats just cho. Thats just how he is." And you literally do not have the power, whether you break laws or not (and trust me, a lot of us will break laws to save lives without blinking an eye.) to make people understand that this is a time bomb situation. And the kid knows how to say what he or she needs to say to stay out of trouble now. He knows what to say to convince others he is not a risk anymore. But you know. You see the actions. And they dont match the words. But again "thats just cho, what do you want us to do? lock him up for being weird?" So you spend a lot of time being sick to your stomach and unable to sleep. You think about everything from do you know enough restraint training to disarm a kid with a gun if you are there to who will raise your children, to all of the moms who might not end up having kids to raise if this time bomb goes off. And you cry. And you have nightmares. And you talk a lot to peers and supervisors. Who confirm what you know. That you cannot lock someone up permanently just because they are "weird" and "mean spirited". So you go on every single day. Doing everything you can to stop it from happening. And you spend a lot of time thinking about what could have been different. Wondering how the thing in his brain that made him understand and care broke. Because you work with the parents and you know he is loved... and you know a long time ago someone looked into his face with every single hope and fear you have for your very own children. And thats about the time you realize its not a fault thing but sometimes life really fucking bites.