The Little Prince Index

A Call for Help

Tears

The tears seem to come out of nowhere...

always catching me quite unaware...

they start falling before I can stop them...

so I slide through each day with great care.

I can't let them see that I'm worried..

I won't let them know that I'm scared..

so I stuff all those tears deep inside me...

and pretend that they really aren't there.

Sometimes I cry as I drive down a highway...

or when I stay up alone all night long...

writing and sorting my feelings...

trying to process the things that go wrong.

I know I can't hide them forever...

but for now this will just have to do...

so I'll sit here and type on til morning...

and pray that my fears don't come true.

At a very young age, I learned that certain skills were necessary for survival. The first skill was to be able to stuff negative feelings. The second was to smile even though you really felt like screaming. The third... never let anyone see you cry. In fact, the third one has always been a very important rule that I made for myself. To me... crying was a sure sign of weakness... a way of letting others know that they had won the battle. So... no matter what was going on in my life, no matter how angry... sad... or frustrated I would become, I would very carefully slip on my mask and go on as if everything was completely fine. If things got really bad, I would go home where I could be alone in my misery and I would cry enough tears to fill an entire bucket. Some people might say that this isn't exactly a healthy way to live... but it always seemed to work just fine for me.So... I really knew that I was in deep trouble when my tears started to spill out every day. I suddenly became unable to speak with my son's teachers, the social worker, and even the principal without breaking down and crying. I felt like a complete idiot, and an emotional wreck as I cried through my son's IEP meeting, and again through a meeting with the principal and the behavioral specialist that the school had called in. Yes, I was becoming a complete mess. I already knew it... but now everyone else was going to know it too. I began to panic at the fact that my son was soon going to discover that his mother wasn't quite as strong as she had always led him to believe. I knew that if I didn't do something really fast, he was going to see the tears, and take great comfort in knowing that he had won this battle. As I picked up the telephone to make that first call for help... I could already feel my hands beginning to shake. As the telephone started ringing... I could feel a tear slipping down my

face. When the person on the other end of the telephone said, "Hello"... I held my breath and tried to speak.

The words came out very slowly at first, but as the tears started to explode from my eyes... I started talking faster so I could get everything out before I totally fell apart. Before I could even get half way through the conversation... I was sobbing so badly that I was literally choking on my words. The kind lady on the other end of the telephone was very patient as I paused several times to regain my composure. I didn't know it at the time, but this call turned out to be one of the most important calls that I would ever make in my entire lifetime. This call soon brought an angel to my doorstep.

If Carol knew that I was telling people that she was an angel... her face would probably turn a slight shade of red... and she'd more than likely tell you that I was sadly mistaken... that she wasn't an angel at all. To tell you the truth, I never really even believed in angels until I met Carol. Yet here she was... sitting here in my home... shining a little ray of hope into my life again. Yes, I knew right away that she was truly an angel.

Carol didn't say a lot that first day that she visited our home. Mainly she just did a lot of really good listening... nodding... and quite a bit of writing. She didn't seem to mind at all that I cried through most of our first conversation together... but I minded. I was really surprised that she didn't seem to appear to be in any big hurry to leave that day. She just sat very patiently and listened as I tried the best I could to explain what a great mess our family life had become. She didn't even appear the least bit surprised when I told her that I was actually thinking about the possibility of building an apartment above the garage, and moving out there to live with my son so the rest of the family could have some kind of a chance of living a normal life. In fact, Carol didn't seem surprised at any of the startling things that I was telling her about our son. She even seemed to have some sort of an odd understanding of what we were living through... and what our lives were really like. Later, Carol admitted to me that she too had an adopted child with RAD.

Carol started loading me up with plenty of information on RAD, and offering plenty of different resources in the area that might be of some help to our family. I was very glad that she never really pushed me into any one particular direction, or to make any one specific decision regarding my son. I was just very thankful to have her here... listening... and understanding. Carol's presence just brought me such an amazing sense of comfort during a time when I was feeling pretty lost... and unsure of myself.

I remember the first day that I spoke to Carol about Attachment Therapy. I remember asking her if she happened to know anything about it... or if she had ever known anyone that had tried it. I handed her a list of therapists from our area that I had found on the internet, and told her that I had been thinking about calling one. In fact, I had already highlighted one in particular. I was so surprised to find that Carol actually happened to know this particular therapist, and the smile on her face immediately told me that I was again heading in the right direction. I knew right then and there, that Carol's presence here in my home had to be just a little bit more than fate. Yes, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind... Carol was definitely an angel.

If anyone ever would have told me that an angel would appear at my doorstep disguised as a caseworker... I would have told them they needed some serious help. If anyone would have told me that this angel would eventually help lead us to the castle of a king... I wouldn't have hesitated to laugh at them. Yet, here I was picking up the telephone... getting ready to make another very important call for help... a call that would eventually lead me to "The King."