Sunday, December 2, 2012

Can You Hear What I Hear?

Sean is stressed.

It’s 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday and Sean is stressed.

What about?

Who knows?

So many tears lately.  So many heavy sighs.

It breaks your heart and frustrates the crap out of you at the same time.

For goodness sake, what is it now?

School?  Homework?  Bullies?  A new video game?  Daylight Savings Time? 

Oh hell…. Tell me.

And… can it be important?

Yes, I know everything is important.  Everything is an issue.  Everything is a crisis when it comes to your kid having autism.

And it sucks.  Sometimes it really, really sucks.

But then again, every kid has issues – especially when they are 14 and a freshman in high school.

Only with ours, everything is magnified and it becomes an email to a teacher, a phone call to a principal, or merely hours spent dealing with it.

And deal we do…

Every day.

Day after day after day.

My husband and I have this understanding.  It’s almost like a Good Cop, Bad Cop thing.  If I’m crabby and at end of my frustration level with Sean then he has to step in and takeover.

We can’t be crabby at the same time.  We can’t both be having bad days.

I guess maybe that’s good in a sense…

But back to the issues…

Our high school… for some unknown reason…blares music during the passing periods in between classes.

Yep…. loud… very loud….music.

I’ve been there at some of these times and it’s an assault on my senses.  I can only imagine what it does to Sean.

Rumor has it that they do it so the kids will go from classroom to classroom quicker and not linger in the hallways.  The music stops one minute before their next class starts.  It’s a sign that they need to hustle. 

Well, the kids do that but they also talk in the hallway.

Oh, wait… correct that… they SHOUT in the hallway because simply talking is out of the question with blaring crap coming out of every speaker in sight.

Sean has been complaining about his ears hurting.  I thought it was because he tends to slap at his ears when he’s nervous (and he’s nervous a lot nowadays).

But then one day he was crying.  And the issue of his ears became an even bigger issue.

We’re hoping to find the right person to contact to get the music toned down or turned off.  I went to the same high school years ago and we only had a warning bell that sounded with one minute left to get to class.

Nothing else.

Why can’t the kids of today enjoy the same controlled chaos that we had years ago without the threat of being deafened?

But the high school is a big place….

And I’m really sick and tired of teachers and administrators pulling the “Well, I’ve/we’ve been doing this for years (and know better)” crap.

Seriously, give me ONE good reason for the music…. ONE!

It’s not Mozart or anything classical, which supposedly helps the brain.  It’s not anything but loud.

And now it’s an issue. 
 
Sean is currently wearing earplugs when he's in the hallway.  You know... those industrial noise reduction ones?  They are on a string so kids think they are ear buds and that he's listening to music.  We recently bought him a box of 100 pairs.
 
Maybe the music is an issue for other kids as well and they either haven’t told their parents or their parents are thinking someone else will complain for them.

I guess that “someone” is me.

I’m beginning to feel like the Angry Bitch all the time.

Why is it my fight?

Why do I have to call people out when they wrong a child?  Why do I have to be the one that contacts the school board or the administrators?

Why do I have to do it all the freakin’ time?

Why can’t I just sit back and let someone else do it?

I have to do it because he’s my kid.  Because he’s Sean.  Because he has autism.

And many times, what is best for him might also be best for other kids.

So stop the music.  Stop over stimulating these kids in an already stimulated environment.  Let the kids talk and laugh and enjoy their few minutes in the hallway.

And let me enjoy my few minutes…. just a few… when I don’t have to deal with everyone else’s issues.

Because you all know I have enough issues of my own to deal with!

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