Rebound

Dear Life,

1. 
   

In August last year, we started seeing subtle changes in our tall one.  
His anxiety was THROUGH THE ROOF.
He couldn't even play basketball.  
His anxiety would literally paralyze him.
He then started to show signs of depression.  
He wouldn't leave the house.
He wanted to.
But he couldn't.

We didn't understand exactly how serious his situation was until he told me about the guy he was seeing.
The guy that didn't really exist.
Our world fell apart.
Literally.
We had no idea what any of it meant.
We didn't understand WHY.
We mourned his former self.
DAILY.

His dreams and goals disappeared.
He told me he would never leave the house again.
He felt so very alone.
And as his parents WE felt alone.
Alone in literal hell.
How do you help someone deal with voices and people that only he can see and hear?

We had to fight for his very existence.
Because he was not able to go to school, the recommendation was to send him to a facility out of the county that could help him.
We were completely against sending him away.
His biggest fear was just that.....us sending him away.
How could we, his parents, his family, the people he trusts the most do that?
(There are cases that it's very appropriate to do that.....we just didn't feel like that was the correct choice for our family)
So we fought.
We fought what felt like everything and everyone.
We even had to fight him sometimes.
We had to fight him to continue to fight.
We had to fight this unseen assailant.
We had to learn about a different kind of illness.

Thankfully, our boy was accepted into a special program that deals specifically with his type of illness.
He has a psychiatrist to help him navigate his medicine;
He has a therapist to help him learn how to deal with situations appropriately;
He has us to love him;
He has school support to guide him educationally;
And he has his coaches who have given him hope when we couldn't give him hope.

We have learned to give him small goals, sometimes daily.
He has learned to trust us and in turn trust himself.
He is learning that he CAN.
He is learning to not give up.

In basketball, when you make a shot and miss, it's super important to try to get the rebound.  

re·bound¹

verb

rəˈbound,ˈrēˌbound/

1. bounce back through the air after hitting a hard surface or object.

Our boy has hit a seriously hard surface.  
Fallen flat on face, sometimes literally.
Today, he rebounded...and in a huge way.
Today he went to school all day.
For the first time in over a year. 
He called the shots, his goal was smaller than that.
But he asked to stay all day.
And now he's at basketball practice.

I'm sure he will have more hard days.
He will not sail through this without rough patches.
But he will get through those rough patches.
He will may have some scratches, bumps and bruises.
He will also have learned and grown and stretched.
He will have experience.
He will know that he can do it. 

He can get the rebound....and he can make the basket.