Recently, I’ve had to take a good, long, hard, look inside myself. And it’s pushed me to a place where I’ve had to battle with my inner demons.
And believe me. I’ve GOT EM!
Why? It’s simple.
Over the past few weeks my more severe son on the spectrum (he’s now 24) has gotten very creative… and done some things that I KNOW, he knows are unacceptable.
Yep. He’s tried a few things that are underhanded and sneaky.
I won’t go into too much detail but I will say this.
When I ask him about certain things, if he immediately gets angry and tries to get aggressive with me, I KNOW that means he knows he’s done wrong.
And he’s been really, REALLY GRUMPY when he’s caught.
For more than a week now he’s been grumpy to the point where he’s stopped just taking his grumpiness out on me (which is his normal grumpiness) but now he’s started spreading it out to ALL our family.
So, yesterday it came to a head when I again caught him in the middle of sneakiness.
What did he do when I caught him again?
He EXPLODED on me. Anger and hatred and rage spewed forth.
But… I was calm. (Even though the inner demos were awakened.) I was calm.
So, he EXPLODED on me more. Heightened anger and rage.
But… I still stayed calm.
Then… he rushed me with gritted teeth and hands clinched.
I immediately went into a passive mode and said, “Please don’t hit me. I love you. I’m just trying to figure out what we need to do.” (Even as I said this my inner demons were almost bursting through my skin ready to fight to the death.)
But I kept the demons in check as I kindly put my hands toward him passively to manage the distance.
Hey, I’m in control of myself… NOT stupid. I’m not going to let him get close enough to strike me, but I did use my hands in a very passive way so as not to instigate.
But I DIDN’T back down on the problem. We WERE going to address it.
So…
We repeated this cycle multiple times. At one point he even locked the door so that I COULD NOT leave.
Over and over and over. Each time I stayed calm as the inner demons pressed harder and harder to STRIKE HARD… (It seemed SO deserved at this point) and simply end the conflict once and for all.
But I kept the inner demons in check every time.
For about 45 minutes this lasted until finally… finally… he realized that there would be consequences.
And reluctantly… he accepted that there would be consequences.
And he broke down into tears and cried like a five-year-old. Loud and long.
I sat next to him rubbing his back (which he NEVER let’s me do) and comforted him.
When he finally seemed stable he got up and unlocked the door and I was allowed to leave his room.
As I left, I realized I REALLY needed help. My inner demons were on the verge of FULL ON MUTINY over “the good ship, Kyle.”
I REALLY needed to feel uplifted and reset myself. So, I high-tailed it downstairs and started flipping through a book of scripture to find a passage that I’ve almost memorized.
A book of scripture that explicitly describes…
HOW we should guide and love our kids.
Some excerpts are as follows:
“Lead by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Spirit; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy.”
Can you imagine? How cool is that?
As I read it I celebrated. I celebrated our family. I celebrated the love we have in our home. I celebrated our blessings.
Then, I celebrated the VICTORY… over MY inner demons.
One of the hardest things I’ll ever had to face.
MY OWN INNER DEMONS.
After that?
I took him over to McDonald’s to get some food. You know…
“Showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy.”
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