The Destruction in Life with Special Needs

I mean it. Literally.

I searched for this photo for a friend who has a child going through similar issues with their child as Gage had with rage and damage.

This is us repairing one of the walls that were damaged during one of the many rages that Gage had during the rough years. The years he couldn’t contain his rage and it often resulted in damaged walls, doors, carpet, appliances, books, doorknobs, toys, furniture, mattresses, and well, you get the idea.

When we were through the dark times Gage asked me if I knew what he’d damaged and how much it all cost and I have to say, I was afraid to tally it up. At least a couple of thousand, which sounds so much better than $3k-$5K which is probably closer if you add up everything including clothing and food that was thrown and wasted and let’s not talk about the earning potential of us parents when we were pulled to school and activities to manage his behavior.

I was so ashamed when this was going on that I didn’t talk/blog about it much. I mean, even I thought, “Who can’t control their child enough to save their property?” I might have eluded to the damage but I know I didn’t speak/write about it openly. So much shame is attached to the behavior of our kids. The shame surrounded us about a lot of things, but the damage was such a visual reminder of the pain we were all suffering.

I wanted to hit a wall, too, in all honesty.

It is, as most things in life, easier to deal with when you’re not in the middle of crisis. During that time, we’d just repair and replace what we could, mourn the loss of other things (broken treasures, the list is long) and move on. Now that we’re a few years past that time, it’s easier to look back and know there wasn’t anything we could have done. You know why? Because we were doing everything we could at the time to address the multiple issues swirling and I’m (largely) past living with regret.

This last picture is a perfect representation of how we dealt with it at the time. Just a few short weeks after the destruction, the kids are watching my husband repair the wall. Complete with popcorn and photo taking.

 

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