I have a love-hate relationship with Mother’s Day. On one hand, I love that it’s an excuse to sleep in, get breakfast in bed, and receive cute homemade cards from my kids. I love that motherhood in general is celebrated, because this job is so damn hard.

What I don’t love, however, is that this day always reminds me of my mother, and not in a good way. My mother is still alive, but she is not part of my life. She has bipolar disorder. It’s undiagnosed and unmedicated, but I am convinced it’s bipolar disorder. Either that or she is just batshit crazy. She has been in and out of my life ever since I was 15 years old. When she’s in a good place–and usually when she needs something from me–she’s part of our lives. But when I do something that she perceives as wrong, she uses it as an excuse to disown me yet again. This pattern of abandonment and reconciliation has played out over and over again for literally decades. Unfortunately, we are currently in yet another period of estrangement. The longest period lasted 10 years, from 1997 to 2007, when she said I was “dead to her” because I didn’t call to wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. Not Mother’s Day; Valentine’s Day. In that decade, she missed my wedding, my graduate-school graduation, and the birth of my first child. Then she wrote me a letter of apology after D was born. I thought she was sincere until I found out that she needed someone to take care of her during back surgery and cataract surgery. Which I dutifully did. We reconciled and I relished that my son had yet another grandparent.

Then, in the fall of 2009, we became estranged again because I cancelled lunch plans with her due to morning sickness when I was carrying my daughter. Morning sickness! Instead of understanding like any normal carbon-based life form would, she told me to never call her again. So she missed the birth of child number 2. (Her timing is uncanny — perhaps the possibility of witnessing the births of my children shone too much of a spotlight on her own inadequacies as a mother? Discuss.) The only reason we reconciled again after that was because my dad died. Yes, someone had to DIE before she would pick up the phone and call me, and then it was probably only so she could get a ride to the funeral. This last time happened just after the first of this year, because I refused to help her with an administrative matter regarding my brother that I had a moral objection to. Again, instead of understanding and respecting that, I was “dead to her” again. It’s going on five months now since I’ve spoken to her.

Fine. Believe it or not, I’m okay with this 95% of the time. I’m used to it. She has always been a difficult, miserable person, and when I can get out of myself I actually feel very sorry for her. Consider this: My parents divorced in the mid-1970s, when I was pretty young. It was nearly unheard of for a man to get custody of the children back then, but a judge decreed that my brother and me should be raised by my father instead of my mother. If that judge is still alive, which he probably isn’t, I should probably write him a thank-you letter. I have no idea what came out in the proceedings that made it clear that she wasn’t a capable mother, but that judge saw the writing on the wall. Her personality was set long ago. So, I’m used to it. I’m strong. My self-esteem is good. I’m pretty happy, most of the time. And with a wonderful husband and children, great in-laws, and the world’s best friends, I find that I don’t need a mother much at all.

Until Mother’s Day. When every store, social media news feed, and TV commercial gags me with images and text about how much people adore/thank/love/emulate their mothers, it hurts. No two ways about it.

So I write it all down, and I get it out of my system. And I focus on being the mother I never had to my two wonderful, precious children. When I see their beaming faces wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day, I’ll be able to say in all honesty that it’s a happy one indeed.

My talented and thoughtful friend Betsy has launched a project on her awesome blog in which people pen letters to their 16-year-old selves, offering wisdom and insight gained through the passage of time. The inspiration was the book Dear Me, which includes letters from a wide range of celebrities to their younger versions. I was happy and honored that she included my letter to my 16-year-old self on her blog, and I’ll reprint the letter here as well. What would you say to your 16-year-old self?

Dear 16-year-old Me,

You’re not fat. You are so not fat. I would gladly trade my body for yours.

You could read a lot more books if you didn’t spend so much time curling, teasing, and spraying your hair. Please stop immediately.

Your boyfriend is not the love of your life. And you are not the love of his. It’s really okay.

No matter what Madame Weigant says, do not bother taking the AP French exam.

Don’t wear so much makeup. You don’t need it. I know your Aunt Peggy spackles it on and you are emulating her, and that it’s still 1986 where you are. But you are pretty without it. On second thought, I would give anything to see Aunt Peggy and her blue eyeshadow again, so maybe you should go ahead and pull out the blusher. It’s not going to kill you. It didn’t kill her. That was something else entirely. Which reminds me, I’m glad you don’t smoke. Don’t start.

On a related note, don’t spend so much time arguing with your dad. Actually, scratch that too. Go ahead and argue with him. He’s pretty busy these days and isn’t paying enough attention to you. So talk back. Be sassy and sarcastic. Get his attention. Don’t make the mistake, however, of thinking that he doesn’t love you. Because he does. He really does. He’s doing the best he can. Try not to take him for granted, because he won’t live forever either. Enjoy all those Sunday breakfasts he likes to make for you.

It may seem like it now, but the Challenger explosion is not the biggest news story of your lifetime.

When it comes to college, don’t bother applying to UVA or Cornell or American. The University of Maryland is just fine, despite the whole Len Bias thing. Later, your heart will tug every time you spread out that tattered wool picnic blanket covered in Terrapins, which you will keep in the car and bring everywhere.

When you get to UMD, do not spend so much time pining after buffoons. Most of those guys do not deserve you. Or even if they do, they don’t deserve so much of you, so soon. Respect yourself.

While you’re there, try not to pick three majors that sound vaguely interesting or like something somebody ought to major in but don’t fire up your soul. Just save yourself and your college counselor the time and angst and choose a major based on what you love—reading and writing. (Just don’t expect to make any money.)

Love your friends, but don’t be sad if they drift away in the coming years. You will meet many more new friends at every stage of your life. Some of the old friends will come around again in surprising ways, and then before you know it, the new friends will be old ones too. Cherish the rich pageant of people you meet.

Also, and this is very, very important: There will be a tall guy with spiked hair who can’t stop looking at you at a recycling conference in Orlando in September 1997. Don’t laugh. There really are recycling conferences and you will actually go to one. Anyway, the spiked-hair guy. Pay attention to him. He figures prominently in your life story.

Finally, dear Kim, don’t worry about getting old. Here’s a secret: When you are my age, you will still feel much the same inside. You will still be you. Love yourself. Or, if you really don’t know how to do that yet, know that I love you from here. And I’m still looking out for you.

Kim

Five years ago today, a young man with selective mutism took an irrevocable step — a step driven by desperation, hopelessness, rage, and despair. A step driven by unmitigated bullying and mistreated mental illness. A step that ended the lives of innocents and devastated families, including his own. On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded 25 others at Virginia Tech. Across the country, the innocent victims will rightfully be mourned today. Their loss was unbelievably tragic. But on this anniversary, as I have in the past, I also mourn the loss of the mute innocent boy that Seung-Hui once was.

In elementary school, Seung-Hui was considered popular and nice. A classmate said that Seung-Hui was “a good dresser who was popular with the girls,” adding that “I only have good memories about him.” By the time Seung-Hui started high school, however, he had developed selective mutism and severe social anxiety. For this, he was relentlessly teased and bullied. Classmates offered him lunch money to hear him talk, and when he did mumble out a few words, other classmates laughed at him and told him to “go back to China.” (Seung-Hui was Korean-American.) A teacher even threatened to fail him for not participating verbally in class. For a selectively mute child, that approach could almost be considered abuse.

What happens to a young person with special needs who doesn’t have an advocate? What happens to a mentally ill child who is bullied? What happens when no one speaks for those who can’t? Five years ago today, we got one answer to those questions. I hope we can use the memory of this tragedy to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

D is just loving his tae kwon do class. In fact, I’ve never seen him so happy doing any organized activity, EVER, in his nearly six years of life. He’s just done three group classes now, but he’s completely participating. He’s stretching, meditating, running, punching, kicking, circling, sit-upping and push-upping, sparring and defending. He does things out in the middle of the room with his instructor, in front of the whole class. Today, each student had to spar ALONE with the instructor, alternating kicks and punches with blocking maneuvers, in front of everyone. D’s technique wasn’t as good as the other kids’ — which is no big surprise given that he just started — and yet he DID it. And with a smile on his face. What’s even better is that his vocalizations are getting louder. Trust me, he is NOT loud, not compared to the other kids who yell “Yes, SIR!” at the top of their lungs, clearly gleeful to be in a place where shouting is not only permitted but encouraged. But we can hear him. And they can hear him. He says “yes, sir” and “thank you, sir” and “hyah!” He is no longer the talk-no-talk boy. He is the boy who talks. He is the boy who does a great many things.

Next Thursday, our two-week free trial with the martial arts studio ends. They are probably gearing up for the hard sell, ready to tell us how beneficial it is and how it will make him strong and that we really should sign him up for one or two years at once. No need. We are already sold. At this point, we are prepared to sign D up for tae kwon do forever, as long as it keeps putting that smile on D’s face and on ours. Sure, he hasn’t actually gone through a belt-testing ceremony yet, which is much higher-pressure. But we’ll cross that bridge later. For now, we are amazed. We are happy. And we are so, so proud.

Well, that was exhausting. We had a two-hour evaluation meeting with the occupational therapist on Monday and it was really overwhelming. It’s no surprise that D has sensory-processing difficulties, but when an OT presents you with a five-page, single-spaced document outlining all those difficulties, delays, and challenges, it was hard not to just curl up in a ball and hide. But face it we did, and face it we will. I’m literally too mentally exhausted to write about all of it here just yet, but in a nutshell, the OT is recommending twice-weekly sessions for the next 10 to 20 weeks. That’s on top of the once-a-week play therapy we’re already doing, and the twice-monthly sessions that Eric and I do as parents. So, poor D will be in therapy 12 times a month and I will have to attend/partake in therapy 14 times a month. That exhausts me just to type it. But how can we not do it? A five-page document is hard to ignore. Here we go….

There was a time, and it doesn’t feel like so long ago, when my socially anxious child would refuse to participate in any birthday parties in which he had to perform in any way, meaning doing anything prescribed in front of other people. So gymnastics parties, dance parties, moonbounce parties, miniature-golf parties, Jedi training parties, and really any parties (except those where it was just a free-for-all in someone’s backyard) did not usually go over very well.

No more.

The other day D went to a gymnastics party at a local gym where he was expected to do all manner of things in front of other people, mostly boys from his class and their parents. He did amazing. I wasn’t there, but Eric shot some video, from which these photos are taken. He’s the boy in the red shirt.

I always had a sneaking suspicion that I was a tiger mother. But yesterday I realized it on a profound level. In situations where other parents might coddle their child, and give in to his anxiety, I push mine. I push him hard. I don’t give in. I make him perform.

I’ve been trying to get D to do more activities lately. For two years since his SM diagnosis, I have not forced many (or any) activities on him. When others were playing pre-K soccer at the preschool playing field, or doing fun dance classes in the preschool basement, I just let D run around the playground and do his own thing. I regularly turned down invitations to children’s birthday parties where the guest list was too long, the venue too loud, or the activities too prescribed and performance-based.

Not any more.

D has grown so much in the social confidence department that I’ve decided that it’s time to put him into activities. We are doing soccer (see below), and so far, that’s going well. So I decided to try out a free tae kwon do class. A good friend of mine and her daughter were doing it too, and D seemed excited about the class and the fact that he’d be doing it with a friend. Maybe “excited” is too strong a word. But he wasn’t opposed to it. Then, the day arrived. We entered the studio, which was full of parents waiting for a class to end. The class itself was full of exuberant, loud kids doing their moves. D took one look at this foreign environment, and this foreign, performance-based activity, and panicked. I mean, he didn’t just balk at it. He had a real panic attack. He freaked out. I saw the “fight or flight” impulse in his eyes. He tried to flee, and when he realized he couldn’t, he began hitting and punching me. Flight or fight. Then he started crying. It was awful. Eric texted me, asking, “How’s it going?” I wrote back this, in all caps: DISASTER.

I tried to take him to the bathroom, which was on the other side of the class, and he refused. I had to basically drag him there so we could get some alone time so that I could try to calm him down. He wasn’t having it. We were ultimately in the bathroom for 25 minutes. He was in “downstairs brain,” a concept our therapist taught us that basically just means that you’re in a mental place where you can’t be reasoned with. He just cried and screamed and punched and hit me, and I just held onto him for dear life trying to get him to calm down. I tried to get him to take some deep breaths and do this “hold up the wall” exercise we do for calmness and re-focusing. I reminded him that we have a rule in our house that you can’t not try something (that is otherwise perfectly safe, healthy, and positive) out of fear. You don’t have to do something if it’s just not your taste or your interest or your cup of tea. But fear cannot rule the day. In the bathroom, I took him by the shoulders and said, “D, we are not leaving this place. You’re not allowed to NOT try something, something you will probably like, something you would no doubt be good at, simply because you are afraid. So, either you let me help you calm down and work with me, or we’ll be in this bathroom all day.”

Roar.

Other parents would probably just have left at this point. And in fact, I told a friend about this later and she said that she definitely would have left, and her husband would have too. And actually Eric says that he might have left as well. But here’s where my stripes come out. I am NOT going to give in to avoidance. I avoided things my entire childhood because of social anxiety, and I know plenty of other people who still have an avoidant personality and miss out on a lot of great things as a result. I understand that impulse and empathize. But I want my son to live a full and rich life that isn’t guided by anxiety and avoidance. I want him to know that he has choices and that he doesn’t have to live in a tiny box entirely of his own making.

So, back to the bathroom. I told D that the least he could do was put on the uniform. He refused. So I basically wrestled with him to get on the uniform. Again, I don’t think most people would think this was positive parenting. But I was going on tiger-mother instinct. D is a 50-ton boulder that needs to be pushed to the top of the mountain, but damn if he’s not going to see that mountaintop. And once he’s there, he can just roll on down the other side. Maybe he’ll hate me someday because of this. But maybe not. I can live with that risk.

An interesting side note about the uniform: As I was helping him put it on, he kept saying “ow, ow” as the scratchy, unwashed fabric touched his skin. It was an interesting glimpse into his tactile sensitivities. I had intended to write a long post about our occupational-therapy assessment on Wednesday, and I’ll simply summarize here that the OT really put D through his paces. For two hours, the therapist made him do a wide range of activities to test his sensory processing, and it’s clear already that he’s got tactile sensitivities, and maybe others too. The therapist was really great, and D happily complied with most requests, which was surprising in itself. But she made it fun. I’m sure she would have been interested in his “ow, ow” response to the uniform. But he WAS in pain, emotional pain, and I’m sure he felt it in every fiber of his being.

But we weren’t leaving the bathroom. Not until I got him to calm down. I told him, “Leaving here is not negotiable. But we can just go watch the class while you’re wearing the uniform.” After some time, I had succeeded in getting D to stop raging and just breathe.

At some point, we heard a knock on the door. I opened it, and it was the head instructor Master E, a young, attractive guy who truly surprised me with his calmness and sensitivity toward D. (I think years of tae kwon do might have something to do with that centeredness.) I thought we were disrupting the class, but he had simply stepped out of class to try and help us. He got down on one knee and said to D, “I think your mom tied your belt on wrong.” And he retied it, calling the knot the “fortune-cookie” knot. He gently put his hands on D’s shoulders and told him that everything would be okay, and that lots of kids were nervous at first. He reiterated my suggestion that we go watch the remainder of the class. Then he invited us to do a free 10-minute private session with him some other time. I thought that was wonderful, but I said, “Can we do it today? I think D really needs to have a positive experience here TODAY.” He nicely agreed and told us to come back after the next class.

Eventually, I got D to come sit on the rug with me and watch the rest of the class. I cradled him like a baby, whispering in his ear, stroking his hair, and I felt the tension ease out of him. I knew we were making progress when he willingly detached from me and sat on the floor next to me.

We went to get a little lunch with our friends and then returned for our private session. Again, I could tell things were improving when he bowed before the studio, as they ask everyone to do, and which he had refused to do the first time around. I let Master E take him by the hand into the now-empty studio. To my happy surprise, D complied with Master E’s requests, even answering his questions and saying “yes, sir” (it was in a nearly inaudible whisper, but he said it). After that, I turned my whole body away from the studio and stared out the window. I knew that D would be looking over at me, to see if I was watching him, and that that would make him nervous. So I kept looking away, even though I was dying to watch.

Well, maybe I looked over a little, because I was able to get this amazing (albeit grainy) cell-phone photo of my son doing tae kwon do. Maybe every parent whose child does a tae kwon do class feels the elation and pride that I felt. But I doubt it. I think parents of non-anxious kids probably just take their participation in most activities for granted, most of the time. Sure, they’re happy when they win the game or kick the ball, but I doubt they realize what an achievement it is that their child even stepped onto the field. I hope that, someday, I will be that parent too — checking email or Facebook or reading a newspaper while my son is in his class. But for today, every nerve was riveted.

As far as I could tell in my not-watching mode, D did everything. And did it pretty well. Then it was over. As D came running over to me, he said, “I did tae kwon do!” With the biggest, proudest grin on his face.

Enjoy the view from the mountaintop, my son. Sure, as you’ll see, there are other mountains to climb. (We go back for another private class on Thursday.) But for now, buddy, enjoy it. Enjoy all of it. And know your tiger-mother will be there, pushing you, pulling for you, loving you, every step of the way.

D never ceases to surprise us. While we are still having some challenges with him, challenges that require what Eric calls quick-thinking “tactical parenting,” he has been kind of blowing us away in the social confidence arena lately. On Sunday, we brought him to a soccer camp practice, keeping our expectations low about what level of participation to expect. If he just played with the ball a little, we’d have been happy. But he did great! He handled the ball pretty well for someone who’s never done soccer before, he followed all the directions, he played a little scrimmage match at the end, and he enjoyed himself. We were immensely proud of him.

Then today, his class went on a field trip to the National Postal Museum in downtown D.C. He did so-so in terms of social confidence–not too sociable or outgoing, but not too reserved and s-h-y (ugh. most. hated. word.) either. Then, at the very end, they made each of the kids take a fake letter and go up to this post office counter and say, “Hello. I’d like to mail this letter. Thank you.” As the line edged forward, I have to admit that I had little confidence he would say it, with his entire class, teachers, and all the parents around staring at him. Talk about a nightmare scenario for a kid who had/s SM. And yet, he did it! I couldn’t believe it. His teacher pulled me aside immediately and asked, “Did you hear him?” Of course I heard him. No one was listening more closely to him than I was. No one is ever listening to him more closely than me.

So, we’re doing okay. On Wednesday, we have our first occupational therapy session. Recap to follow.

Today we are starting on a new path. Our awesome therapist, Dr. G, thinks it’s time for us to explore some new therapies for D, now that he’s older, more receptive, and conquered his major initial problem with the SM. The primary therapy we’re investigating is occupational therapy. D has always had auditory and tactile sensitivities that we’ve kind of just ignored because his other problems were more pressing, but Dr. G thinks that it could “turn down the volume” on his overall anxiety if we deal with his sensory processing issues more directly. To some extent, we’ve always done some ad hoc sensory desensitization with D, exposing him to the very things that annoy and scare him until he gets over it. But I don’t have a degree in OT, and we all agree that, pending more information, perhaps it’s time to put him the hands of an(other) expert.

Believe me, I’m wary of putting him in too much therapy, but Dr. G assures us that we will work out a schedule/system so that we are not drained financially and logistically. So I’ve made calls to a couple occupational therapists and we’ll see what happens. It’s been clear lately that, if we don’t do something, D could be a basket case by the time school starts in September. I can see his anxiety rising already. And as anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m am so NOT in that category of “Don’t worry about it. Anxiety is normal. Don’t make a big deal out of it. He’ll be fine.”

Nuh-uh, no way. We’re making a big deal out of it because my son’s hurt and unhappiness IS a big deal. He holds the cards in our family, in a way. As D goes, we all go. So when he hurts, we all hurt. So we’re going to check out OT. I’ll report here how it goes.

Eric and I were talking the other day, and I asked him, “Do you consider D to have selective mutism or do you think he had selective mutism?” After thinking about it for a beat, he said that he thinks of the SM in the past tense, since D has been talking in school since September. As for me, I go both ways. While it’s true that D is no longer mute anywhere, I sometimes think of the mutism as being so extremely selective that it’s just hard to see right now, like a hibernating bear that can poke its scary head out of its den at any moment. Eric and I agree that D still has a lot of social anxiety. It’s a relief that the anxiety doesn’t manifest itself in mutism anymore, but it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t again in the future — say, when D starts kindergarten this fall.

I am trying not to get ahead of myself, but I am worried about launching him on this new phase of his life. The questions swirl about in my head: Will he be okay? Will he thrive? Will he be happy? Will he have friends? I’m well aware that these questions are common for any parent of a rising kindergartener. But I bet I have another question that most parents don’t have: Will he talk?

So, do we refer to selective mutism in the past or present tense? How about the future tense? Either way, the common word there is tense.