Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Fear

What is fear?

Halloween is here, and my kindergartener is terrified. He doesn't care about witches and skeletons and the like. He's afraid of the unknown. The prospect of wearing his costume to school, participating in a costume parade, and joining in a class party are causing him panic attacks. The most highly anticipated day of the entire school year for most children is the scariest day imaginable to my Charlie.

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to force him on the bus in his Captain America getup, essentially throwing him to the elementary school wolves, or if I make my life easier and let him stay home. It would be one less costume parade for me to attend, and since I have three boys in three different parades at three different schools, it sounds pretty tempting.

I've said it before and I'll say it right now: holidays like Halloween are stressful for kids with special needs. At least they are for mine. By association, holidays like Halloween are also stressful for me, the mom.

Let's hear it for the beautiful nothingness of November 1st, everyone!

Speaking of fear...

We saw a terrifying movie on our date last weekend which made me realize that I have a deep-seated fear of outer space. I was so afraid in Sandra Bullock's behalf as we watched Gravity, that I wanted to leave the theater just to make the anxiety stop. Costume parades don't scare me, but the cold, empty, airless, nothingness of space makes my blood ice over.

Spinning into outer darkness with no hope of survival or rescue---stop it, I can't take it! Panicking!

I'm one of these crazy types who secretly enjoys tuning her radio to an easy listening/soft hits station the day after October 31st to find the nonstop Christmas music. Maybe early Halloween morning I should put on my James Taylor holiday album so I can find my happy place. And help Charlie find his.

1 comment:

  1. My friend sent me a link to your blog, and I've read a few and can relate to so much. Oh, how I can empathize about Halloween! My 5th grader with high functioning autism has the HARDEST time with Halloween. He doesn't like candy, but he wants to collect it, but he's terrified of dogs to the point where he just CAN'T trick or treat, and school causes complete panic/anxiety meltdowns, but he doesn't want to miss out, and it's always SUCH an ordeal. He is still so sad about the Halloween 2 years ago when the school called me to pick him up at 10 a.m. (There were some serious issues with how the school was dealing with his issues.) And of course, this year, we ran out of his meds the morning of Halloween. Ugh. Every year I dread, dread, DREAD Halloween. But this year wasn't too bad. I was pleasantly surprised. I hope yours turned out well too.

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