Wow, it’s amazing how quickly I revert to absolute, utter-distress, panic-attack mode.

We had a rough night with E-Niner on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, I managed to have an all-out, body-convulsing, convinced-I-need-the-ER, panic attack.

The thing about panic attacks for me is that there is this very rational person sitting deep in the middle of my brain saying very calmly, “You are having a panic attack. There is nothing really wrong. Settle down. Take a Xanax. You are having a panic attack. There is nothing really wrong. Settle down. Take a Xanax.”

Then there is that maniac person who is absolutely convinced that there’s a perforated ulcer gushing fluid into my body cavity or that I have just busted my appendix. All because I had intense pain on my belly button, and that’s what Google told me could be happening. Turns out it was just gas.

Gas with a side of an all-out panic disaster on the part of E-Niner. Just prior to my own meltdown, which was relieved by Xanax and a helpful husband, E-Niner awoke from a nightmare.

The screaming — the shrieking — was at the same decibel and tone that I heard several times nightly in the late winter. The same shrieking that followed with phrases like, “Get the fish out of my bed!” or “Why is there a whale swimming in my room?” I associated this anxious, terrified cry with hallucinations, and was convinced it was happening again. If Pavlov were around today, I’d make a fine dog specimen for him.

Apparently, he had been screaming for a while, but turned up the volume because we didn’t hear him. Truth be told, my husband and I were watching Slumdog Millionaire, which includes a lot of shrieking children. We couldn’t tell that it was our child doing the screaming at first.

When we raced to E-Niner’s room and threw the door open, he came at us swinging, just as he had done in the spring. He hit Jonathan’s legs and, since I was crouched on the floor ready to talk him through a psychotic episode, he slapped me in the face. It happened so fast. He got an immediate time-out, and settled down quickly. He wasn’t psychotic. He was just really, really scared.

After the adrenaline rush, we talked with him about his dream and why we didn’t come to his room right away. He wanted to sleep in our bed for a little while, which the three of us did.

Wait a second.

I’m telling the wrong story here. E-Niner’s nightmare was on Friday night and my panic attack was on Thursday. I’m being perfectly honest here, but I can’t remember what E-Niner did on Thursday. But there was something, because part of my helpful husband’s talk with me during my freak-out went something like “You’re having a panic attack because this has been the worst night since E-Niner has been home from the hospital.” Whatever it was on Thursday, I must have blocked out.

I guess it doesn’t matter, really. What matters that even though our lives have been relatively stable for a few months now, there is a deep memory of what happened in the past though it may be suppressed. My anxiety from that time can be awakened from a child’s nightmare. I’ve heard that parents of children with special needs can have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I believe it.

…found out that my bad cholesterol is bad,

endured with E-Niner one of his psychological breakdowns,

been bitten by E-Niner during said breakdown,

have contemplated again his need for attending a residential treatment facility,

worked myself into a panic attack about the potential severity of a human bite (I was warned by the psychiatrist again today that it is considered a medical emergency and next time I need to call my doctor right away and possibly go to the E.R.),

felt deeply concerned about E-Niner’s psychological well-being now and in the immediate future,

had a pretty horrible night’s sleep,

accidentally run a red light since my mind has been off in never-never land,

downed olive oil to the point that it has made me feel ill in the hopes of quelling my cholesterol,

come to the understanding with E-Niner’s OT that he needs more psychological support before he can continue with sessions with her — his anxiety has pretty much halted him from participating in any activities there,

and felt very thankful to have my sister.

The past 48 hours have included such elements as a lazy old dog, a broken down car, an emergency call to the psychiatrist, a second round of IEP tests for E-Niner, and dinner with a dear friend — not necessarily in that order.

E-Niner has yet a new prescription medication. Clonidine. To be taken when he’s in a complete psychological breakdown, like what happened yesterday when he trashed our foyer.

He had IEP testing in the morning. (“He’s so smart!” said the examiners. I’m getting the idea he is smart.) When we got back to the car (illegally parked in front of our primarily low-income, neighborhood, soon-to-be shut-down Chicago Public School to make way for rich kids to have their own junior high), my tire light was on.

So I did what any driver who has gone to driving school five times in the past eight years (who? moi? oh, shut up. I drive. a lot!) would do — I drove myself to the trusty 50 cent air machine at our nearby gas station and pumped the tires with air.

Problem being that the 50 cent air machine usually has a tire pressure gauge on it. This is why I break out the quarters and actually pay for air. It’s kind of a nifty contraption. You can check tire pressure while you fill, so I’m always sure to keep my treads at a comforting 35 pounds.

As you can probably guess where I’m going with this, the tire pressure gauge was broken. So I winged it. I worked on one side of the car and then I stopped. Too snowy, dirty, icky, gross. Plus, I have a 50 percent shot that I licked the issue.

Fate would have it that I picked the wrong tires to fill. So instead of going back out in the cold, yucky wet, I drove to our local car repair shop.

The guy there checked my tires and said that my front left had over 40 pounds of air in it! (Hey, when I fill, I fill.) So he let air out of that, and put air in the ones that needed it. Nice. Hunky, dory. Right?

Wrong-o. Because then the car wouldn’t start. It just sort of clicked around and wouldn’t vroom. Luckily, I was at a car repair shop. They jumped it, checked the engine, and determined that my alternator was shot.

Remember? E-Niner is in the car with me. Key point.

So I determine that since the garage is only five blocks from home, I’d leave the car with them and walk back.

As E-Niner and I waited in the smokey office, last touched with any type of cleaning product circa 1952 and still smelling heavy with nicotine and gasoline fumes, we spied a very old, very tired Golden Retriever. He was balled-up next to the cinder block wall underneath a staircase, laying on a plaid dog bed, behind a gate. I felt bad for him, wondering if all these years he’s just sat under those stairs inhaling the noxious fumes.

Anyway, E-Niner (dog phobic) spied the pooch and proceeded to get anxious about the situation. He kept imagining the dog jumping out from behind the gate to “get him.” I couldn’t get through my paperwork fast enough with the service guy.

I’m pretty sympathetic to E-Niner’s plight. I’m not that bad, but I’m scared of dogs until I get to know them. Then I’m only just jumpy.

Back to the story at hand and not my own personal psychological trauma, the change of plan (walking home) plus the anxiety about the dog was enough to set E-Niner off. And when I say off, I mean ballistic.

We walked out of the gas station, and no more than five feet off the premises, the kid drops one of his toys in the snow. Toy has snow all over it. E-Niner doesn’t have gloves on. His hands are cold. I wipe off the snow, put on his gloves. E-Niner can’t now feel the toy in his hand…let the games begin!

As we walk home, he yells at the top of his lungs that he hates his gloves. He keeps dropping his toy — on accident or on purpose? I can’t tell. “I hate my gloves! I want to go home! I keep dropping my toy! AGGGGGHGHGHGHG!” Like that. For the first two and a half blocks.

At exactly the mid-point, he chucks one of his toys into a fresh snow bank so that it sinks quickly to the bottom of about three feet of snow. We can’t find the toy. If he hadn’t lost it before, he loses it now. For good. I’m kicking snow around trying to find his toy. He’s hitting me on the arm, hanging on me, telling me to stop burying his toy more.

I wonder to myself if it is worth it even trying to find it or if we should just move on. Finally. Finally! I find it. I think this is good. We have what he wants. We can walk home now.

So we start off. He stays back a few steps, and charges at me from behind, pushing me like I’m one of those big pads football players push down a field at practice. He does it again and again and again.

I don’t know where to turn. Ahead of me is a set of busy commuter train tracks. To my right is a busy street. Behind me is a child that has lost it. I can’t stop and give him a time out. First, he probably was in no shape to comply, second it was cold, and third I would much rather be dealing with this in the safety of my own home.

So I plodded on ahead, either bracing myself for a 50 pound bump every few steps or grabbing him when I thought it was appropriate.

At home — finally, finally! — is when he trashed the foyer. He came straight inside the house and started flinging boots and bags everywhere. I couldn’t stop him and wasn’t always fast enough to catch him. He slammed a clay vase full of dried eucalyptus leaves against our glass door, thankfully breaking the vase and not the door. There were plant leaves everywhere!

I tried doing the therapeutic hold I was taught — wrapping his arms around his torso — like a human-held straight jacket. The kid is too strong for me, though. He kept slamming me against a wall.

I let him go, and he lunged at me — swinging, hitting, screaming. I pinned him to the ground, pleading with him to stop destroying our house and hurting me. He would cry uncle, I would let him go, and the cycle would start again.

Thankfully, our babysitter was there with T783. I love our babysitter. She’s prompt, responsible and also in a combined Masters/Ph.D. program in psychology. I love her, but she loves us too. We’re her reliable term paper for every class.

She tried to talk E-Niner down, and it was working. But he still just couldn’t keep it together to comply with her request of putting what remained of the vase back on the table. While she was with him, I called Joe who rushed home from work and the psychiatrist, who called me back within moments.

I went back downstairs and hauled 50 pounds of fighting boy up three flights of townhome stairs to his bedroom and told him to stay there until Joe got home. I shut the door, only to hear the two hard things in his room — a baby monitor and sound machine — get whipped against his bedroom walls.

Joe only works ten minutes away, so he was there pretty quickly. Our babysitter’s stint for the day was done; she left for class. And within that same moment the psychiatrist called me back. Over the phone, he prescribed Clonidine. He said we are to give it to E-Niner when he’s in an all-out unreachable rage, as he was today. Clonidine and a mini-dose of Seroquel (the anti-psychotic sedative that E-Niner already takes four times a day).

So. When that was all done — only 11:30 AM, with eight more hours before E-Niner’s bedtime — I was beat and beat-up. My sister came over to support me and help. I can’t tell you how blessed I am to have such a wonderful, caring sister. I don’t know what I would do without her.

The rest of the day, I nursed an extraordinary migraine, which is why, when my good friend e-mailed about a spur-of-the-moment dinner, I accepted.

My friend is also raising a child with special needs, so she and I have that bond.

After telling her about the day that kicked my ass to Jupiter and back, and listening to the details of her child’s meltdowns for the week, we made a decision. Truth be told, she came up with the idea.

She said, “Let’s pick one thing we’re going to do this week for ourselves. One thing. We have to say it to each other, and then we have to do it. You first.”

Do you know how hard it was for me to come up with something? I floundered. Flappy floundering. But we both managed to set a goal. I ended the day on a positive, so that was nice.

Want to see how positive? Here’s the picture she took when we left:

endswith8741 ends on a positive

Joe told me that as we drove on Sheridan Road, rounding the corner past Loyola University, where the road meets Devon Avenue.

It was before E-Niner had any type of diagnosis. It was before I wanted to believe that there was anything remotely the matter with my beautiful baby.

The words came out of Joe’s mouth, and I was pissed. “Don’t say that! He doesn’t have special needs!”

“Most kids his age can already [insert lagging developmental milestone now faded from my memory here].”

“So he just needs extra help,” I rationalized.

“Like I said: special needs.”

I sat in the car, arms crossed, in disbelief that my husband — the only person in the world who made “our” son plural with me — could say something so, so not true.

It was about a year before I swallowed the special needs pill.

During the course of that year, I stole glances at the Special Needs section of the bookstore. It was as if that section were a bookstore strip joint, and I would catch cooties from it just from looking.

In the same way that a strip joint does tempt curiosity, though, I would find myself quickly glancing at titles. Something about dyslexia here, what to do if your kid can’t talk there.

My son was not “special needs.” (This was before I learned that referring to someone as their label is more than not politically correct, it ignored their humanity entirely.) I surmised he could probably read just fine one day. And can we say motor mouth? These were not my problems.

Fast forward a few months to his sensory processing disorder diagnosis. Looking to find out more about the condition, I headed back to the bookstore — to that dreaded Special Needs section. And there they were. Books upon books upon books about sensory processing disorder. It’s been my section ever since.

I check back every now and again to see if there’s any information I could possibly be missing, that I haven’t yet ferociously uncovered in my undying quest for Answers.

It’s a puny section, Special Needs. For how many people out there are raising kids with them, it seems like it should at least take up half a row. Not at my bookstore. It’s area is about three feet wide. That’s it.

As I looked at the titles today — carefully reading every one, since there weren’t too many to peruse — I’d guesstimate that fifty percent of the titles were devoted to autism spectrum issues, a quarter on ADHD, a handful on bipolar and anxiety, and the rest were personal accounts of what it is like living with or parenting someone with special needs.

But where was the book on childhood psychosis? That’s what I was looking for. Not there. And then I realized my frustration.

E-Niner’s got special needs in spades — the more popular ones like SPD, ADHD and, some professionals believe, PDD-NOS — but he’s also got this rare condition that puts him in a class beyond the norm. Psychotic episodes. They don’t have special needs books on that in my bookstore. And in all of my research and connecting with other people, I haven’t found another peer who has it.

I know plenty of kids with PDD-NOS, ADHD, SPD, anxiety — all issues that E-Niner has. But I haven’t met one child with psychosis. In my hungry search last year, I went straight to the National Institutes of Mental Health. They were flabbergasted that I would even speak of such a thing about a four year old. They didn’t know of anyone either. They also suggested I get second opinions.

But time has run its course. And we have had second opinions and thirds, and a neuropsych evaluation to boot. I just want to find out more about this condition. Though, I’m not sure what more it is I need to know. I’ve lived with it — lived through it with him — every day. It sucks.

So here’s my plea. If you know of anybody out there — any child out there — who has psychosis, can you send their parents my way? I’d love to trade notes sometime. If only to feel less isolated.

It’s not often that I feel absolutely awesome about E-Niner. It’s not often I feel like the world is his oyster, so I’m going to let every last little bit of my pride for him today creep deep within my bones and let it marinate…and then let it explode!

He did his first round of IEP tests today — an academic exam — and he rocked it.

Even though he was initially scared and wanted to hide behind me, he was able to use his words and tell the psychologist that he was feeling shy. She told him she could understand why, but not to worry. They were going to have fun!

She administered the whole test in one sitting.

Let’s clarify. For E-Niner “sitting” means fidgeting, jumping, falling on the floor, going under the table a few times, kneeling every now and then, sitting with his chair pushed as far back as possible, laying his head on the table and letting some drool hang out (just a bit, until he realized it, sat up and wiped his face), interrupting the test to ask her why her hair is straight or why the sky has clouds. But he did it!!!!!!!!!!! The whole test! YES.

And — I just picked up an e-mail from the psychologist who said, and I quote:

“He did a really great job with me!  I was really impressed with his knowledge base.”

You know what? I am going to “read into” every last word of what she wrote, because damn it, it’s not often I get encouraging news about E-Niner.

She said she was impressed! Impressed! See? He is impressive. He can be impressive. There is a whole nugget of beautiful wonderful behind all his other garbage.

I’m impressed too, because frankly, I haven’t taught him a lick of anything. I haven’t taught him his letters or numbers or how to count. Nothing. I spend all my time teaching him how to act appropriately in social and emotional situations.

So with absolutely no education at all, my boy still tests at an impressive level for his age. Could you imagine how he would do if he actually were able to study and learn?

I am so proud of him. So proud.