I have a real post coming, honestly I do, but right now I just need to talk about something that's driving me fucking nuts.
I wrote a letter to LM's school psychologist the other day requesting that she and LM's second-grade teacher meet with BF, the Ex, and I to discuss the state of things and maybe some strategies that we all could employ to deal with LM's major behavioral and emotional problems; namely, mild Asperger's and ADHD. Before I wrote the letter I talked to LM's therapist and asked him point blank, "What should we be saying [LM's] diagnosis/es is/are when trying to get support from the school?" His answers were "Asperger's" and "ADHD."
Despite that, BF was upset that I named the disorders in my letter.
He disagrees, says LM has no diagnosis. This is despite these terms coming up nearly every week in therapy. Despite the fact that the only other disorder that the doctor has ever named is Oppositional Defiant Disorder, which can only exist alongside ADHD. Despite the fact that he exhibits the major, defining symptoms of all three disorders. Despite the fact that multiple people in our lives, including a couple who have plenty of close-hand experience with Asperger's kids, have come forward, independent of me saying anything to them, to express their concern that LM has Asperger's and isn't receiving any of the special programs and attention that Aspie's kids deserve and need to function in a world that's built for "normal" people, attention and programs that LM will continue to be excluded from partaking in because his biological parents refuse to accept that their child has special needs. No, LM couldn't possibly have Asperger's, ADHD, or ODD. Never.
Tonight, LM had a meltdown about not getting to go for a bike ride with his dad before the sun went down and he had to go to bed. I brought up, yet again, that I don't think that the kind of therapy that he's receiving is right for him, that I think he needs to be doing more than just talk therapy, something like cognitive behavioral therapy that will help him recognize how his behaviors need to change and help him institute concrete changes, not just subtle changes in his attitude. A major part of the problem is that children with issues like LM's don't recognize that there's anything wrong with how they're acting and don't care what anyone else thinks/feels/does unless it somehow impinges on their desires. He doesn't think that what his therapist says is worth two cents and he doesn't think that he should put any of the doctor's suggestions into action. I like the doctor very much and I feel like there was some progress for the first few months of therapy, LM needed someone to talk to, someone to bounce his problems off of who he didn't perceive to be one of the people who were causing his problems, but I feel like we've been on a plateau for quite a while now and something needs to change. All of the reading I've done (and I've spent days upon weeks reading up on these disorders) indicates that he should be receiving behavioral therapy and that talk therapy is not indicated at all. All of my investigation into these issues, all of my education is completely disregarded here though.
BF infuriates me and has spurred this pissed off rant because he boiled all of my ideas and reading and study and conversations with people who have experienced these things, down to me needing to be right. He says that I push these things not because I care about LM's future and present problems or because I'm interested in finding the best way to deal with his maladaptive behaviors, but because I was the first one to speak up and say "I think [LM] might have ___________." and I just have some pathological need to be right. He must be right about all of this because he contributed DNA to this child and because he was there for LM's first year and I wasn't. His ideas and behaviors couldn't possibly be the result of his (and his ex-wife's) desire that there offspring be free of any kind of mental disorders, no, that could never happen. And in her case it couldn't possibly be resistance to the fact that with behavioral therapy comes a necessary change in her way of life that would include setting and enforcing rules, rewarding good behavior, rather than just handing out toys and candy like they're water and air, punishing bad behavior, maintaining a consistent schedule, and organizing their life in a way that worked better for him, but that a whole other ball of wax...her ineptitude pisses me off, but not to the degree that his disregard and disrespect does.
I don't know what to do here. He doesn't respect me as a fellow parent to our child. He acts as if all of my motives must be selfish and that because I share no biological connections with LM I couldn't possibly have his best interests at heart. It wouldn't bother me nearly as much if this was a less important issue, but I feel like this is critical, especially as we move in to another school year that threatens to be just as difficult and heartbreaking as the last. LM needs these educational and social interventions. Right now he feels isolated from the rest of the kids and he doesn't think anyone understands him. We could be actively working to change that situation, but we're stuck at this impasse - without parents that will admit that he's sick, LM gets no special programs and all of the helpful interventions that we suggest to his teachers will be completely voluntary, there will be no IEP to compel them to act.
So just to recap, no change in the therapy, no medication, and I'm an asshole whose only desire is to rub it in everyone's face that I was right and they were wrong. I feel like we're in a game of "How Bad Can This Get" where the goal is to make things as not-terrible as possible, but my teammates are all working against me.
Grrr.
I promise a real, not angry post in the next two days, 'kay?
