Early Morning

I wake at 1:45am Saturday morning to the sound of my front door opening. I call out, “Take your medication and get in bed.” Boy calls back, “I don’t take medication anymore. It doesn’t work.” As the parent of a teen with prescribed psychotropic meds, I’ve had very little experience with this refusal to take medication. Over a ten year period, Boy has rarely refused to take his medication. I get out of bed and meet Boy to assess his condition. I ask him how he is. He says OK. I tell him its not OK to be out until 1:45am. He says he needed to be out. I tell him he has missed his curfew by eight hours. I don’t know why I like to calculate that time difference and verbalize it. He says he didn’t plan on coming home at all and then changed his mind.

Boy hugs me. Weird. I hug back but mostly I’m sniffing, try to identify where my son has been and what he has been doing - through scent. I don’t smell smoke or alcohol - only body odor. It’s not horrendous, just typical teenage boy body odor. I ask Boy where he has been. He says, “Where do you think I’ve been?” I say I don’t know and ask again, “Just tell me where you were.” Boy responds, “Where do you think I was?’ I don’t want to play this teenage game of deflection. I tell him to go to bed. I head towards my bedroom silently willing Boy to follow my instructions.

But no. Boy wants to talk. He says he’s afraid of turning 17. He says he doesn’t know how to act 17 and its very close to 18. He says he’s depressed. He says he wants a new therapist since his last therapist moved on two weeks ago. I like that he wants to talk to me. I don’t like that he wants to talk to me at 2am. I let him ramble for a few more minutes. I remember being a teenager and having very important things to say in the middle of the night. There must be some physiological explanation for it. Boy is finally in bed.

It’s Saturday afternoon and Boy has been up for a few minutes. He takes his morning medication and eats breakfast. Boy asks me if he’s grounded today. I calmly say yes. Boy says, “Good, I was afraid I would be grounded all weekend.” This is a set up for a fight and I’m about to walk right into it. “Of course you’re grounded for the whole weekend. You got home at 1:45am - eight hours after curfew.” Boy challenges, “You’re lucky I came home at all.” And so it goes until Boy retreats back to his room.

At dinner time, Boy emerges from his room once again. Boy eats and asks what he has to do to earn his phone, music player, and free time - all of which were confiscated at 1:45am this morning. Homework. Before I will entertain any such discussion, he must do his homework. We start with Geometry. I say “we” because Boy has never been able to do work independently. I open Boy’s Geometry notebook and see that Boy has written the assignment on top of the page and numbered the page with the appropriate assigned exercises. I praise Boy for taking this initiative. Ours are little victories.

Boy completes two Geometry exercises and then shuts down. I ask him what’s wrong but he doesn’t respond. He turns away from me and draws himself in. I try to encourage him back to Geometry. When Boy drops to the floor and balls up against the wall, I close the Geometry book and open the World History book I’ve been reading to him for the past month. I read. Boy loves to be read to and he remembers almost everything he hears. History is Boy’s favorite school subject. Boy is taking SpED World History this year but the book I’m reading is entitled “Cracking the AP World History Exam“. Boy doesn’t know the title of the book. I’m reading it from my Nook so he can’t see it. I read for awhile and then take a break. Boy asks me to keep reading. By now he has moved to the couch and covered himself with a soft blanket.

Sunday morning Boy is up and asking how he can earn his phone, music player and free time. I tell Boy that I will not entertain this discussion until his homework is done. Boy grunts and storms away. I fire up the audio book we’ve almost finished - “1984” by George Orwell. I turn the volume extra loud so Boy can here it from his bed room. After 10 minutes, he joins me in the living room and asks me what he has missed. I rewind and we listen to the final hour of the “1984” together. By 4pm, Geometry and Conceptual Physics homework lessons are complete. I return the phone and music player to Boy and give him permission to attend his Sunday night young people’s meeting. I record it as a successful weekend.