Invictus

This morning Blake is up early, even earlier than I am. He is eating breakfast when I come downstairs.

“He’s stayed up all night again,” I automatically think. To be perfectly honest, it’s a fair assumption. After all, he didn’t get out of bed until around 9 pm last night. His dad and I went to his room several times during the day encouraging him to get out of bed. It’s a familiar pattern – one that leaves me with a sense of hopelessness that sometimes spreads within me.

“I will,” was all we got – and then he plodded downstairs about an hour before the hubby and I went to sleep.

Blake heads upstairs – to go to bed, I assume – and I offer to make him a cup of coffee. To my surprise, he answers, “Yes.”

When I enter his room he is sitting in front of the space heater. I hand him the warm mug, plant a kiss on his cheek, and shut the door.

“Mom?” I hear from behind the door. I open it back up. “I didn’t stay awake all night. I actually went to bed a little after you and Dad.” He goes on to explain to me how it is possible to go back to sleep after sleeping nearly twenty-four hours.

“I’m happy,” he says – words I haven’t heard from him in some time. In fact, I can’t remember when he’s said that. “I got up two days with my alarm this week,” he notes, “and while it might not have been in a row, it’s more than I’ve gotten up on my own in this entire month.”

He goes on to show me words and symbols of motivation he’s written on a white board near his bed. On that board are the letters “INV.” He wants me to see what they stand for and motions me over to his laptop. “Invictus” is a poem written in the 1800’s by William Ernest Henley. For those who do not know the poem or the poet (I didn’t, though perhaps I should have), Henley suffered periods of extreme pain in his early years due to tuberculosis of the bone. He saw one of his legs amputated below the knee due to this. And, yet, his “maimed strength and masterfulness” inspired his friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, to create the character, Long John Silver.

Blake shares the poem with me, noting that he reads it to himself nightly. He identifies with not only the words of the poem, but with Henley, himself. After I read it, I cry and we hug. I am leaving the words to the poem below:

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Don’t Other People Do That?

I haven’t written much lately about Blake’s OCD. Though it’s been in a “waxing” period for some time now, there are still “rules” Blake follows all day every day. This was a moment we had last week.

Our cat presents a challenge for OCD’s contamination rules

Blake is helping me make my bed and we are chatting as we work. The only problem is, our cat isn’t cooperating. He insists on walking all over the blankets and sheets, making it nearly impossible to move or straighten anything without difficulty.

Impatient with our furry companion, Blake picks up a pillow and starts swatting at the cat. He’s not actually hitting him, just trying to encourage him to move off the bed. He swats repeatedly, but it’s a fruitless maneuver. The cat only moves a few feet so that Blake has to move to another part of the king size bed to reach him.

I watch this scene with interest. It’s a pretty ineffective technique for moving a cat who is determined to stay put, yet Blake continues to try to use it.

“How about if you actually give him a little nudge with your hand, honey? Or maybe pick him up and put him on the floor?” I finally ask.

“Then I’d have to go wash my hands and I’m trying to wash my hands less,” he answers.

I don’t say anything. My silence obviously speaks to Blake who asks me, “That’s not unusual, is it? People wash their hands when they touch their pets, right? Right?”

“Um…that’s not what most people do. I mean, most people don’t run to wash their hands immediately after they touch their pets.”

“They don’t?”

“No. They don’t.”

“Ew. I don’t think that would be very uncomfortable.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Do you think I’m wrong?”

“Blake, you asked if other people wash their hands when they touch their pets. I answered you that most people don’t.”

“But am I wrong?” he asks.

“Only you can decide that, honey.”

“I don’t like to feel uncomfortable,” he answers.

“I know,” I say kindly. “Maybe, if you wanted to, you could expand the limits of what makes you uncomfortable by just waiting a tiny bit longer to wash after you touch our pets.”

“Thank you, mom,” he says.

That’s my signal that the message is received and he’s done with the conversation. Yet, this is the first time I can ever recall that Blake is questioning his behavior. He’s always just asserted that he is the way he is and that he thinks he is right. Today he is questioning whether his rules about what’s contaminated are in keeping with what others do. I don’t know that it means anything…but maybe it does.

Back Home

Blake has been home now for just over two months. It’s been nice having him home. He’s been more self-reflective and more open to sharing. It’s also been a relief to know he’s eating and taking his medication more regularly. The hubby and I have been able to be calmer with him than before and less impatient with him in many ways. Yet, at the same time, things are still so uncertain with him and it’s tough to know what ways things will go.

He wants to be a writer and he spends his days working on a book he’d love to publish. Some days he write a lot. Other days – not so much. The topic of his book is a secret. I only know that it is a work of fiction, maybe even sci-fi. He ponders whether he should return to school at some point. And sometimes he’s very sad and lonely.

Recently, when he was feeling very sad, he shared that the only things he really looks forward to are eating and sitting in front of his space heater. I reminded him of how, a month ago, he enjoyed playing video games with his brother and a friend.

“I think that you’re actually a social guy and that it’s important for you to get out of the house and be with people on a regular basis.”

“But what would I do?” he asked.

“Maybe apply for a volunteer position where you’re required to show up at the same time every week?”

With a little more talk, he agreed to try. He reached out, with my help, to several organizations in our community and started a weekly position with our local food pantry. For the past three weekends, he’s ridden in the big truck with the driver, picking up donations from local grocery stores. It’s heavy lifting work and is probably good for his mood. He and his driver sound like an odd pair, yet Blake has taken to this young man (who is about 10 years older than him). Blake has even learned to appreciate a new music genre: Hick Hop! He actually looks forward to going each time.

In addition, Blake has started a blog. Again, it was at my urging, but he joyfully wrote his first post. It’s a humor blog and that first post was pretty hysterical to all of us. We’ll see where it goes. The hubby and I hope that, little by little, Blake will build up momentum to living in the world and taking more steps on his own.