My 9-year old son has had a motor tic for the past few weeks. Head jerking. Sometimes worse than others, but pretty much consistently there for the past 2 weeks or so. We were upset, but not freaked out. I had some various motor tics when I was a kid, and to tell you the truth, I didn't even remember that until this happened and then it sort of came back to me. So, it obviously didn't turn out to be the most traumatic thing in my life. He has some behavior problems, difficulty getting along with his sister(who is pure sunshine and light) and has developed a few social problems at school, but nothing so out of the ordinary that I ever once thought he was anything other than a difficult kid. I was a difficult kid. I'm a difficult adult, truth be told. My son is pretty much me, but without impulse control.

Anyway, long story short is that we have been trying to make an effort to be calmer with him. Change the discipline methods. Try to spend more time with him instead of uttering the "I'm too busy right now", that is probably heard way too often in this house. Try to come home from work earlier. Play games, read together, just try to make him feel as calm and safe and secure and loved as possible. All while completely ignoring the tic (which we hadn't been doing at first because we thought it was on purpose; see difficult child explanation above), which is what most doctors recommend that you do. Most tics are transient and will just go away on their own and calling attention to them, or even worse, punishing them for them, often just makes them worse.

So, okay. we've got our game plan. And not that I expected instant results or thought a few rounds of Pictionary would magically make everything better, but things did seem to improve. He was still doing it, but not with the same severity or frequency. Things were going to be okay. I was sure of it. Why sure of it? Because that's what I do. I'm the strong one, the resilient one, the one that takes every impossible situation and somehow makes the best of it. The person that takes care of everybody and everything, all the time. People think it's so fabulous to be the strong one. But let me tell you, sometimes it sucks.

Anyway, last night when I came home, my husband told me we had another tic. Brian was saying faggot out of nowhere. This isn't even a word that we use in my household. Ever. He had to have heard it at school. I kind of blew him off and said he was probably just being a pill, didn't even know what the word meant, saw Jeff's reaction and continued to do it to get a rise out of him. but then I noticed him mumbling it last night. I told him it wasn't a good word to say and that I didn't want to hear it anymore. He said okay, but still mumbled it a few times. Then fell asleep shortly after. I still wasn't overly concerned.

Today he's been mumbling it. I don't think a casual observer would even understand what he was saying, but I'm listening for it and he's definitely doing it. Last night when he was doing it he seemed to be looking over at me immediately after saying it, but today he wasn't. I'm becoming convinced that he doesn't even realize that he's doing it.

So, by now you're all thinking of Tourette's, right? Sure, it doesn't have to be that, but you're all thinking it. Well, now put yourself in my shoes. It's all I can think of. I don't know what to do. Me, the person that always knows what to do. And my husband and my mother? They expect me to know what to do, this time too. Unfortunately, cry in bed is all I can come up with. He's my baby. And the thought that he could have something that I can't help him with or fix, breaks my heart. He's at Spiderman 2 right now, with his father and one of his friends and all I can think about is what if he stands up in the movie theatre and starts shouting obscenities? What if his friend notices his mumbling, tells his parents and can't be friends with him anymore? What if my baby has Tourette's? What if there's something really wrong with my child and there's nothing I can do about it?

I can't be the strong one this time. Not with my baby. I just can't.

Most of you know that Sherrie and I had a big argument aways back. One of her eljay deletions was a direct result of her being mad at me. We sort of patched things up, to a degree, but things were never the same between us.

She frustrated me, more often than not, in the past months. Sometimes infuriated me. I'm not proud to admit it, but when I saw her last post, I rolled my eyes and thought, here we go again. When a few days passed and she hadn't posted, and when she didn't show at the Beta reunion, I though maybe she had been hospitalized again. It's not that I didn't think that there might come a day where she would actually go through with it and kill herself, I just didn't think that that was what had happened. Not for any particular reason. It's just not what I thought.

Our fight wasn't pretty. I had had it with the emotional blackmail and the eljay deletions and her woe is me attitude. I wanted her to stop making excuses for Cary. I wanted her to stop making excuses for herself. I wanted her to stop blaming everyone for not doing enough or being enough or proving enough to her. I knew she was sick. I knew she couldn't control all of her emotions. I knew that some of her circumstances were out of her control. But damnit, I wanted her to do something, anything, to try and make things better for herself. I wanted her to take her meds regularly, and only the meds that were prescribed to her. I wanted her to kick Cary's ass for not being adult enough to take care of her emotionally or financially. I wanted her to be an active participant in her own fucking life and not fall back on "I can't help it" as an excuse for anything and everything. I wanted her to take control of the few things that she did have control over, sick or no. I wanted her to live.

And, I told her all of this, in my usual blunt fashion. She didn't appreciate it. She claimed time and time again to not want to be handled with kid gloves, but she either couldn't or wouldn't, hear what I was saying to her. We did some back and forth in a sometimes locked, sometimes open entry of mine (depending on her mood and wishes). I told her that I didn't want to upset her further, but that I was at a loss as to what to say to her. How to respond to posts that time and time again referred to suicide attempts and lashed out at us, accusing us of not caring. She didn't want hugs and platitudes. She didn't want opposition or disagreement. She didn't want no response at all. She didn't want her problems listed, or people talking about her. She didn't want people presuming what her problems were and she didn't want people not acknowledging her problems at all. For awhile, for me, it became a tangled dance of never, ever knowing what to do, say, not do, not say. And, I'll admit, I was angry...really angry. My backbone went up. I wasn't going to compromise and post to her according to some constantly changing list of rules in her head. I wasn't going to pat her on the back and rub her head and tell her that everything was going to be okay, when I knew, knew, that if things continued as they were, that things were going to be anything but okay.

So, I stopped posting to her at all. That pissed her off and she temporarily deleted me from her flist. We wrote back and forth about it, and eventually came to an understanding of sorts. She added me back to her flist. But, I never felt comfortable posting anything of substance to her, again, really. I knew she valued my friendship. I knew she respected me and my opinions. I knew my disapproval and silence hurt her. But, I stayed mostly silent anyway. Oh sure, I posted about how big Vinnie had gotten or how cute her new haircut was, but posts where she was obviously hurting? I stayed away from. I had my own problems. I didn't have the time or energy to get involved in another dramatic, time-consuming argument. I didn't have the patience to try to guess at what exactly she wanted me to say to her at any given moment. I didn't think that I would do her any favors by turning a blind eye to her very real problems and not speaking my mind re: her, to me, very destructive behavior.I cared about her a great deal, and I think that she knew that, but I know it hurt her that my posting to her was so scarce and inconsequential. I knew when she made posts lashing out about people not caring and not responding, that I was one of the people she was referring to. I knew. And I did nothing about it.

I don't think that my actions or inactions affected Sherrie's decision to kill herself. I'm not that vain. I'm one, in a mass of people that she was friends with online. But, I feel sad that things were the way they were between us when she died. I feel horribly that I couldn't or wouldn't find a way to make things better between us, without having to delve into all the hurt feelings and bullshit. I feel terrible that I ever contributed to a bad day or night that she was having. I meant the things that I said to her, and I'm not sure that I would take them back, but I just wish that we had been able to come full circle. I wish there had been more time.

When Rachel emailed me with the news, I couldn't stop shaking. I have a headache and I feel nauseous and I just wish that none of this had ever happened. I've been on the verge of tears all day but they won't come. My heart aches for that beautiful little boy that will never know his mother. My heart aches for Sherrie that she'll never get to see her son grow up into a man. My heart aches for every person that made a post about this today.

I hope that wherever Sherrie is, that there's sunshine and mimosas and lots of good books to read. I hope that she can somehow sense this great outpouring of love for her here, today. Because it's all she ever wanted. I just wish that she had been more aware of it while she was still with us, and that it could have helped her more.

I love you guys. I really do.