Y’all might just about be tired of our ongoing saga with seeking mental health resources, but it is why I’ve been unable to post very often lately. My son, Jose, has been out of our home for six weeks now, and even gone, has forced us to go through a CPS investigation which took up even more of my time.

I budget my time carefully. Family comes first, the kids who are trying their best to succeed – I never want to overlook them in my often fruitless efforts to find help for more seriously disturbed children. I have 13 kids who are obsessed with soccer, tying up all our evenings and Saturdays for the next couple of months. I love to watch them play, to see them excel, and watch them learn about teamwork, strategy and cooperation. It is such a positive environment, even when they lose they learn about good sportsmanship and plans that failed at the moment.

Lord knows I’ve learned from my many failures as well.

My 11 year old, the healthiest kid in the house, somehow came down with strep throat. Usually we’ve been blessed with really good health, now I’m nursing him through this ordeal and trying to isolate him enough to repel the contagious aspect of this disease.

I’ve been making hundreds of phone calls, shooting off faxes and responding to emails, still trying to find a place for Jose. My Methodist guilt that comes from being a Preacher’s Kid in the 1950s is astronomical and I’m hard on myself in my quest to always try and do the right thing. I’ve wondered if I should try and give Jose another chance, the guilt over letting him down comes into my mind and truly I know that I can’t “cure” his problems. I fear more so about the fact that I have so many potential victims for his violent outbursts and all my children need to live in as safe of an environment as possible.

My gut tells me to fight for services for him; to protect my other children from his rages. I’ve lived with several other significantly diagnosed mentally ill children before and now looking back I can see that all my efforts at keeping them home with services in place did nothing but cause us heartbreak, severe problems, and tremendous fallout. My determination to be all I could be for them didn’t take into account how much professional help that they truly needed rather than just a loving mom and family. That was never enough.

That’s why I am now so bound and determined to get Jose somewhere that he, and we, will be safe.

Today a lady in our community took me aside and struggled to find the words she wanted to say, fearing that she was maybe too bold, or butting into our business from outside the periphery of our tight-knit family life. I encouraged her to speak her piece, fearing she was going to tell me to try harder with Jose at home, knowing he hadn’t been at her school for the last year or so, not knowing the level of his deterioration.

She surprised me however by stressing she too felt he was a danger to our family, for me to keep fighting to find help for him. This had come to her in her prayer time.

I needed to hear that confirmation from her today in a big, big way.