He's not doing that for your amusement.

My son has ADHD, ODD, and Anxiety. He tends to shut down when he is not in a good mood or doing something he doesn't want to do. One thing that really rubs me the wrong way is when other kids around him start laughing and making jokes about it. I am used to him shutting down. Sometimes it irritates me; sometimes it doesn't phase me. It does bother me when kids make fun of him for it.

Towards the end of his pack meeting Booger shut down because his head started hurting. He sat against the wall, near everyone else, but just looked straight ahead and didn't say anything. He was ignoring his pack leader when he was trying to get my son to join the rest of the group to end the meeting. I hear the other 10 kids laughing at how he was acting. One was waving their hand in front of his face and lifting my sons arm just to watch it drop straight back down. That kid did that about three or four times. All his pack leader was doing was telling my son to join the group. So I decided to walk over and tell my son that he had 3 seconds to decide if he was going to join the rest of the group or if we were going to leave. I knew the answer was leave, but I was still going to give him the choice.

I get within 3 feet of Booger and three more kids stand up and all say "Maybe he is dead. I know how to get him to talk!" I just very sternly, on the verge of being pissed, said "No. Get away from my son." gently nudged the other kid out of the way and told Booger he had 3 seconds to join the group or we were leaving. We left. As we were walking to where my stuff was to grab it I could still hear the kids laughing about what my son was doing.

On the way home I had to make sure Booger didn't think I was mad at him for how he was acting, but more upset with how the other kids were acting. Booger said, "I know. That was why I was ignoring them." I am glad he ignored them. If it was me they were doing that to I would have gone off on them. I know how my son feels, I have ADHD and pretty sure I had ODD as a kid. I shut down a lot. I mean a lot! I also held in how I was feeling outside my own home. The kids that picked on me had no idea that one day I was going to snap and just verbally rip them a new asshole in the middle of the high school hallway.

I can't stand it when I see Booger get treated like that because of what he does. I want to defend him and go off on the other kids. I want to go off on their parents for not stopping them. I also know that those kids and parents have no idea why my son is doing what he is doing. So I just remove him from the situation when I am able to. He is not their toy. He is not there to amuse them. How would they feel if another kid had done that to them?

I will be emailing his pack leader explaining that we left not because of my son but because of the other kids there.

You’re the DD. I’m supposed to be drunk, not you!

This blog was originally written as a guest blog for Holdin' Holden (here) while she was away at Disney with her family. Her blog with this originally post on April 12th is here. I hope you enjoy it if you haven't read it yet!!!

Back sometime around 2007 or 2008 my best friend and I were invited to a party that one of her co-workers friends was having. I wasn't allowed to drive at the time so my friend, we shall call her Danielle, said I could drink and she would be the driver. She picked me up from my house and was supposed to drop me off at the end of the night. If only it happened that way!!

Danielle had a crush on the guy she worked with, who’s party it was, even though she was married. I knew once she got any alcohol in her it would be a problem. Oh boy was it! The night started out normal. We were taking shots, enjoying the keg, mingling, and whatnot. I had myself a total of 4 or 5 drinks and switched to water for the rest of the night. Danielle went way beyond that! Within an hour of being at this party Danielle kept repeating this guys name. I can’t remember his name but every time she had a second to speak she was blurting out “so-and-so you are so cute!” or following him around the house trying to talk to him.

There was this pillar between the living room and the kitchen, not sure why because it was kind of a stupid place to have a random pillar. Anyways, for 10 straight minutes Danielle would pop her head out from one side and say this guys name, then swing to the other side and say his name. Like I said, this went on for 10 minutes! Everyone at the party was thinking she had lost her damn mind! I know I was and I had known her for 10 years before this party! Then Danielle gets the bright idea to try her hand at poker. I just let her go for it. There is no stopping this woman when there is alcohol in her system! She played 3 hands of poker and lost every single cent in her pocket. So then she tried to talk the guys into letting her play to win her money back. That was not happening at all! By this point Danielle is going from the happy “I love you” girl she is when she drinks to sad and depressed.

We end up on the front porch talking to some other people that she knew and she started talking about her husband. So, we end up talking about relationships and she mentions that she found out just before her wedding her husband kissed one of his co-workers. She starts going off, threatening to call him at 1 in the morning and bitch him out even though they had been married for over a year at this point. Everyone is trying to talk her off the proverbial ledge and keep her from calling her husband.

I finally decide it is time to go home around 3am. I am sober as hell by this point so I tell her to give me the keys and I am driving. If we get pulled over I will just point at her and tell the cops that she is why I am driving without a license. I had to help her walk down the steps of the porch and I keep telling her “Whatever you do, do NOT sit down because you are not going to get back up!” Unfortunately I had to run inside and get her purse. So what does Danielle do? She sits her freaking ass down on the sidewalk! I couldn't get her to stand up no matter how hard I pulled her. This caused me to have to go into the party and find two of the biggest dudes I could to get my friend off her ass and in the car. As the guys are lifting her off the ground I run to the car and get her door open. The three of us, me and the two dudes, are coaching Danielle on how to get in the car. We told her to turn around, put her butt down first, get her head in, and then pull her feet in. So she does what we tell her to. She dives in the car head first. Really. Head first. Another few minutes to get her sitting upright and we were on our way!

This party was in butt fucked Egypt compared to where we lived. It was a 40 minute drive to get to the party. It was February. It was cold. Danielle is drunk and burning up. So we had the a/c on, the windows down (all the freaking way!) and the radio as loud as I could handle it; per Danielle’s request so she could stay awake in case we got pulled over. Danielle had this look on her face that I can’t even find the words to describe, she had her chin in her chest, and she is just staring out the front window like we are driving warp speed on the USS Enterprise. Every so often she would break the silence with “You’re my best friend, you know that right?” or “I love you. You are like a sister to me.” Or my personal favorite where she would actually snap out of it and shoot up straight at a board “Oh my god. He knows. My husband knows. I called that guy cute. My husband knows. He’s going to leave me.” Then zone out like it never happened.

That went on for 20 minutes until we saw a police check point on the OTHER side of the road and she loses her shit again! So I have to convince her that they aren’t going to stop us because they are stopping people going the other way and we are still 200 feet away from them. THEN she decides she has to pee but refuses to use the gas station restroom because they are going to know she is drunk…. NO SHIT WOMAN JUST LOOK AT YOU!! So I had to TURN AROUND and drive BACK to the party we just left so Danielle could taking a freaking piss!!

We get back to the party, I help her walk to the bathroom, I close the door, and I just stand there outside the bathroom door in case she fell and busted her damn head open. Out of nowhere, and louder than the music and 30 drunken rowdy people, I hear Danielle in the bathroom… singing… “I’m peeing. Oh yeah! Gotta pee.. whoo I’m peeing! Gotta pee, need to pee.. I’m pppeeeeeeeiiiiiinnnngggggg!!!!”

Fast forward 40 minutes, 50 “I love yous”, 80 “omg he knows!”, and 1,000,000,000,000 “you’re my best friends” I finally get Danielle to her complex. I also had to call my dad at 4am and ask him to give me a ride home. Thank God he lived 5 minutes from Danielle! While I waited for my dad I made sure Danielle got into her apartment safely but got a few giggles in for myself first. It took her 3 minutes to walk up 10 steps. I was of course behind her in case she fell, but it took her forever! Then came the joy of watching her try to unlock her door. She couldn't even get the key in the hole! I finally had to take her key and open her door for her! The night would have been nice to end for me there but my dad had to drop me off at the start of my street because it was blocked off by cops and an ambulance so I had to walk past whatever happened! I get up to the blockage and there is a dude lying across the side walk, holding his bloody side, screaming “The bitch stabbed me! She fucking stabbed me!!” Thanks Danielle.. Love you too!

I go over to her place the next day to check on her and she remembers NOTHING! Absolutely nothing! Her husband walks in and asks how my portion of the night was with her before filling me in on what happened after she got inside. OMG! It was glorious to hear! It apparently took Danielle 10 minutes to get to bed because she kept unlocking and locking the front door because she couldn't remember if it was locked or not, she left a trail of clothing from the front door to the bedroom, trying to sit on the bed she fell off about 5 times, missed the toilet on the “omg” bathroom run, fell out of bed trying to lay down in bed, and all her husband could hear after she laid down was the continuous gurgle of her stomach while she moaned and groaned that she was going to die. To make it even better I got the joy of reminding her of EVERYTHING that happened at the party J Needless to say I never saw her drink that much ever again and we went out every other Friday. That is a party I am never going to forget! I had to babysit my designated drive and stay sober because she decided to drink until she couldn't function.