My Story Part II continued...

*Remember to read "My Story" and "My Story Part II" before reading this entry.*

Before I continue I would like to thank you all who have come and read my life's story and thank you for returning. I hope that I am helping some of you put things into perspective. With that being said, lets get on with the story shall we?

As I stated previously, I thought I was getting somewhere with him, so I decided to go back to work full-time, because we were in desperate need of the money and my student loans were beginning to pile up. Well, that didn't go so well. It was late in the fall of 2002 and I was getting more and more frequent calls from the babysitter and the daycare concerning his behavior. Finally, in the end of November, 2002, he was kicked out of daycare due to his behavior. He was throwing things and hitting the other students as well as the teachers. He also began banging his forhead against walls and against the floor.

So there I was trying to work full-time and go to school full-time, but only now I didn't have anywhere to take him. I called around and finally got in touch with a woman who did daycare out of her house and only had two other children. I thought that would be good for him as he would have more one on one attention. I also found a therapy place that catered to children with behavior problems and traumatic experiences. As he began to go to therapy in the beginning of 2003, I started finding out that he had a deep resentment for women due to his mother not being there for him and me not being probably as nurturing as I should have been. It was also stated that he possibly had ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) and also more than likely had ADHD. Being a normal parent, you don't want to believe that there is anything wrong with your child and I didn't believe them. I just thought he was going to a terrible time in his life with is mother not being there for him and his father always at work or at school, so I continued the therapy sessions, but ruled out any type of disorders, even though I was diagnosed as an adult with ADD and I found out during the therapist research that his mother had been diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar. ALARMS SHOULD HAVE BEEN BLARING IN MY HEAD!!! However, I just didn't want to believe it. Plus, I was going to graduate in May of 2003 and I knew then I could be there for him after work and give him more of the parenting attention he needed. Basically, I chalked it up to his need for attention and the old saying that negative attention is better than no attention at all.

The daycare at the woman's home lasted all of 3 weeks and he was kicked out again for the same reasons. I finally went to our church and begged them to make space in their daycare program, because they knew him from Sunday School and there was an African-American woman teacher there that was as big as Shaquille ONeal. At least she looked that way to the kids, but she was a very large and domineering woman. I thought he could use her discipline, because she did not play around when it came to the kids behavior. What a saint she was, literally! Although he still had the problems, she didn't take his crap and really seemed to be able to control him. The only problem was, she only worked 3 days out of the 5 days I needed her to be there. It worked out alright though and the next few months were a lot less stressful, although the problems with my son were still there and eventually I would have to deal with it.

In May of 2003, I graduated from college and was the top male in my graduating class with a final G.P.A. of 3.87. It was the happiest I had been in my life in a long time. I graduated and I also had been dating a single mother that I met in school. We graduated together, moved in together after a year of dating, and both landed jobs as teachers.

The happiness would be short lived.

To be continued in "My Story Part III"...

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS AS THE REASON I AM PUTTING ALL OF MYSELF OUT THERE FOR ALL TO READ IS BECAUSE I NOT ONLY AM TRYING TO HELP OTHERS DEAL WITH THEIR PROBLEMS, BUT WANT TO HEAR FROM OTHERS WHO HAVE FACED SIMILAR CHALLENGES.