The day my heart broke.

My oldest realized at some point in the last couple days that she is different, a moment I have been dreading with all my heart.

What do you say to a child who is different? Except to try to reassure her that it isn't as bad as she thinks. While she has a hard time leaning now, one day she will catch up. I sat there holding my sobbing child, who doesn't understand why she is different and why she isn't as smart as everyone else. I tried to tell her that being different isn't a bad thing. What a boring world this would be if everyone was like everyone else. That she has so many talents, just because school is difficult doesn't mean that she isn't going to do well. She will just have to work harder and that is a good thing because she will learn how to handle difficult situations in life. And we all know those don't stop with school.

This is one of the reasons I don't want to 'label' her. I refuse to tell her she can't do anything. What ever she wants to try, I encourage. Never do I want her thinking for a moment she can't do something because she has ____(insert annoying medical opinion here)____.

This also tells me that some little fuck'n ass at her school has discovered the art of 'cliques', or decided to spread their nasty little wings. How can I protect her from that? There are lots of handicapped kids at her school and those with obvious challenges are understood. For kids like my daughter, who's challenges don't show on the outside, they are fodder for those trying to practice manipulation and peer pressure.

Her recent decision to be a 'punk' might have started it all. Nothing like making a change to one's self to draw attention. In this instance, it has drawn the wrong kind of attention. Again something I am NOT going to say to her.

She sees the world differently then the rest of us. How she experiancesit is different too, and sometimes she gets lost in her own head.

Most times I think that everyone is on crack, that there isn't anything wrong with her. She is a perfectly normal little girl...and then there is the times I glimpse what she should know or do and I feel so guilty because I should have taught her that, or I did something wrong at some point. And of course the worst part are the things she comes out with that I remember feeling at her age. Like not being able to sleep and feeling like I was being watched all the time. So I must have genetically passed them on to her. What is a little more mommy guilt right? I know I know it's not my fault. (Right?)

I have days that I wish they would put a label on her, then someone could give me a list of things to do. But then I'm afraid that doing that would cause her not to do something she could because it on was this imaginary list.

I feel so lost.