Stop the Bullying

In October of 2016, our family’s lives were changed forever.  My 11 year old son became a target of a bully while attending middle school.  My son was put in choke holds, punched, repeatedly assaulted and was exposed to so much harassment that he began experiencing horrific flashbacks, had many sleepless nights, engaged in self injuring, anxiety, depression and throwing up before school.  In May of 2017, I removed my son from his middle school due to the manifestation of PTSD.  My son spent the summer of 2017 in trauma recovery to reprocess the emotional damage caused by the bully.  Over the next school year, majority of the concerns regarding safety for my child were never really addressed.  My son became a target of bullying by multiple students by the end of the school year.  His anxiety skyrocketed and on the advice of my son’s doctor, I removed him from the middle school again, in May of 2018. As my son recovers, we are in dire need of help.  My son is going to need many support systems that we cannot afford. Our family just adopted a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel as an emotional support animal for my son.  Although, adopting a dog was absolutely the best thing for my son and family,  owning a dog is expensive and certainly not in our budget.  My son has an IEP with goals that the middle school did NOT meet.   My son reads at a 5th grade level...he’s in 8th grade.  My son was diagnosed with dyslexia and the school refused to even consider Dyslexia as a disability within special education.  Therefore, the school did NOT give him any support to help him with the coding issues of dyslexia.  In order to overcome my son dyslexia, he is going to need on-going tutoring in a specialized learning program called the Wilson Curriculum.  The expenses for that program are around $8,000 to $10,000.  My husband works full time as a firefighter and I stay home with the kids.  We live paycheck to paycheck.  I suffer from severe Fibromyalgia  and there are times when I cannot even get out of bed.  Those days, if my husband can stay home from work, he does...but he doesn’t get paid!  

For those of you who know me, know that asking for help does not come easy for me.  Our family has suffered so much.  If the school had taken this situation more seriously, we would not be where we are at.   My son’s situation was avoidable.      At this point, we may end up having to sell our house just to make ends meet.  Obviously, that would cause so much more anxiety.

As a parent to this remarkable young man, it is absolutely devastating to become a statistic.  We, my husband and I, would be extremely grateful for any help.  Most of us know the short and long term effects of bullying.  If you can donate towards this cause of rehabilitation, we may just save a child’s life!