It was a rough week for me in my advocacy "journey" (aka 9 Circles of Hell).

Many issues. This will be long.

1) DS started a new medication and discontinued one, and was a hot mess. One very kind teacher was very communicative with me (thank god!) and so I was able to understand I needed to call psychiatrist. I should count that as a blessing because this did not happen last year and created a circle-the-drain scenario.

2) DS missed classes last week for medical appointments and was penalized in class for "participation points" in one, and in another, I ended up embroiled in an ultimately fruitless email marathon in an attempt to understand his 504 accommodations regarding makeup work deadlines. I ended up canceling a therapy (CBT) appointment for him today because he would have missed class and I don't want to make things worse. He needs the counseling.

3) As the icing on the cake: I received another email saying "DS' planner is trashed, do you know what happened?" I didn't, but the planner is kind of a mess. I put it back together and told DS he needs to take better care of it, which his teacher had also told him.

At this point, DS says (very factually), "In my defense, it isn't my fault this time."

When pressed--he explains (again, unemotionally)--that he'd stayed after one class a little late to discuss his planner, so he hadn't put it away in his backpack. He said he was carrying it, and an older student ran up to him, smacked it out of his hand, yelled "F the Police," and ran off.

DS isn't worried about it and does not feel it's bullying since it only happened once.

Why didn't DS explain this to the teacher? The answer to that is he is oblivious, and didn't realize an explanation would help the teacher understand when the teacher told him he needs to take better care of his planner. So more negative perception of DS not caring.

I also worked through some homework with him and in some cases, when he doesn't understand directions, he just skips questions or answers them ineffectively. Why, DS, do you not ask for help? He explained that he knows *how* to ask for help (i.e. what words to use) but not *when* he needs help. How can he not understand this?

I am very careful to make sure DS doesn't look notably "weird." IOW, he has a stylish haircut and wears nice, mainstream looking clothes and I make him change if he puts together an oddball outfit (mismatched, or black socks/white shoes, etc.) He doesn't want to look weird and wants me to tell him if he does--but he is clueless. He is a really nice looking kid (I'm biased, but he really is!) but I'm wondering if his affect is becoming more and more noticeably different.

All in all--just a bad week. I would like to just move to the mountains with my kids and not have to deal with any of this.

I don't know how to advocate for him because it seems like teachers either "get it" or not, and there's no room in the middle.