Every day is challenging when dealing with someone especially your own child that has anxiety. Whether you decide that you want to try medication or try other options it's never easy. We did try medication, but we ended up opting to stop the medicine. We wanted to learn how to work through this with her. Onnaka is 13 years old now and it worries me more now than ever. Onnaka has battled with people just throwing their hands up and just saying they don't know what to do. I have prayed for her and still do. As she gets older she faces bigger obstacles that will put her anxiety through the test. As her mother I have had stuck up for her and fought for her and shed tears for her. She may not know now how much I have done to make people understand her. I had done alot of homework on Selective Mutism and gotten one of her schools to educate themselves on this subject. We have had Psychologists offer to go and have a meeting with teachers and staff at her schools, so that they could better understand why kids go through this anxiety disorder. And to help them adjust how they deal with frustration with it. Because trust me it isn't easy. We only had one school system take up the offer to have someone come educate them and they paid for it. It took everything I had not to cry while I sat there and listen to all their questions and concerns. That showed me they really truly genuinely cared about what was going on with Onnaka. I have never had anyone try to help Onnaka in school. I had to pull teeth just to get her an IEP so that they wouldn't hold Onnaka back because they couldn't verbally assess her at school.
         After that meeting things started to turn around. The teachers were findings way to get Onnaka to participate in class projects by designating someone to talk for her. She got into Girl Scouts and started to go to slumber parties. But she still wouldn't talk. That was something that would take more time. But Onnaka was starting to branch out and experience being a normal little girl and hang out with friends. All that hard work trying to figure how to get Onnaka to socialize was starting to pay off. But the hardest part isn't done. The hardest part was Onnaka learning that it's ok to talk.  So, I sat down with her one day and asked why she doesn't try to talk and her response was people will laugh at her and make fun of her. My heart broke here is this little girl that is so afraid to talk to friends what do I do now.  I was so mind blown Onnaka plays with the kids next door just fine and she even talks to them. She is speaks and reads just fine but just wouldn't talk in school. It goes to show me no matter what keep striving to make thing better for Onnaka. We have definitely made progress already with her hanging out with people. Never give up on people that you love and care about you never know what kind of battle they face on a daily basis. Some people struggle more than others but through time and patience you will see why it pays to keep putting in everything you got.