Unfortunately, they are in the process of selling their townhouse and will move away in the next month or so. (Hmmm....maybe you can make them move. Does this require a title change above?)
I'm super nervous about another family moving in. Not so much nervous about who they are and what they are like. I mean really, when you have a teenager that plays the drums on the other side of you just how much worse can it get?
No, I'm nervous about what they will think of us.
It's another family, or maybe just person, that will be involved in our life, even if only on the periphery.
Living as close to us as they will, and knowing that despite our efforts, they will hear screaming and raging from our house, I think that it is important that I fill them in at least a little bit. They haven't had the benefit of watching my boys grow up and seeing the progression.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed, right? Or perhaps more accurately to forewarn them results in us being forearmed?
The likelihood is that they won't really get it. They will hear the screaming, or see Noah's behaviors, (or even Kiel who has been quite the little monster lately) and be horrified. Or even worse I suppose, witness Rich or myself momentarily lose our minds because OMG if we find one more broken item, or hear the word NO screamed at us one more time, or witness Noah do something to Kiel again, our heads just might explode.
The good piece is that because of the elevation between their house and ours not as much noise is transferred as is between our house and our neighbor on the other side. Noah's room is also not on their side, which I'm sure makes a big difference as well.
Still, I'm always nervous when new people move into the neighborhood in case they see or hear something and misinterpret it. I'd really prefer not to have another experience with CPS.
What would you tell a new neighbor in our situation? Just how much detail would you give? I have a tendency to share too much I think.
From personal experience, I'd go with disclosing as much as you feel confortable with avec your new neighbors. It seemed to work for my parents, who were up front the neighbor's about my baby sister's mental illness. Folks were surprisingly helpful/supportive.
ReplyDeleteNot disclosing wasn't really an option, as K was exceedingly loud and her attempts at self-harm tended to involve the roof. Like your son, K had an invisible disability.
(You might also want to proactively reach out to CPS, just in case some neighbor does decide to hotline you. A not-so-funny-when-it-happened-yet-hilarious-in-hindsight was a person who called CPS on my parents, reporting that there was a little girl in handcuffs on the porch... casually failing to mention the ambulance & squad car in the driveway. Or the EMT & police officer attempting to coax K into the ambulance to get her to the hospital).