Despondent

Occasionally I think things are getting better, but then I have the even worse sense that I have been kidding myself.  Secundo had an OT session today, the first since I sent out an SOS email to his psychologist and OT pleading for something more effective than 1-2-3 Magic, which we've been doing it for years, and has been at times very painful emotionally, and still involves a lot of hands-on disruption to the entire household to get him to stay removed until he is calm.  And in the meantime, all family members have been subject to far too much physical and verbal abuse. And yet, some hours, some days, his behaviour is delightful.

The OT session in the morning was awful.  He wanted to play "murdering" games; most of his games are about violence.  He is becoming more articulate about that which is probably a good thing in the long run.  But as she usually does, the OT challenged him about various aspects of his play until he was threatening her, throwing things, and eventually hurt himself with a toy he was brandishing, collapsing in sobs into a ball on the floor.  I wondered if these sessions really were the right thing to do.  But to do nothing seems a guarantee for more friction and distress.  I set up a play in the afternoon for him with a friend at the other boy's house.  The boys clearly adore each other, the mother seems comfortable or is very good at disguising any misgivings she has, but the step-father, not for the first time, made comments at pick-up overlaid with disapproval.  And I am probably far too sensitive, but I take it very hard, picking up my child and feeling that he has been unwelcome at any level.  So much effort goes into helping him to negotiate other people, but our efforts feel pretty worthless at times.  As I said, perhaps I'm too sensitive.

Primo spent a while in the car with me and at times we chatted.  That is always manna from heaven.  The conversations inevitably evolve into the world of computer games, and even then, they don't make much sense in ways that I expect conversations to make sense.  And so the foggy, frustrated, bored, guilty, anguished build-up in me.  I'm hoping for another familiar feeling that often comes after these low points, when something changes quite suddenly (at least with Primo), and he shows skills and awareness that only weeks before, it was hard to ever imagine him possessing.  I'm really hoping that this is the pattern, that a wave is going to come and pick me out of this trough.

A strange calm descends ...

The mind is a fascinating thing, is it not?  I've been trying to figure out how I've gone from feeling markedly inadequate to the most calm and in control for a long, long time indeed, a real sense of being grounded, centred -- pick your metaphor/cliche.

I notice almost month by month how my boys are growing up and getting on with their own interests and interactions with less intervention from me; we all needed to get to this point so badly.  Nevertheless, forf a couple of weeks my habitual 2 days to myself were unavailable, and I became very tired.  In fact, I slept a lot, even for me.  There were some ongoing health issues, the usual disrupted nights with kids, but I was remarkably unrefreshed by the extra rest.

Is it a gender thing, or is it specifically me, that my reaction to this was to beat myself up?  To find myself hopelessly unable to cope with the day-to-day world and normal wear and tear?  That's how I was by the time I took both boys to a birthday party in a play centre not long ago.  A play centre; i.e., a place where kids jostle, knock, wrestle and occasionally shove each other, but where the action is generally good-humoured.  I hit a low as I watched P gallop like a big puppy towards any group of kids he liked the look of; he's so open, so warm, it's so hard to see the older kids pause with unfriendly expressions and turn their backs.  But even worse was watching S turn red with rage at every friendly attempt to play -- a ball thrown in his direction, a bump on the bouncing castle, a hand to his arm or shoulder ... I felt that some part of me was going into overload.  After what felt like an eternity of boy-monitoring, I walked away and sat down. It was too much, watching this inexplicable fury at a birthday party.

As it happened, after food, all the kids' mood changed.  Things got calmer, and S got friendlier.  A welcome surprise.

The next day I finally woke up and felt awake.  It was the last day of the school holidays, and I was to spend most of it alone with the boys as Q was visiting his father.  I don't know why, but I sat P down and had a talk to him about his diet.  I found pictures of food with protein, and I brought out small quantities of things he could choose from.  He ran away, he howled, he blocked his ears, he sobbed.  I admit that by the end my calm was exhausted and I felt angry and resentful at my failure to get him to eat, but I went shopping later and brought back a few other options, this time with success.  Very small, but success nevertheless.

In a variety of ways since I woke up that morning, I have felt more in charge again.  I don't quite know what has shifted; whether it is the simple overcoming of exhaustion (including remembering to take my iron supplements!), or hitting the bottom of that parenting spiral where I had to walk away from my own helplessness, or whether the boys' behaviour has shifted again in some fundamental way that I have yet to identify, giving me more much-needed mental space.  Whatever it is, more please!

Sentencing postponed

It felt like I was going to be sentenced; for guilt, for failing to understand what was in front of me. And a sentence for S too; a label, a life of problems that I thought he would not have to know as his brother does.

In that mood I drove to the psychologist's. S was at his worst. For the half hour of driving he repeated incessantly 2 "jokes", barely pausing for breath. I turned up the radio, I sang loudly, to stop myself from screaming at him. By the time I found a carpark we were late, and I was frazzled. S was at his worst, blocking the psych's every attempt to engage him, although she made modest progress. Pretty much everything she saw and everything I told her seemed to confirm the likelihood of AS, but the fact that he also seemed unrelaxed, combined with a conversation she'd had with the OT who feels he's probably not, meant that she couldn't be sure. And so she decided to do a full assessment in 2 weeks.

I had to do some shopping this afternoon and set out with the lowest of expectations of him, only to discover him to be enthusiastic, co-operative, and fun to be with. I feel like I am going around the twist.