The Crew - Miss Fabulous, Lil Bro, Big Sis and Mr. Man

Friday, January 22, 2010

Doctor Doctor Give Me The News


(The Twins as Little Munchkins)

Following the visit with Dr. Psychiatrist Tuesday where Mr. royally showed himself Dr. Psychiatrist altered Mr.'s Meds. The med we so lovingly call "magic med" because of the wonders it does for Miss M, Dr. now has Mr. taking a whole pill instead of a half and he takes it in the am instead of at night. His first official dose was Thursday and he had a great day. No agitation or aggression at all! He was the little boy we know he can be. He is sticking to his earned Wii time schedule nicely and is not struggling when it is time to exit the Wii.

Man do we hope this sticks!

As a toddler Mr. was challenging. His hyper activity was off the charts and people literally did not want him to come to their home. He climbed everything, in fact I made it part of our daily routine to go to the park and let him climb up the climbing rock over and over and then at home was absolute regarding no climbing the furniture, walls, counter tops, etc.

He was delayed socially and by age 3 still had no self care ability at all. He could not be still long enough to eat. We had him tested with the early intervention program and he bombed that a big one. He freaked out, melted down and literally attacked the door in an effort to exit the testing area. They all did that look at each other like oh he is so messed up. But it was his window into the program with the best teacher on the planet (my opinion).

She was great with Mr. and taught me so many things. By age 4 and 5 he was making great progress. This was the time in life where Miss M was unraveling in a major way.


And then he turned 6 and things started to get very difficult with Mr. We got the CBA involved and then we got Dr. Psychiatrist on board. We have had periods as long as 6 weeks where Mr. seems to do well and then WHAM-O right back down the tubs again.

Although their aggression can look freakishly similar what is behind it is very different for both Miss M and Mr. He is a child on the Autism Spectrum who also deals with ADHD but he is very attached to his family and in particular the Mama. It comes down to his brain chemicals being out of whack.

Miss M is (as we all know here) a child healing from RAD who also has Bipolar Disorder. She is this complicated mix of defiance based in lack of trust and fear of abandonment and whacked out brain chemicals from Bipolar Disorder. She struggles with cycles of sleep difficulty, difficulty regulating her own temperature (she is either freezing or burning up), cycles of increased appetite, cycles of extreme aggression, cycles of extreme happy hyper behavior where just looking at her sends her into hysterics that mimic a drunk person.  This is all better regulated now with the assistance of medication.

At their worst either one of them will take you down to Chinatown on the hurt you express but what's fueling the engine is very different. And it certainly makes parenting ... interesting. What motivates and helps one is of no interest to the other. One is an attention seeker who is just as easily fueled by negative attention the other simply wants their own way.

Our 3 year old Lil Bro responds very well to "warning" and that whatever behavior is going on is not okay. The next move is the time out spot for 3 minutes. Because he does not care to go to the time out spot for 3 minutes he can put 2 and 2 together and when he hears "warning" his brain goes yeah the next step is going to be going and sitting over there for 3 minutes and I'd rather not. So 7 or 8 times out of 10 he will stop the behavior, the other times I get to demonstrate my ability to replace him on the spot 15 times before he actually sits. But he does sit, he has the self control to be capable to sit.  Neither Miss M nor Mr. has the ability to sit on said spot.

Mr. seems to have the control to follow the things that are in place to help prevent him from getting extremely frustrated in the first place or he goes from 0 to 60 in a nanosecond and there is a greatly diminished ability on his part to remain in control.

Interesting too that Miss M is a biter and always has been. I was once on the phone with the Psychiatrist and she was raging and biting me in the same manor an attacking chihuahua would. Mr. has always been a scratcher. He used to attack kids and teachers in his pre-school class with the scratching. They were always asking me to cut his nails shorter but they were as short as they would go.

Both will hit with aggression but Miss M is a open hand pimp slap hitter and Mr. is a fist hitter. Both are incredibly strong when they are aggressive, like pick up furniture and throw it at you strong.

So on any given day it can be a 3 ring circus here in loo loo land and it is never boring.  But ... we hope that we are on the way to brain chemicals being in order and aggression being a thing of the past.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

Hoping this makes a change for the better. J had a horrible time with ADHD. Totally off the charts and no one could stand to see her coming. The school breathed a huge collective sigh of relief when I started homeschooling. :D We did massive amounts of Omega3's and a Biology of Behavior smoothie every day and she was able to calm down. Now she can sit and focus for over 1 1/2 hours at a time. Huge!

The Accidental Mommy said...

Funny cuz I was just thinking about this. If I give Genea a warning, stop blank or blank will happen, I about guarantee she WILL do blank again. I wonder if it is to produce something she can control, or feel in control of. Like she is directing everything. Dunno.

marythemom said...

Magic meds. We have them too and I'm always amazed by how differently they work, or don't work, in other family members. Here's hopin'!

Mary in TX