Its been a while since my last post. The holidays are always a trying time. It really doesn't matter if you struggle with mental illness or not. But for my Donny, it means lots of changes in his routine. He does not do well with that. November and December seem to be a time when as a family, we just kind of hang on and try to get through each day as best as we can.
Starting with Thanksgiving, our school district usually has Wed-Friday off. I usually cook the family dinner. Most years my mother in law has to work, because nursing homes don't close for the holidays. We have the deal, that she helps me purchase the food and I prepare it. I do this because its important. I remember holidays at my Grandparents. They are some of my best memories from growing up and I want my children to have that too. But because of that, Wednesday is usually spent with all the prep cooking for the feast on Thursday. Because Donny is allergic to artificial dyes, we are very careful about what we serve, but that means most everything is made from scratch. Its hard to find premade foods without some kind of artificial dye, but they have a harsh affect on Donny. They bring out his aggressiveness. Thursday is more cooking and then we spend the weekend either shopping or getting ready for Christmas.
December is not easy either. There is all the extra distractors from the holiday decorations. And its hard to find holiday treats without artificial dye. Also, our son Drew, celebrates his birthday and that is another issue. There are the parties and the shopping, the wrapping. This year, we had some extra stress.
I've been struggling with my own health issues. I've been having lots of pain and numbness in my legs. By the end of the day, they hurt so bad that if someone bumps them, I was brought to immediate tears. It took two months to get into the neurologist. He has narrowed it down to my L4 vertebrae. We have more testing to do, but at least now I am able to take something to help with the pain so that it is not absolutely immobilizing me.
The other thing has to do with the schools. Donovan is in a class where there is very little personal interaction. The students are isolated in their personal study areas. The main interactions are with adults. They do not get to participate in physical education. They spend their day in their personal space. Donny does ok, but sometimes he seeks out human interaction. He did this the week before school got out for Christmas. He was having a day. He started the day by saying that he hadn't taken his meds. When they called me to check on it, I told them that my husband deals with the morning meds so I would have to check with him. He said that yes he had taken them. He said that he had given it to him and went to get him something to eat, so he didn't actually see them go in his mouth, but Donny isn't one that you have to worry about. He is compliant about his meds. Then Donny tried to get his teacher's attention, but she had to go to a meeting. So then he played his trump card. He said the one thing that he knew would get him some attention. He told his teacher that he was thinking about hurting himself. This got him lots of adults giving him attention. He also got to go home early. I know the school had to follow their protocals for this, but at the same time, he was rewarded for manipulating the system.
Don't get me wrong. I know that Donny has tried to hurt himself in the past. The difference is how he is at the time. When Donny is truly in a crisis where he is in danger of hurting himself, he doesn't talk about it. He gets more and more aggitated. Nothing we do helps him regain control. He just escalates and then acts out. I've witnessed this and had to intervene. From experience, if Donny is talking about hurting himself, what he is saying is that he needs someone to slow down and give him some attention. Its just a matter of knowing him so that you can see beyond the words to what he is truly saying. I guess the school didn't see it my way though, because he had a visitor right after Christmas. The CPS investigator stated that the concerns were that my son stated that "my mom hates me and my family would be better off without me" and that we expected him to medicate himself everyday.
The second is far from the truth but the first one I find interesting. I think though that is best left for another day. All I will say today is that most teens express something along those lines at some point, why would you expect a teen living with mental illness to mean it more than the average teen?
