Sissy is spacey. It's funny because I kinda chose her online name from the actress Sissy Spacek because Sissy is Spacey. Total space cadet. She likes to listen to music on her mp3 player which is fine by us because it means she's not caterwauling but then it means she's singing. out loud. out of tune. to the music only she can hear. and of course, the music is turned up so loud in her earphones, she can't hear herself. So one by one, as it grates on our nerves at individual rates, we all get on to her, "Sissy, sing in your head!" or "Sissy, don't sing out loud!" and usually it takes all of us standing in front of her hollering over her earphones, "SISSY! SING IN YOUR HEAD!!!"
Which usually nets us a return scream, only hers last for 10-30 minutes. She'll tell the world that her family screams at her all the time and she doesn't know why they are so mean to her. So this time, to avoid the screaming, I added, "or go OUTSIDE!"
*slamming door*
"Finally!" sighed Aspie Boy and the rest of us giggled.
Ugh. I don't mean to be mean but gosh. This daughter of mine can really get us riled up sometimes!
Like this afternoon, when I picked up the kids from school, Aspie Boy's resource teachers are usually monitors at the front exit of the building. They met me at the front door exclaiming nearly simultaneously, "HE PASSED ALL OF IT!" This would be Georgia's standardized testing, CRCT. The results came back and Aspie Boy passed all five sections, some of it by the skin of his teeth but wow. I was figuring he'd be going to summer school. But he passed it all! At which point, Sissy, walking toward us and overhearing our shouts of joy and elation harrumphs, "Ooohhhhh!!!! I didn't pass math last year!" and she sulked her way to the van as we left the building. Ah, but WHY didn't Sissy pass the math section last year? Because she pulled a RADish out of her butt. Someone told her that to move up to fourth grade, she only needed to pass the reading section so my adorable RADish decided she didn't need to finish the math section of the CRCT. Point of fact, she took a nap. (I wish this was a joke.)
And after all that, we were so glad that Sissy went 14 days without a rage episode and then only had a moderately violent outburst on Saturday. (She didn't hurt herself or throw things but she pounded the stuffing out of her bed - she's gonna be sorry one day when she kicks so hard her bed falls apart and she finds herself sleeping on a mattress on the floor). But the fun is short lived. She's gotten the tremors again, like she did on the depakote. Which means her resperidone is too high after our adjustment two weeks ago. Crap. crap, crap, crap. CRAP!
*big sigh*
No. I don't want my daughter to have tremors but I REALLY liked having 2 weeks of nonviolence! We all did.
So she's outside singing while listening to her head phones because she won't sing in her head and she's not brought home homework for two weeks now insisting she has none and she's back to the medicine-induced tremors and wow, does anyone else reading my life feel like my family's riding a merry go round?[1] Because that's sure how it feels to me.
Sissy might need to sing in her head but this momma needs to SCREAM in hers.
[1] never understood why that thing is called a merry-go-round. I know of lots of kids that aren't very merry when it goes around and around and around ...
:)
THAT was a joke.
You can laugh now.
7 comments:
J had the tremors from Depakote. The shrink of the moment told me to ignore them- they were better than the violence. J didn't agree- he had no fine motor skills with the tremors. I took him off it. The violence he seemed to mature out of. He is currently on 30mg of Abilify and doing well. He is also 27 and has his own family. Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
Kid having the shakes + no rages OR no shakes and rages? Tough choice, but I think the kid would stay shaky if she lived with me.
Sorry I did not get back to your comment on my blog. Have to get through the post Mother's Day regression, which has been quite the party.
I was not able to have my kids doing things verbally for quite a long time. We would draw pictures. I would make up stories about "other kids" and they would help me tell all about it. We would read therapeutic books together ("A Safe Place for Caleb" being one of my favorites). Sometimes I would give them the words to say, "Yell with me, 'It's not my fault that I've got problems and it's NOT FAIR THAT I HAVE TO DO THE HARD WORK TO GET BETTER!'" If they didn't yell loud enough, I would have us practice over and over, because BOY does it feel good to really yell sometimes, but have it actually be constructive!
Anytime they open up about any feeling at all, I treat it as though they just had surgery. It's an open wound. They need lots of rest and down time. I expect regression. It's a part of the opening up process.
I HATE IT, but I also expect it. :)
I always wondered how to spell caterwauling. If you do feel the need to scream, please feel free to do it on your blog, cause WE don't mind a little screaming - makes us Mommas feel a little less alone!
DQ is spacey too. Seeming to be out in left field quite often!
GB is on Risperdal and lithium- has been for over a year. I had to cut the Risperdal in half because of extreme weight gain. We added the lithium at that point because our shrink said the only drawback of lithium is having to monitor her thyroid- lithium can damage it. The blood work is down to once every eight weeks now, which I can live with. With J, I never found anything that controlled the rages, except the Risperdal. I was so distraught when we had to take him off it. It was the best period we had during his adolescence. I disagree with Foster Abba- there has to be something(s) out there that will help the bipolar without severe side effects.
Lamictal has helped my son's bipolar without severe side effects (once you get past that "possibility of a fatal rash" thing) - he also takes Seroquel, Trileptal and a ton of other meds for other stuff. My son gets tremors and tics on all ADD meds and other random meds too. Stinks doesn't it?
For her bipolar, my daughter takes Trileptal and Abilify (she can't take Lamictal because she's prone to hives). And a bunch of other drugs for other stuff. I've heard Abilify works best in combinations with other drugs.
Anyway, to comment on this post... my daughter also cannot sing to save her life (yet she's in choir for the 3rd year in a row?!). She walks and talks (and sings) to herself in the backyard almost every day for at least an hour. She finds it relaxing or something.
For my kids, if I can hear the music it is too loud and they must turn it down. No singing out loud unless everyone is singing.
Mary in TX
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