My sister came for a visit this past weekend. I don't get to see her enough and this time was all too short. She has two kids and the older, J, is very difficult. We suspect he has Aspergers which means that he doesn't do well in social situations, like school, for example. My sister told me that they were considering sending him to boarding school. I don't know how this would go. Perhaps if it was the right place, designed to deal with children that really don't fit in. He is looking more and more like Harry Potter every day. Yesterday we got an email from my sister about her various trials and tribulations including a sick child. As it turns out, this was not the correct diagnosis. This morning we all got the following:
Dear Everyone,
Well, you really have to laugh sometimes:
J was suspended from school today. He got into a fist fight with some kid in the cafeteria. J told the Asst. Principal they were just joking around. The other kid said that J had come up to him and said "I don't want to see your miserable face ever again."
J came home (while I was getting W from school), ransacked the kitchen for junk food and brought it up to his room in case he got grounded. (Yes, we do feed him when he's grounded, just not junk food.) Then he got a bottle of ipecac to take some to make himself sick -- so that he could stay home from school, in case we didn't find out he was grounded. He claims he didn't actually take any, that he just happened to get sick coincidentally. . . .
We did not get the phone call about him being grounded until this morning.
I'm actually a little relieved. It means that instead of running up and down stairs with ibuprofen and throw up buckets, I can just ignore the fellow all day.
Meanwhile this morning, W and I were packing up all these cooking ingredients and tools because today in school his class is doing the "How To Cafe." It sounds like a disaster with twenty ten years olds demonstrating cooking techniques all day. I bet the school janitors are gonna love this one.
I sure am glad I'm on the happy pills now! All this seems kind of funny to me; whereas previously I would have been banging my head against the wall.
Yes, she is on medication. And she's not alone. Two of my cousins are also taking the happy pills. I find it a bit disturbing actually. I wonder how it will all turn out and if they will have to keep taking the pills forever. But as I don't have to deal with out of control children in addition to my own mood swings I cannot judge. When in doubt, have a good laugh.
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4 comments:
This made me recall a recent post on Violent Acres.
I've rewritten this sentence a bunch of times. Ok, here goes. For ME, I would say that feeling helpless about one of my children having behavioral problems would be an appropriate reaction. I would not want to be medicated into thinking that there was anything normal or funny about it.
But I guess you'd have to know that I manage my depression by exercising outside, eating real food, and taking a host of vitamin supplements including magnesium and B-12. I don't always succeed, but I find the closer I get to meeting my goals of walking each day, nourishing my body with good foods and plenty of water, and getting enough sleep, I don't feel my life is so unmanageable.
I agree that using good food, exercise, and friends would be preferable to taking pills. I believe that as a society we've gotten used to the "pill" solution. Things that were once a part of life are now labeled "disease". The irony is that she resisted medicating J. But I think that she was so far off the rails that she couldn't get back. I hope she weans herself off.
Ergh! Has your sister been able to get a psych diagnosis for your nephew? Even if he continues without medication (which, if he were my kid, he would not be taking meds), knowing what's going on might help your sister teach your nephew how to handle life in a way that makes sense to him. I'm glad she figured out about the ipecac! Maybe puking by himself all day will deter him from trying the same stunt again?
He's had a number of diagnoses from ADHD to Aspergers. This last seems the closest and is not surprising. I'm pretty sure our father has it. He has that same social dis-connect. J does have some extra help at school learning how to deal with social situations but it's a process. Puberty is not helping. I think he'll just have to find his way.
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