The Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, day....

I'm pricing flights to Australia......

Poor J had a bad day.  We've been having more of these lately.  He actually ran away from Family Camp when we were in Michigan and got about a half mile down the road before Brandon, a golf cart, a minivan, and two sweet ladies on foot caught up with him. (The sweet ladies on foot were not quite caught up to him but we will include them in the story as they were indeed troopers who braved the unknown in search of where J was, and I'm pretty sure they got a ride back in the golf cart).  J's just not handling change right now.  If things are different or don't go as planned or deviate from the norm he's having a hard time coping with that.  I personally blame the weather, who wouldn't it's freakin' 106 people!, but obviously it's more than that as his blowup at camp was during a nice, cool, temperate, week.  Shoot that theory....straight to the moon.

So, what are we left with?  PMS? No, wrong gender.  A self inflated view of his own self importance and expectation that the world should revolve around him and therefore be a perfect, blissful, video game filled with Mario, Luigi, Megaman, Sonic, and all manner of self created papercrafts? An interesting theory and one that may warrant some further investigation but still feeling there's something more.  Autism?  Again, an easy answer but in this case are we using it as a cop-out?  Hmmmm.   Med change?  There's a kettle of dynamite.  Do we add meds, take them away, increase, decrease, drop everything, go totally homeopathic? Sheesh, I'm not ready to touch that with a 10ft pole yet. Let's let the med idea just sit there for a while.  Whew.

So, obviously we are very confused on what is causing this.  Maybe we need to look at how to solve it.  Ok, suggestions anyone....al;dkfja ;oeildkf ladkf ja;odij;laidf a;ldkfadoifja d;ofia;dsjf ;oasdifj;oiaf;aldfkja;ldfkja; aldkfja;difa;ldkf ja;dfja;sdlfkja;odifja;ldfij a;difojaldfk.....AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH...wait a minute!!  Not everyone at once.  One at a time, please.  Discipline?  We need to be more firm with him and keep him more disciplined?  Ok, I'm willing to try this one but I'm confused on its implementation.  The running away meltdown happened out of the blue.  He was fine and then suddenly he wasn't.  There was no action to discipline other than the running away which we did once he was calmed down.  Structure?  Whew, this is a tough one.  We provide structure but the problem is that we can't always control what happens within the structure.  Things happen and we have to make changes.  If we provide more structure are we creating a "pretend" reality where things are always the same and the way is clear and uncomplicated?  Also, we were very structured at camp and again at school where we continue to have these meltdowns.  Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not sure that's it.  More computer, tried that, less computer, tried that, more time outside, yep, tried that, less time outside, tried that too.

Today he had a science experiment he was super excited about not work.  It crushed him and he fell apart.  It was like his best friend had died and he had to go away from the failed experiment and cry in a corner mourning the loss of the experiment.  He then had another disappointment when the lunch he was sent with didn't meet his expectations and while it was explained this was more of a snack that was not going to alleviate the depth of his disappointment.  The final, crushing blow was when he discovered that mom, who usually brings him home on Friday's since she's at school with Gemini doing therapy with the kids, wasn't going to be able to pick him up because Gemini had thrown up and mom had to take her home.  He was going to have to take the Taxi home like he usually did every other day.  The final blow, full blown meltdown, fall to the floor, staff needed to step in and help hold him down.  The final straw, Australia here we come.

Here's the up-side.(yes there is one. silly) he was able to get it together and made it home in the taxi without beating on his brother.  (It did help that he had noise cancelling headphones, thera-putty (that stuff rocks), and a book to help him manage the ride home).  And he managed to have a good afternoon.

So where does this leave us?  Well, we are still trying to figure out what causes these meltdowns and what to do to make them less likely to happen.  To be honest I think a huge part of it is J's not being able to process emotions well.  He feels things sooooo deeply.  We are working so hard with his OTs and therapists to figure out how to help him but it's really just going to take time.

So, some days are going to be terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad.  We will cry, be discouraged, and question ourselves.  We will feel guilty for not doing enough and feel guilty that maybe we do too much.  Please be patient with us, be patient with J, if you are around when this is going on feel free to ask if there is something you can do but also know that we don't always know what to do ourselves so if we say no it's probably not you.  One thing that always helps is ice sticks, if you have any access to ice sticks when J is around and having a full on meltdown if you would be so kind as to find one for me and bring it to us, that would be wonderful.

Thank you.

Australia really is too far away.