Watching your difficult decision play out

Two weeks ago, I posted this about putting my son on an anti-psychotic medication.

Wow, that's a sentence you never want to write as a parent.

There are differences in him, mainly that he sleeps, a lot. With me at least, he mumbles what few words he does use. He used to speak to me a with more clarity. At school, this is not much of an issue. He has had at least one incident of self harm at his mother's, but it has been easier for her to help get him dressed in the morning.

I think he's in a safer place, maybe because he's so doped up he does not have the energy to act out.

I do not know. I do not miss the screaming, but the noticeable loss of energy is heartbreaking.

The hard parental choices

The problems began in October. My son did not want to get dressed at his Mother's house to get ready for school. This escalated into a much bigger problem for her, and for him.

Being a non-verbal teenager has to be one frustrating way to go through life, it's really hard to watch and live with. His behavior changed due to, what? Hormones, another illness, something happening to him we do not know about because he cannot speak. In any case, he was not safe due to his self harming behaviors.

We did, eventually, get him to a doctor and she heard us and saw him at his best and worst. Blood was drawn (it took four people to hold him down and one to do the draw), and we found out his strep levels were elevated. From here we learned of a condition called PANDAS in which people display very aggressive and obsessive/compulsive behaviors when they have strep. He was given antibiotics in liquid form, and his behaviors did not really diminish much.

A return to the doctor resulted in us receiving a prescription for a rather powerful drug, which we give him in pill form. It's a fast dissolving tablet that he is allowing us to give to him with no real difficulty. He initially was supposed to get an X dose, but his mother and I suggested a lower dose to start, because we've never seen the effects of the drug. She agreed.

The drug tired him out, we think he slept more, some of the behaviors diminished but he's still not allowing his mother to dress him in the morning. Last week we went to the dose the doctor suggested and it's knocked him on his ass. It's really odd to see him so lethargic. I'm used to the noise out of him, and it's vanished. He's also not screaming, or doing the dangerous behaviors.

I have to accept this trade off, for now. It's difficult and sad to witness. I understand the drug takes time to take full effect. Oddly enough the drug's main side effect is weight gain, which is in the irony of life is desirable.

He's in there, and for whatever reasons he is not happy. I do not know what his being on this drug will help with his feelings, his anxieties. It's making him safe from his own hands though, and that going away has been worth the risk. I did not ask to have to make this choice, but I have to help protect him.

Snapshot of floor time

The Scene: A child's bedroom, after dinner.

The child and his father are seated on the floor. Father is opening a container of Legos. Child is ignoring his father as the old man is putting together pieces, spinning wheels, and looking for the right piece for a tire rim. Child sits on his father's lap, a rather heavy experience for the old man. Child takes all the Lego pieces, puts them back in the container, moves the container away from his father, then gets up, turns out the light and leaves his father sitting on the bedroom floor.

Fin.