I started Connor on Valtrex yesterday. He immediately starting letting out toxic smells. He was off but nothing major. Today, on the other hand, was pretty major.
Connor has OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. I feel like most of what makes him different is linked to his OCD. When he was little, two or three years old, we were living in fear that anything we did could lead (and usually did) to a major meltdown. We couldn't turn on or off any lights. We couldn't turn the TV on or off...so on. We couldn't even flush our own toilet. My grandfather made the mistake one time of flushing the toilet with Connor around. My grandfather still carries that baggage. It isn't pretty. Connor would be fixated on it and would want you to undo the act. Of course we couldn't undo some things and really couldn't or we would be feeding into the obsession. Connor hasn't behaved like this in years, until today.
Today I saw so many of these behaviors return. He wouldn't let me put his bowl on the table. He wanted me to do it a certain way. When I refused, he snapped. After an hour of screaming irrationally for an hour, I finally had to put pressure on his torso. I learned about this from Temple Gradin in a conference one year. She is an adult with high functioning autism, and she talks about pressure and how it soothes the brain when "short circuiting". It kind of "reboots" his system. He is still off, but nothing like before.
I have to say, as much as I hate going through this, and hate Connor having to go through this, I hope this means he is "a responder". Stan Kurtz talks about the first week being the worst. I just focus on what will hopefully come out of this and am glad Connor is on Thanksgiving break.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I know he was doing better yesterday so I hope that continues. It must be hard to see him "regress" like that but it might be something that really helps him at the end, like you say. Hope it continues to get better!
Post a Comment