All About Brother

I started this as a weekly post, but my joyful ramblings about Brother got so long that I decided to make it a stand-alone post.  I'll get my week's report written later.

Brother is diagnosed (Autism, ADHD, PTSD), and the pharmacological treatment for ADHD has begun.

He's himself . . . but more so . . . as if his true self was broken into pieces before, and now it is whole.   He's got the same interests, the same personality, the same vague-and-good-natured sweetness . . . but it's all easier to access. 

There's no barrier between us and him.

He played outside all morning this (Friday) morning, and not one kid cried or came to complain of his behavior (usually there would be 3-6 incidents between breakfast and lunch).  He never broke anything (usually an item a day), and he never got into anything that he shouldn't have (usually several times per day).  He didn't fight with anyone during lunch, and even though he reached for the van door before it was unlocked, instead of pulling on it, he took his hand away and said, "Oh, yeah, I'll wait for you to unlock it."

He can speak in coherent sentences.

He kept hold of nouns and adjectives as he spoke (he loses these a lot!).

He's relaxed.

I held his hand as we walked through a parking lot, and it felt soft and child-like instead of rigid and foreign.

My breath caught in my throat, and I had to blink back tears when I felt his little hand in mine.  It was the first time that touching him felt like I was touching my own little boy.


He's so happy.

I've been checking and checking on him.  No stomachaches, no headaches, no reduction in appetite (the most common side effects).

Not one tantrum.
Not one violent outburst.
Not one incident of sibling torment.

He can adjust when things go wrong when he's playing.  His siblings can hardly believe how coolly and calmly he said about a kinetic sand project gone wrong, "Oh, that broke!  Oh, well.  I guess I'll try again another way."

The shoulders we'd automatically hunched to cope with the tantrum we expected dropped . . . along with our jaws.

It feels like a dream.

I was all geared up for weeks and months of trying to get his meds right.

Can it be that we hit the nail on the head with the first try?

We get to check in with his psychiatrist in 4 weeks to see how things are going and make any adjustments.  At any time, if things go wrong, we can stop giving him the meds and call for an emergency appointment. 

I am grateful, grateful, grateful for this miracle medicine that is freeing Brother from being trapped in his own head, that is freeing him from sadness, anger, and constant frustration, that is freeing him from his impulsivity--and the resulting consequences.

I am grateful, grateful, grateful for this miracle medicine that is freeing me from imposing rigid limits to every moment of Brother's day, that is freeing me from having to intervene in explosive conflicts, that is freeing me to enjoy his remarkable self instead worrying about what he's going to do next.

I wrote earlier that I'd be so happy for a 10-20% reduction in emotional stress, but the stress reduction is so much more dramatic than that, that I hardly know what to do.

I've found myself, more than once, standing in the kitchen doing nothing . . . kind of dazed and at loose ends because what I usually need to do is missing . . . but I don't miss it.

If that makes sense. :)

There's so much we don't know yet--Were the autistic behaviors really part of his ADHD?   Are his autistic behaviors still present, but we're so thrilled with the changes that we can't see clearly yet?  How will autism impact his life?   What about the PTSD?  How will adolescence impact his development and medication regimen?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Right now we're just trying to enjoy the joy of now.

I haven't done any individual school with Brother since starting him on his meds--we've had a kind-of-sort-of partial spring break.

I'm looking forward to seeing what school will be like for him next week!