Instead of blogging my usual home projects, baby updates and thoughts I will dive in and say it has been a week. I HATE autism, I hate mental illness. I hate everything it is doing to Wyatt and our family. Puberty hit him like a freight train at age 14.5 and it has been me clinging on for the ride ever since. As he grew larger, so did his tantrums. My thoughts are so disorganized, but a very brief background is that he began battling extreme fixations at age 3 and as with his size and tantrums, everything grows. As a toddler, it was spinning the wheels of his cars for hours happily. It evolved to Dora and Blues Clues, Buzz Lightyear and eventually it broke way to a healthy addiction, basketball. Those years were the easiest. While he still loves basketball, his newest fixation is having a girlfriend. He wants to feel a part of normal high school stuff and in order to feel he fits in, he thinks he must have a girlfriend. The problem is he is turning 17 in January and his brain doesn't agree or function at that level yet. These relationships typically go south rapidly and when any fixation is ripped from an Autistic child, it's akin to separating an addict from his heroin. The monster who lives inside comes out. It is a beast untamable at his size.
At age 16, I finally resorted to restraining him during episodes of rage on many occasions to keep himself and everyone around him safe. All the while we sat lost in the system for 9 months waiting for a psychiatry appointment. He would flail, run around for knives, stab himself in the chest and neck and make all of us watch in horror praying be wasn't serious or wouldn't succeed before we could get the dangerous objects from him safely and get him restrained. He nearly succeeded once with cords. He got himself so tightly wrapped, I almost couldn't loosen it in time. This happened with weeks of Finnley's death when his mental health spiraled completely out of control. His pediatrician prescribed prozac as a bandaid at that time while we waited and waited some more. The prozac was working pretty well short term. It lasted 6 months with the tantrums manageable enough to tide us over. His insurance was recently switched so we started the process over to get in to a psychiatrist. The wait with his new insurance is much quicker. I really thought we would make it to that appointment, but Wyatt had other plans.
Friday morning started with a fit of rage in school over a break up with his girlfriend. I had my first morning alone since the kids started school, to just be a mom. I was standing excitedly in front of 6 loads of laundry with Big Black(my cat) to keep me company. I no sooner started in on the folding when I get a call that Wyatt was suspended for shoving an innocent bystander student in his fit of rage after a break up with his girlfriend. The weekend continued with rage. By Sunday evening he manipulated and convinced me he was fit for school Monday. That was all an act to get back to the girl and try to "fix" things. His IEP meeting happened to fall at lunch that day and they waited to let me know he was again raging and shoved another innocent bystander. They kept him there maybe out of pity for me knowing the weekend I endured with him. After school he refused to board the bus and went insane. He was running from the school officials and wound up brought home in a police car.
Once police arrived with him, he was out of control, grabbing knives to stab himself in front of the officer. They ditched out and left me with him like that. Again, the system failed us. I had no choice but to restrain him and try to somehow get him safely to the hospital. This was the final straw. I have never taken him in during his rage, but after 4 days of it, I was worn down to nothing. He was threatening the lives of our other kids and that was just IT! It took 4 different sedatives to stop of the madness once we arrived at the hospital. It was terrible. He was breaking medical equipment, spitting, head butting. fighting the meds to the bitter end. I never thought we would be here in this place. I never thought I would walk away from my child and leave them overnight in a hospital. I just cannot express the relief when I saw him finally sleeping.
Today we are day 5. The meds kept him down 14 hours, but he is back at it. He ran away from the hospital this morning and police located him and had to have him medically transported and of course sedated again. Despite more sedation, he has called from the new location raging and out of control. He wants us there. I am refusing to go. This is the worst feeling.....tough love. I have given in way too long and he needs to feel the full effects of the system's stings. My love wasn't enough to help him. I tried. I will continue to try, but for now in this moment he is the system's burden. It feels heartless to type that. I can't will myself to go. I keep telling him, when he calls me, to quit being nuts and they will quit sedating him and once he isn't sedated we can FINALLY get the mental health evaluation. When that time rolls around, we will be there. It may not be today or tomorrow. It depends on Wyatt. He has the power and control to end this, but it won't be on his terms. It will be on ours and the hospitals' for the first time in many years.
This is the hardest thing we have done as parents next to cremating our child. Whatever I have done in this life or maybe a previous life has certainly come back to give me all my karma. I don't know how much more I can take. I feel emotionally battered and weak from this entire year. I will update later as to Wyatt's situation. I hate that this is my current life and maybe someone out there can relate or has some words of wisdom. I am finding support is all I can really hope for and count on. No amount of money can fix the shit we have endured this year and no amount of hard work, basically it's nothing I can control and I think that makes it all the worse for me.
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