The fits go on, and a little reflection

The past few days have been filled with more of the same. It has been the repeated fits and tantrums Liam has when events do not go his way. These repeated episodes every day get very wearing on you. Jill and I both do our best to work with Liam. After several of these fits and tantrums each day it wears you down. By the end of the day we find ourselves not responding the way we should with Liam. We try to do it right, but at the end of the day we don’t respond well. We find ourselves yelling at Liam with a loud voice. Quite often Liam will put his hands over his years when we yell. It is when he does that I pause and remind myself to relax and calm down. It is not easy. As I was composing this, I was going back over all the different times in which Liam and I interacted over one of his fits. I can easily say I made a lot of mistakes handling him. Quite often the problem is Liam will want something while I am doing something else. He will then repeatedly ask over and over. His persistence on something he wants is absolutely incredible. It seems even trying to distract him lately hasn’t been working. The end result after Liam’s repeated requests is he goes into a tantrum. Ignoring hasn’t been working as well either. Liam will now stay right next to you. Quite often we end up giving in to him, finally get to what he wants, or we yell inappropriately. Right now I feel horrible for the ways I’ve yelled at him. I know better. I have to find a way for myself to be able to step back and make sure I am doing the right thing all the time. The stress dealing with him I find is a lot worse than the stress at work. At work, I know how to handle things in a controlling fashion. I can easily direct events to be handled the way I want them. At home it is another story. I know how I want things to be for Liam, I know how I’d like him to be. I can’t control that. No matter how hard I try and figure him out, I can’t. That just leads to a whole lot of frustration inside me. I know Jill feels it too. I think one of my best traits has always been a strong inner strength that has developed over my life. Right now, I am certainly using every bit of that strength.

It is becoming clearer to myself and Jill that the Risperdal and Prozac Liam is taking seems to have lost its effectiveness. Neither of us sees a difference in Liam after he takes his medication in the morning. We will continue to give him medication until he sees his neurologist next. I am thinking we should give her a call and let her know the situation. This way she can have some time to evaluate the situation and come up with a plan the next time we see her.

On a good note, Liam’s swimming class Thursday was another success. This class his teacher had Liam diving under water, swimming to the bottom of the pool, then picking up objects and bringing them up. Liam did this quite a few times. Jill said his teacher is really impressed with the progress Liam is making in the pool. The other task Liam had to do was float on his back. Liam seems to still be struggling in this area, but with time and practice he will get it.

Here we start a new week, the first full week of the last month of the year. It is hard to believe this year is almost over!