Mom and I went to visit David tonight. We gave ourselves an hour. It takes an hour to get to the residence, and an hour to get home. On a school night, we left the other kids at home.
We were excited to see him. He is out of the psych ward and back at the residential facility. Since David doesn’t call, and things have been hectic with the other kids, it has been a good month since Mom has seen him. We do call there, but he is usually doing activity when we call. And then he forgets to return the call.
Within 5 minutes of arrival David decided he was done. He wanted to go outside and play. Tried to compromise and when that didn’t work, he got mean. He pushed every button he could until he got mom so upset she was in tears. I tried to calm her, and not let her be affected by his mood. To no avail.
It was obvious by watching him that he was not unhappy that mom was upset. I hate to say that he had a look of satisfaction on his face that scares me. Not sure what to think of that.
David told the staff that he didn’t want to talk to us anymore. He said he has nothing to say to us. We asked him if he was happy without privileges… and he said no.
We talked with him about staying in school. He said he leaves when he gets agitated. Trouble is, he leaves whenever he wants and the school seems to be helpless in keeping him in his classroom. We discussed the benefits of attending school and doing school work as assigned. He doesn’t care if he has to repeat fifth grade.
So David wandered to and fro, hid in the bathroom for a bit, cussed us out, and generally was uncooperative for half an hour. Still we stayed. One of the staff was able to get him to come out of the bathroom. About 15 minutes before the visit ended, David asked staff to brush his arms. It is a therapy technique. After that he was calm until we left.
He even showed me how to brush his arms for him.
David has scars on his hands from hurting himself when he gets angry.
As we were leaving, we told David we would talk to him soon and that we would be back next week.
We complimented him on how the last portion of the visit went. We hugged him good bye and he apologized to mom without prompting. As we were leaving staff told us that David had been having a difficult day. They said he was more agitated, and that the meds aren’t leveled into his system. The next two weeks should bring more stability.
All in all, I consider the visit a success.
In addition to Autism awareness, we will be working on Bi-polar awareness.
Related articles
- Your son doesn’t have an attachment to your family. (whynotfathers.com)
- Update on David. (whynotfathers.com)
- Visited David tonight in Psych Unit. (whynotfathers.com)
- Heart is breaking… for David. (whynotfathers.com)
- Mental illnesses still go untreated (mercedsunstar.com)
- Determining What Is Normal Behavior and What Is Not (psychologytoday.com)
- New limits on community care create barriers for the mentally ill (newsobserver.com)
