The answer should be yes. Not "how can I get my loved one help?"

Category Archives: Reactive Attachment Disorder

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Hope – for peace in his heart

Red, green and blue lights showing secondary c...

Red, green and blue lights showing secondary colours. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

David is really struggling over the last 24 hours.  A majority of it is his response to his primary staff leaving.  That he formed that strong a bond with someone is important.  So while I understand that his behaviors are negative right now, maybe we need to look at it from a different angle.

He formed an attachment of some kind with someone.  This has only happened a couple of times in his life that I know of.  So this is huge!  Is it appropriate?  Maybe not always, but it should still be celebrated.  So we are trying to work with David and the staff at the facility to show David that it is ok.  That how he feels is ok.

With the Autism, David doesn’t understand sadness.  He understands how different emotions get him different things, but he doesn’t understand emotions.  So the key is to show him that the “loss” he feels is normal.  How do we do that?

Do I wish that he had bonded with his family?  Yes, but what I wish for isn’t important.  We need to focus on David.  Time to take off the rose colored glasses.  Try to see the world how David sees it.  Is that even possible?

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Reactive Attachment Disorder – attach to everyone but family.

"The mother"

“The mother” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have known that David has Reactive Attachment Disorder for a while.  It is a fact of life.  In the current residence, David had been doing well.  Until.

About 10 days ago, David’s primary left employment at his facility.  David evidently was pretty attached to her. As his behaviors have gone down hill since she left.  He apparently likes his new primary, but is still coming to terms with the “loss” of his last primary.

Since the primary he attached to left, they have had to call in the Event Support Team a couple of times for David and put him on a modified plan.  He eats by himself with close supervision by the staff, among other things.  He is still doing well in school. At night, he has difficulty sleeping.

On one hand I am happy that David can establish relationships, close relationships to people.  It is nice to know that he has that ability.   The residence where he lives is supposed to simulate a family environment.  While I understand the logic, I find it to be something of a dysfunctional family at best.

I don’t hold out hope that he will ever form an attachment of any real kind to his family.  I can live with that.  As long as he is able to establish appropriate relationships with other people, I will consider it a success.  How I feel about my relationship, or the relationship of the rest of the family to David doesn’t really matter at this point.  What matters is that David is on his way to achieving a life goal.

He has to learn to deal with the loss of people in his life.  He has to learn how to recover on his own without letting his anger take control.  People are largely transient in the lives of others, unless there is a family involved, and even that can be transient.  Hopefully, he won’t let the fear of loss of healthy relationships dissuade him from establishing any type of appropriate relationship.  Friendships are difficult enough to nurture without having Autism or Reactive Attachment Disorder thrown into the mix.

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Permanently Institutionalized

Today, we received a notice from Medicaid for David.  It was a notice informing him that he is permanently institutionalized.

The notice went on to state that if he dies, Medicaid MAY decide to recover any payments from his estate, or the estate of his spouse if he is married.

He is deemed permanently institutionalized if he has been in the facility for more than 6 months.

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It is your standard form letter.  printed and mailed.

this begs for two questions.  Unless this is a new rule…

1.  David has been in other institutions for more than 6 months each.  Why didn’t they send a letter out then?

2.  Do they understand that he is only 13?  I realized that he could have an estate if we bequeath him our things upon the passing of the whole family.

I guess since Medicaid thinks that he is living independently, anything is possible.

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