After taking a break from therapy for about a month and a half, Christian is back to seeing his therapist once a week. So far, a great deal of his treatment has been driven by him. We’ve let him make decisions about therapy, medication, treatment options, and goal-setting. The reason behind that is to give him an opportunity to realize how much this is about him, how much he needs to take responsibility for his life and emotions.
He saw both his therapist and his psychiatrist this week. On the way to the psychiatrist’s office, we discussed the possibility of upping his meds. Currently, he’s taking 20 mg of Prozac, which is a very low but therapeutic dose. (He started out at 10 mg.) They bumped him up to 30 mg and we see that being gradually increased in the future as well.
At least we’re finally content with a medication that we all feel works. He’s tried a couple of others, but we had some very not good results. Adderall caused his liver enzymes to go wacky, Strattera made him even more agitated, and …. There was another one in there, but I can’t remember what it was.
Thursday was a bad day for him. Every other Thursday, orchestra students (the self-named Orche-dorks) normally have after school practice for 1-1/2 hour. He flatly refused to go. After over 100 text messages—he wouldn’t answer his phone—I gave the ultimatum: either he goes to practice and his girlfriend will get to come see his performance or I call the school counselor and I see about transferring him out of the class completely. Transferring him out would not really have been such a big deal—if the school will allow it—as he claims that we “forced” him to sign up. There was no forcing, but we did agree that he would play his entire freshman year before we would let him drop out. We also agreed that he had to complete at least a full semester (half the year) before we would even think about independent study.
Needless to say, I ended up calling and leaving a message for his counselor. She called me back, but I missed it, so I’ll be returning her call on Monday.
In the midst of all of this, I still need to deal with the other two kids and everything else going on in my life. Dakota is trying to complete his Scout work so that he can finish up his rank advancement, Jordan is dealing with constant harassment from school administration regarding dress code violations. The violation? Her pants are too skinny. Sorry, but every other girl at school is wearing the same damn pants; I’m terribly sorry that my 13 year old daughter is 5’5” and weighs all of 98 pounds.
It’s funny, if it were possible to have three polar opposites, my kids would be the ideal representatives. Christian is quite, shy, and reserved; Dakota is more like me in that he’s loud and outgoing; Jordan has everyone fooled … until she opens her mouth. She looks sweet and adorable with a beautiful smile and a quick wit. She’s outgoing and very outspoken; she believes in speaking her mind and not taking crap from anyone, which tends to surprise a lot of people because most people just see a pretty face. We like to tell her that she should be a debater or a lawyer; the girl can argue paint off a wall and doesn’t know when to shut up.