Category: mental illness

After experiencing one setback after another at school, I think we’ve finally made some progress on the education front. Over the past couple of weeks, getting Christian to go to school has gone from challenging to impossible. On days that he does attend, he ends up in the counselor’s office wanting to come home. I… Continue reading Change on the horizon

With the exception of an incident over the weekend, Christian has been fairly well collected. No major meltdowns, no deadset refusals to take meds, no tantrums. He’s been alert, paying attention, cooperative, and even pleasant. I remember all of those personality traits from years before, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen this side… Continue reading Calm before the storm?

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… Continue reading Making it all come together

Whew. It’s over. It’s been a rough week for Christian, but he’s made it through. And so have we. Finally, for the first time all week, he woke up and was happy and functional enough to actually go to school. T is out of the “hospital” and home, and Christian is getting ready to spend… Continue reading Can I look yet?

I will return to the story of learning to cope with a child with mental and social disorders shortly, but first this short essay on a deviation of the same subject. The State of California’s 5150 statute “allows a qualified officer or clinician to involuntarily confine a person deemed to have a mental disorder that… Continue reading Coping through distraction

Let’s start at the beginning. Or at least somewhere near the beginning. After having been married for five years, we were beginning to believe that children were simply not in the cards for us. When I discovered that I was pregnant in the fall of 1995, we were elated and made the announcement at Thanksgiving… Continue reading In the beginning…

No one tells you that being a parent will hurt.  They say that having a baby will hurt, but it’s a good hurt and the first time you hold your baby, you’ll forget all about the pain and fall madly in love.  … Right.  At least the last part is true.  Unfortunately, kids don’t come… Continue reading No one ever tells you…