Thursday, July 23, 2009

I Was High

Yep, I was high. Flying. It was lovely. Lovely!


Genea has recently surpassed her own self in greatness. She has achieved the holy grail....... *trumpets blaring*..... of all seriously disordered children. Normal. I have seen flashes of normal here and there through these past couple years. Maybe a half a days worth of just regular, normal boring kid stuff. But it has always been like a "normal for Genea" type thing.


In the past few weeks she has hit her regular low period and it was the most mild low ever. Instead of cranking lower and lower into the constant state of panic, depression and fear that usually comes on, she kept the depths at bay and pulled back out. And that is when it happened.


Normal. Wow.


Last Friday was the last day of summer school. Coincidentally I had given Genea 2 capsules worth of flax seed oil, hidden in the bread of her peanut butter sandwich at lunch. I poked holes in the enormous capsule and dripped the oil out onto the bread. The Husband came home later that day and made this comment:

"What did you do to Genea? Did you give her a Valium or something?"


(please be mindful that is a joke, we do not dose our child with stray medications)
(our lives would be so much easier and I would have nothing to blog about, that is my statement)



I looked over and there she was, I had not even noticed. What I should have noticed was that I was not noticing anything! There was a regular, calm and content child sitting in Genea's body playing quietly with a game. Appropriately with the game I should note.



Well, you all had better believe I went off the deep end myself finding more places to sneak this flax oil in on her! She strongly resists anything of the sort. All the ways on the planet to get ahold of an Omega 3-6-9 fatty acid type thing. Olive oil. Eggs. Butter with it added. Eggs with it added. Flax seeds (found out those don't take later). Almonds. I have been trying on and off to use these foods for that purpose since I have heard from several sources that the Omega's could help smooth out the barbed wire in her brain (my interpretation and summary).



I decided to play to her strengths. Genea does not like things that are new. She only likes things she has met before, and of those she is still pretty finicky. So, we have been on an --all peanut butter and flax oil dripped into the bread for every lunch -- diet for a week. And I thought it was working. A real normal kid came out for 3 whole days straight. NOT "normal for Genea" normal, but normal for any kid normal. NORMAL! Regular! Goofy! BORING! She did normal dumb kid things. One night she thought the bathroom mirror looked dirty and sprayed water all over it and everything else and tried to go to bed without mentioning it. "OH!" she says, "I forgot" (head tilt to the right, pupils dilated, dead eye stare uh huh). A few nights later I found black stuff smeared on the sink. Again, Genea got into my make up and decided to see for herself how it works. If she could make the sink look decorated.



Okay, now as I am writing this I realize that kind of thing is normal for a 2 or 3 year old but take my word for it, it is the most normal mis-behavior I have ever seen out of Genea.



Unfortunately, with every high comes a low. This awesome mom mentioned recently that she feels the regressions harder now that there has been strong progress. The higher you fly the farther the fall and this most recent fall for us has been one of the worst. Genea came after me yesterday, for probably the 3rd time ever, the first 2 being when she first arrived (not to worry, I have taken down bigger and better many times). So what was working? Was it the flax seed? Was it the end of school and now the lack of definition is throwing her off? What caused it and how do I get it back. It's a process, okay, I know. I get it, one step forward, 2 steps back. Progress and regression.



BUT WHY?



Today, she is back on track. The bottom of the pit lasted just 3 days but ooooooh was it a whopper. I swear I am going to figure this shit out or die trying. I don't want to be one of those parents dragging a 12 year old to the Mayo Clinic because they are unable to accept the truth. But that does not mean I will rule out the trip.

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for calling me awesome. I think you are pretty cool too. You have reminded me that I need to make sure Seth is taking his Krill oil. Have you heard of that? I order it from Dr. Mercola. We are using a new tactic with Ezra that I am going to try and post about it tomorrow. I am not sure it would work with any other kid but him, but so far so good.

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  2. Waaaaaaah! I already had my keys in hand to head to the store for flaxseed oil! Darn it all!

    I think we should look into the phases of the moon. Last week Anastasia also had the biggest meltdown she's had for a year at least. I had plenty of time to try and analyze the reason while I was holding her down. But I failed. We've hit nothing like this for sooooo long.

    I do really think that the unstructured days of summer - while salve to my soul - are not processed so well by my young'ns....not Nastya and Ilya, anyway. Really too bad because the lack of structure is about the only "rest" I get in the summer.

    But, hopefully, the periods of "normal" will get longer and stronger for her. I got a whole year, for the most part, out of Nastya this time. So much so, I'd almost begun to think she would never be crazy again. There were flirtations with it, of course, over the year, but for the most part she could fight it off - I saw her trying. She articulated her strategies...it was great. So, why the regression?

    Since there are three of us now with this regression issue - it's worth a look-see to find out just what the moon is up to. Who has an Old Farmer's Almanac?

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  3. I'm still going to do the flax seed oil and see what happens. Used to have J or coromega's but I fell off the wagon and forgot to give them.

    Regardless of the backslide this is still amazingly good news.

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  4. Wonderful news. Most folks don't get just how exciting NORMAL/BORING can be!!!!!!

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  5. Sounds like good news. I've never heard of flax seed oil having a calming effect. I must try some the next time my monster in-law unfurls her ragged, leathery wings and descends on my house.
    What do you mean Genea came at you? Did she attack you?

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  6. Hooray for flaxseed oil. We use that and fish oil around here and it does seem to have a great stabilizing and focusing effect. About the moon phases...I am on board to look into it. Maybe I'll chart it for a couple of my kids and see if there's a pattern....I'll keep you posted... :-)

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  7. I have an expensive bottle of the omegas just sitting in my cupboard because I've heard the same thing and wanted to try it, but I can't remember to give it with any regularity, probably because deep down I think/thought it's just a bunch of hoo-haa and wishful thinking. I seriously need to give it another (real) try though. Thanks for reminding me.

    And, I'm sorry you hit a low again, but I love your attitude. It's so refreshing.

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  8. I have no doubt you'll unlock the secret to making the "normals" last! In the meantime continue to enjoy the breaks when you can get 'em!

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  9. So glad you stopped by the other day. I love your style. I just had my son's MD tell us this week that his brain is damaged and will be 24/7 the rest of his life and why can't we just accept that? Ummm, I don't know? Why do any of us hope that by changing little things in our lives we can improve ourselves? So glad to have met you on this journey!

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  10. Going to try a fish oil combo as soon as I can get ahold of it. Evidently there are different omegas in flax and in fish oil.
    "coming at me" means Genea was mid tantrum and I was "being present in the moment" with her which she seems to not appreciate. Anyway, she came towards me and I put up my hands which she swatted at. So, I directed her hands to the side but she did it again, so down she went. She strongly did not appreciate being sat on either!

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  11. Deb - I really think you need to do some searching for some new physicians!

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  12. We have had beautiful luck with flax seed oil. I use it myself, my husband swears by it, for me anyway. There are times when I can be a bit of a bitch and I know it, I can feel it, take a flax seed oil capsule and moments later the world is better.

    Felpsy says it makes him feel like acting better. We still have issues, but I have seen HUGE improvements since we started using it.

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  13. I tried sneaking flax oil into my daughter's pb sandwich once, and she noticed right away.. . . AND she didn't trust me again for about a year. . . .

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  14. Jen- thats what happened with Genea too. She could sense the smallest change and reject it immediately. The day I got it in her on her sandwich she must have had a cold or something, and I have been making it that way ever since.

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