OK folks. Instead of making comments on other threads or hijacking/diverting threads I'm going to try to describe the problems we're having and see if anyone can help. I'll try to keep it as short as poss.
DS is nearly 10, he is classicly/typically (?) autistic and is non-verbal. He's long had the underlying tendency to "challenging behaviour" and self-injurious behaviour. It was mostly intermittent or easy to understand the triggers. A couple of years ago his behaviour escalated, imo the most noticeable thing was a huge increase in anxiety which apparantely is not uncommon at that sort of age. 3 months later than that DD was born so I don't think her arrival has anything to do with the problems and things were just as up and down as ever. 3 months after DD arrived we decided to use medication (Risperidone) as we were hostages in our home, afraid to go out anywhere with him. Bearing in mind that we've had years of, what I think, is the best behavioural/teaching program and school going it wasn't as if we hadn't tried other avenues, including working on communication. The medicataion worked like a dream (2 years since we started now) but, of course, there is no free lunch. He put on weight, had nose bleeds from time to time, lost some bladder control (wet beds) and has to have blood tests to monitor liver function which are a nightmare to do! There has been a question about Tourettes for a while but we weren't sure that this made any material difference. The great thing is that, despite these problems, we've always managed to have a good relationship with him and love him dearly as, apart from being our little boy, he was always very interactive, spontaneous and affectionate. In the last couple of months this has all fallen apart, basically since Easter as I can pinpoint it from asking for help.
He seemed to lose a lot of his ability or interest in interacting, he spends most of his time "stimming", he's always been stimmy but this is unbelieveable, bunny hopping, making funny noises, touching surfaces, twiddling his hands and objects etc. We found ourselves fairly suddenly feelng like carers and not parents, I certainly felt that before sometimes but not constantly. In the last 2-3 weeks he has started hitting anything and everything, constantly - himself, other people, objects (thumping the bonnet of cars etc). This means that I can never relax with him, I have to breath down his neck in case he breaks something or hurts someone whereas I used to be able to step back and supervise him from a distance. I am fed up with telling him what to do, what not to do or ignoring him/his behaviour all the time. Worse still, I feel that I am not treating him with respect any more. When he hits himself I hit him back, god this is so awful to say. Mind you, I am the only person he doesn't hit (and DD so far) and I wonder if its because I hit him back. Every time I swear I will not do it again but when someone is hitting themselves or thinks its OK to hit someone else then you do rather feel that they like it and that they are "giving you permission" to do it too. I have got various "pots on the boil", seeing Paed in a couple of weeks and have already told him most of this and will be honest with him about the last part , have asked Soc Svs for more help but haven't told them that bit, have asked school for help and have a home visit planned, seeing favourite GP soon and really will tell him ALL about it. I just hate everything about this at the moment and feel desperate a lot of the time.
However, in general my life is very happy and I am not struggling to cover up how shit I feel, mostly I feel fine. I think the fact that I take steroids makes me fall apart when things go wrong although I am fine the rest of the time and its not an act at all. I do think this is a factor but I've also developed some bad habits which I am managing to break but NOTHING SEEMS TO WORK.
I'm not sure I should even post this, I don't usually tell MN so much about my day-to-day life, I just like to make cracks and comments elsewhere.....