Never mind “a beautiful mind” more of a messy, cluttered, disorganized, freaked out mind for us. We are not solving complex math problems over here nor creating computer programs, building scientific multipurpose apps or solving world hunger. Nope, not got any sense of motivation for that – honestly we are barely making it through the minimum requirements for school each day. The only thing that grabs any attention or motivation around here is video games.
ob·ses·sion
əbˈseSHən/Submit noun
1. The state of being obsessed with someone or something.
“she cared for him with a devotion bordering on obsession”
The latest obsessions, and I mean that in the true sense of the word as above, are both Minecraft and Disney Infinity. Not necessarily in that order. If dad or his sister are home then the choice is likely to be Minecraft, but if it’s just himself then he will be drawn to playing Infinity.
His mental needs currently seem to be satisfied with simply reading about, watching YouTube about, or creating and crafting in MineCraft and/or traversing the streets of Monsters University as a Mike or Sully. As far as mood stability goes, he is still a rolling cycle of anger, depression, frustration, goofy and back to depression, to suicidal, to happy/goofy to… well you get the picture. Currently, and it’s easy to see how, we have the latest working diagnosis of Bipolar I disorder (although, to me there are several flaws to this particular diagnosis for him) and we have the comorbid ADHD complex type thrown in, which may explain some of the discrepancies in “symptoms.” To be fair, I recently saw this picture on the Parents of Bipolar Children (& comorbid diagnoses) facebook page, 
and it certainly seems like what we are dealing with EXCEPT, he has these amazing moments of clarity. In fact he has long, long, long periods of seemingly normal typical behaviors. It’s only under times of stress that these moments turn into the “symptoms” listed above (although I stress again, he has only a few of each of these symptoms in the respective circles). Thankfully we have none of the hypersexual behaviors, rapid pressured speech or risk-taking behavior, actually we don’t even really have the aggression/rages any longer. The only things now that elicit that level of tantrum/aggressive type behavior is either a: putting him in stressful situation (doctor’s office, therapist, school, event such as a birthday party or a social skills group) or b: speaking to other people about his feelings surrounding his adoption. These moods can rise very rapidly, I mean he can go from rational 9 year old (as rational as they can be) to a whirling, spinning, aggressive, angry, physical 5 year old in seconds. However, while in this rapid cycle, it must be said, he will apologize to me, he is upset with himself, and he tells me constantly “I am so sorry, I love you, this is so hard, so hard, I am so sorry for not being the kid you want me to be.” The trigger can be minutes or longer, the cycle can last for hours or days, depending on how distressing he found it and how worked up he got. In the end, as exhausting as it can be, I honestly take this as a sign that this is a kid who is intelligent enough to read his own emotions, just lacking the maturity to know how to handle the intensity of the emotions. It’s almost a regression rather than a symptomatology. No really, give me creative licence on this, it’s not really clear in my mind either, but this is the only way I have of even trying to rationalize any of this. So while the duration of his behaviors have changed, the basic behaviors are still there, ever present, 8 years and counting since onset.
So what of us? The family, the unit… what keeps driving us all forwards? Besides our undying love and devotion for a kid who is lost so much of the time, I look at all this on paper and say to myself – Isn’t this more of a clue to his “diagnosis” than a list of symptoms? I still have the question of why nothing ever fits completely. It’s something about my personality that makes me approach anything with a pro and con list, a checklist – I like to fill in the blanks, have identifiable data, have issues resolved and seeing those things crossed off makes me feel better, makes me somehow feel we are making progress, when I see a “to do” go to DONE, it equals progress to me which in turn equals HOPE. After all, if it’s listable/compartmentizable/sortable, then we must be making progress – right? Not enough of my list gets checked off though, not enough boxes checked off versus too many getting added… In the end, this is what keeps me questioning the WHY and ultimately HOW!!! How did we get here? What do we do to “fix” this? What is broken? What is fixable? Indeed is any of this “fixable” or do we just give up, resign ourselves to a lifetime of medication, therapy and making do?
Parts of our puzzle, and things on my list:
1. Adoption trauma (psychiatrist/psychologist 1. CBT, #2. LSW EMDR, sensory integration therapy & lots of love and understanding and ideas from reading Heather Forbes/Bruce Perry).
2. Methylation (DNA, Yasko protocols, William Walsh protocols).
3. MTHFR and COMT issues. (Again as above.).
4. An active diagnosis of Pyrrole disorder. (William Walsh nutritional observation, TrueHope)
5. Repeated neurotransmitter testing coming back as over-excitatory neurotransmitter levels. (TrueHope, Neuroscience).
6. High copper to low zinc ratio (goes along with the pyrrole disorder). Zinc, B vitamins, etc.
7. Previous blastocystis hominis and cryptosporidium issues – both supposedly resolved, although the blastocystis hung around a long time and was resistant to both natural and pharmaceutical treatments. Yeast & parasite protocols.
8. Gluten, dairy, allergen, dye, preservative free organic foods. (IgE and IgG tested) and Great Plains Lab.
9. Add onto that list that they have both also had their fair share of vaccines, including the bcg vaccine:
BCG vaccine
Bacillus Calmette–Guérin is a vaccine against tuberculosis that is prepared from a strain of the attenuated live bovine tuberculosis bacillus, Mycobacterium bovis, that has lost its virulence in humans … Wikipedia
Pregnancy risk: Category C (Risk cannot be ruled out)
Drug classes: Live Attenuated Bacillus Calmette-Guerin Vaccine, Live Attenuated Intravesical Bacillus Calmette-Guerin Vaccine…
Don’t judge me and I will promise to not judge you, it’s already done, no changing that! I did what everyone does with the information available to them at the time! I am unable to argue the merits of either delaying/waiting/not doing or doing vaccines – now. We already made our choice, right, wrong or indifferent. Was it that along with trauma that set him up for failure, was it a combination of parasite/trauma/and vaccines? Was it trauma and DNA, was it chemical exposure/gluten sensitivity and GMOs.. really who knows and at this point, probably we never will… all we can do is keep moving forwards.
So what now? I started writing this when he was 6, he is now 9. Three years on and thousands of hard earned $$ later, lots of therapies, lots of questions and tests, LOTS of diagnoses. Of course, we have come a long way, he is functioning far more appropriately than he ever has before, albeit he is still crippled at times by anxiety, depression, anger, self-doubt, still his overriding feelings are of rejection and he is still is too scared to sleep alone at night for fear of losing us, his dreams are littered with the same. His body is suffering the effects of fight or flight, he has low adrenal function, high inflammation markers, over excitatory neurotransmitters, asthma and a plethora of allergies, but he does function very well 50% of the time now, to us, to us this is progress!