Gavin has been meltdown free for the past 3 days.  However,  his attitude has been unpleasant and his treatment of Lizze has been unacceptable. The way he talks to her really make me sad and extremely upset.

We had been very carefully picking our battles the past few days because we really enjoyed the lack of violent outbursts. 

Today however,  was the last straw. He wasn’t listening all morning and when Lizze would tell him to do something,  he would give her a hard time. Finally I had had it.  Whether any of us like it or not,  his little brothers look up to him and mimic is behavior.  I can’t let his attitude and treatment of his mother go unchallenged. 

I informed him that he would not be allowed to play video games during his next infusion on Friday. We had allowed that to go on,  even though Gavin and video games don‘t mix well. We did this because we felt so bad that he had to have the infusion in the first place. From now on,  his ability to play video games during his infusions will directly depend on his behavior.

He didn’t like that and so he freaked out and eventually started to self-injure once again.

I reminded him what the consequences would be if he didn’t get this under control.  This time,  he was so angry at me that I don‘t think he cared. He was in in control because he would stop in occasion to make sure he didn’t get to close to something he values. 

As promised,  I took away his favorite blanket and he will have to earn that back. He didn’t think I would actually go through with it,  and he would have been right,  if anything else would have worked.

He began freaking out even more until I walked over to his teddy bear and began to walk out the door with it. I told him that if I reached the door and he hadn’t stopped,  that he would have to earn that back as well. Wouldn’t you know it,  it was like he flipped a switch and shut everything off.  Honestly,  it’s almost creepy because it’s literally like it never happened. I don‘t know own how he does that but it’s unsettling to say the least.

We see Dr.  Pattie tonight and will talk about additional options she has come up with since the last time we talked.  However,  she informed me that she’s only human the other day and pretty much shattered my world view.  It was kinda funny because while I know she’s only human,  we had tended to see her as superhuman and with all the answers.  🙂
Hopefully,  we can all put our human heads together tonight and come up with a few options or ideas to address the problems we are facing at home with Gavin.