This is one of those posts where I'm brutally honest about something that's going on. Those with experience will be able to relate, and those without have an opportunity to gain some insight into something they might not otherwise have any experience with.
The issue tonight is a reoccurring one, but I've not spoken about it in a little while.
Mr. Gavin has been driving me nuts today, and the day before, as well as the day before that. You get the picture. He's driving me crazy on a pretty regular basis. I always want to preface things with a *this is not his fault *statement, because it really isn't his fault. Yes, choices are being made, but nothing he does is meant to upset or cause distress to anyone. It just isn't.
The problems revolve around his seemingly declining level of function. In a nutshell, he's struggling more and more with everyday life tasks. He's experiencing more and more confusion, but this time, it doesn't seem to be medication related.
One of the newer things he does is try to explain something to us, and his attempts make absolutely no sense to anyone. We have to question him because we're trying to follow what he's telling us, but he gets very frustrated. Today he needed help with his tablet. He had downloaded an apk from a website that hosts apk's. Apk's are how Android apps are packaged and installing any apk that doesn't come directly from the Google Play Store is called sideloading.
Gavin was sideloading an app today, but it didn't complete correctly. He came down the stairs and began rattling off information that didn't make any sense. Gavin has a habit of starting a conversation in his head and continuing it out loud, expecting whoever he's talking at to know what's going on.
There are two problems with this. The first being that he's talking *at *and not *to *us. The second problem is that we are not privy to the parts of the conversation that have been taking place in his head and therefore we have no fucking idea what he's talking about. When we try to figure out what he's asking, he often gets frustrated with us because he feels that we're not listening to him.
This afternoon, he was trying to get me to help remove something he'd downloaded, and I needed to know what it was. He said he had tried to download an app that wasn't on the Play Store and something went wrong. He said he had used this one particular site that I had told him to use whenever he wanted an app that wasn't in the store.
I explained to him that I *never *told him it was okay to do that. The only thing I can think of is that a couple of years ago, Gavin was trying to re-download an app that he had bought, but it wasn't showing up on the Play Store for some reason. We downloaded the apk for the app off of this site and sideloaded it for him. That was years ago, and I told him never to do that on his own because you have to be careful what you sideload.
Rather than just acknowledge that he forgot and ask for help removing the file from his tablet, he chose to argue that I had permitted him to do this whenever he wanted. That simply never happened.
It's frustrating for me because it's so easy for him to misread, misunderstand or even mishear what is said and rather than deal with that, he very often doubles down. No progress can be made in the conversation because Gavin *does not *like making mistakes.
He became very frustrated with what happened to his tablet because I wasn't doing what he wanted me to do. The reality was that I hadn't a clue what the fuck he was talking about. I can't help him if I don't know what he is asking for help with.
Everyone in the room became frustrated with Gavin because he was getting so upset. Emmett, who's fuse runneth short on a good day, had all he could take and basically told Gavin that *no one knows what he's talking about. *He didn't say it quite that nicely but he's ten years old, and patience isn't his strong suit right now, especially with all that happened with my grandmother. Emmett's pretty much constantly living on the edge of a meltdown. Frankly, the fact that it took him fifteen minutes to reach his limit is pretty impressive.
Anyway, I never did figure out precisely what he wanted me to do, but he ended up figuring it out on his own, which isn't a bad thing. I didn't know that he was sideloading apps and now that I do, I'm going to have to remove permissions from his device to better protect him from the things that shouldn't be on his tablet.
We currently use Google's Family Link, but that doesn't appear to report apps being sideloaded. I'm very open to app suggestions that could fill this role for us, so please feel free to leave a comment below. ☺
This is just one example of the challenges we're facing with Gavin. This seems to be happening more and more. It would be more manageable if he tolerated mistakes, but I have very little hope of that ever changing. He's always been that way, and nothing we ever say or do has had any lasting impact on him.
It's so incredibly exhausting to spend so much time and energy on things like this. It's frustrating for everyone, and that includes Gavin. I'm anxiously awaiting the results of his neuropsych testing from earlier in the month. I'm supposed to call later this week or early next week for that.
Nothing we learn from the results will fix anything, but it can provide insight and help us discover more effective ways of assisting him through life. It will be interesting to see where he is now compared to 2014 when he was last tested.
I'm going to bed tonight with the knowledge that tomorrow is a brand new day and a fresh start. That doesn't always help, especially if I don't get enough sleep. Still, I will remain hopeful. ☺
