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Will you accept my #Autism Awareness month challenge?

It's Autism Awareness month once again. I see the Blue lights going up, the Memes spreading across the Internet but I want to make a suggestion to all of you out there. I believe Autism Awareness month has been around since 1970 and it seems that each year we pretty much do the same things. Autism organizations use the month to raise funds for whatever they actually do, some people protest these organizations and others do whatever they feel is right. It's not perfect but the world's still spinning. This year I want to issue a challenge to you and the rest of the Autism community. I want to challenge you to focus on self-care. I know that focusing on yourself can be very difficult, especially if you're a single…

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April 4, 2018

Depression / My thoughts

I’ve been off #Paxil for a month and the nausea is still a problem

It's been about a month since I took my final dose of Paxil. To say it's been an easy process would be a boldface lie. Frankly, it's been an absolute nightmare. Slowly lowering my dose over 90 days was rough but it didn't truly suck until the Paxil was completely out of my system. Having taken my last dose about 30 days ago, the medication has been out of my system for about the last 25 or 26 days. It's a very short half life and that's one of the reasons it's so hard to come off of. For the first week or two, I was completely overcome by emotion. It was like Paxil had been functioning like a dam and when it was gone, the emotions it had kept…

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April 4, 2018

Elliott / My thoughts / School / Today's Victory / Victories

A MAJOR Victory flew under the radar yesterday

Yesterday was a rather challenging day for me personally, but I muddled my way through it. In all the frustration, stress and otherwise chaotic events of yesterday, something didn't get mentioned that should have. For years we've struggled with Elliott and homework. It didn't matter what it was or how much he had, it was a nightmare. There were plenty of times I was hanging on by a thread because the whole homework thing was too much. I don't know what happened or when it actually began but Elliott's attitude towards homework has changed. He does his homework right away and without issue. In fact, lately he's been working on his homework on the way home from school, like you see in the picture above. This deserves to be mentioned…

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April 4, 2018

Autism Parenting Struggles / My thoughts

My kids with #Autism never fell asleep last night

It's been the longest night ever, well at least recently anyway. For the second night in a row, Elliott hasn't slept. Monday going into Tuesday, I think he got about two hours and that's it. He did okay at school the following day but last night was really rough. This time however, Emmett was awake to join him. Elliott never went to bed but Emmett woke up from a nightmare and was too afraid to go back to sleep. When 7 AM rolled around this morning, they were both so exhausted that there was no way we could send them to school. They would be setup to fail and that's not the right move. Both boys went to bed and are currently sleeping. Our goal is for them to make…

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April 4, 2018

My thoughts

Life is NOT easy be we have a great deal to be thankful for

The boys had a pretty good day. They got off to school without much problem. I was pleasantly surprised because Elliott only had a couple hours of sleep. He's been struggling to sleep the last couple nights and we may have to speak with his pediatrician for advice because Melatonin isn't helping. I went back to bed cause I wasn't feeling well, still due to the whole Paxil thing but I felt better when I woke up and was able to get quite a bit accomplished. One of the things I'm really struggling with is taking in enough water, especially since herthis whole Paxil thing. I'm making a concerted effort to fix that but the nausea is pretty rough at times and I don't want to think about eating or…

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April 3, 2018

Inspirational Posts / My thoughts

I will NOT be swallowed up by the negative in my life and here’s why

I'm so stressed out that I'm feeling sick to my stomach. Truthfully, I'd be sick to my stomach anyways cause of this stupid Paxil withdrawal but stress makes it so much worse. Rather than continually being swallowed up by the negative, I'm working to focus more on the blessings and here are a few examples of what I mean. It's all about perspective and the following are things weighing very heavily on me but there are hidden blessing in each situation. ☺ Our house sucks and the neighborhood is dangerous, but we have a roof over our heads. There are people out there who don't even have that. The car is literally rusting through, falling apart, no longer worth fixing and is too small to fit everyone without causing problems.…

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April 3, 2018

My thoughts

I desperately need to vent

This is one of those posts where I will completely open up and share things that are going on in my life that have me feeling the way I'm feel this morning. This is only meant to provide insight and context. These are just some of the many things weighing on me thus morning. I'm just venting and I haven't even proofed the post. Please forgive the wordy mess but it needed to come out. I woke up this morning feeling nauseated again because that's been the status quo for the most part since taking my last dose of Paxil almost a month ago now. The journey to get off of Paxil has been horrible and took over ninety days to complete. I learned the hard way, just how horrible…

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April 3, 2018

Autism Parenting Heartbreak / Inspirational Posts

#Autism breaks my heart in more ways than I can explain

Autism is one of those human conditions that impacts every person touched by it in a different way. Sometimes those differences are not so big and other times those differences can be so profound, that you may wonder how they can all fit underneath the umbrella known as Autism.. Each of our three kids is impacted in different ways by Autism. Gavin is easily the most profoundly impacted though. Gavin has an extremely rare form of Autism called Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. There's almost no research or support for this blacksheep of the Autism Spectrum family. Most people haven't even heard of Childhood Disintegrative Disorder or CDD. Unfortunately, CDD is absolutely devastating and based on what little is known about this disintegrative disorder, there is never a good outcome. The reason…

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April 2, 2018