Meltdowns Archives - Page 14 of 299

I’m seeing behavioral changes and some are concerning

I wanted to devote an entire post to talking about how Gavin's doing. I haven't really updated in a little while because it's been pretty much status quo. That's not a bad thing but unfortunately, it can't last forever. Gavin is officially off the Clozapine and seems to be withdraw free. That's a very good thing. He needed an extra step in the weaning process and that seems to have eliminated the negative symptoms from a week ago. The issue now is that Gavin is unmedicated and not easy to cope with. It is however, what I knew would happen but I didn't feel I had much of a choice. I thought I would share some of my observations in regards to changes in his behavior. The only way I…

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April 13, 2020

Inspirational Posts / My thoughts

To Whom This May Concern

Look, am I okay? No. No I'm not. I imagine if I asked you the same question (and I do almost every single night on Twitter), many of you would answer the same way. The world is absolutely crazy right now and a lot of us aren't doing okay. I'm not a unique case here. So many people are struggling right now. The big difference is that I'm openly sharing how I feel. Not everyone is comfortable doing that and that's okay. My kids and I have been staring at each other for 37 days now. The house feels like it's shrinking and I'm exhausted. There are times that I really struggle and there are times that I'm doing okay-ish. At least as good as one can do under these…

6 Comments

April 13, 2020

COVID19 / Lockdown / My thoughts

I’m without direction today

It's 11am EST and 2 of my 3 kids are still sleeping. I'm slowly starting my day but feel like I'm lacking direction. Poor Emmett was having nightmares throughout the night. He's been glued to me all night long. If he wasn't wrapped around my arm, he'd panic. I really need to find a way to get him back into his own bed. He was still struggling with his mom leaving when this all happened. Now everything is much more complicated and difficult. I'm pretty sure today is Sunday, which also means it's Easter. For the first time ever, we're not celebrating. No one feels like celebrating and frankly, I'm just too tired at this point, to really care one way or the other. I'm not proud of that and…

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April 12, 2020

COVID19 / Lockdown / My thoughts

I’m trying very hard to focus on what I can control

So I'm feeling a little better as the night progresses. The boys are nowhere near ready for bed and sleep has become harder to come by than is was pre-pandemic. I'm trying to focus what little energy I have into positive things. I've got 2 recordings that need mixed and at least one more scheduled for this coming week. If I can get the house sorta quiet, I'll record the rest of what needs to be recorded in order to start mixing them. It's a pleasant distraction for right now. I also decided that we need a place outside, where we can be safely away from everyone else. I started cleaning off my balcony. It's what used to be a called a sleeper porch back in the day. It's not…

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April 11, 2020

Confessions / COVID19 / Depression Management / Lockdown / My thoughts

I’m so fucking overwhelmed

I'm trying to write more but the truth is, I'm barely fucking hanging on right now. Last night, in a massive emotional outbursts, Emmett ripped up his schoolwork. He wasn't trying to be difficult or oppositional. He's so overwhelmed by everything and simply not coping well. We've officially crossed a line with the schoolwork at this point. There isn't a child in this country who's education isn't totally fucked up right now. This is causing my kids far too much distress and me too much anxiety. I'm fucking done. I'm fighting feelings of being a total parenting failure right now but the truth is, I'm failing either way. If I force my kids to continue doing the busy work, I'm letting them down because it's clearly not in their best…

13 Comments

April 11, 2020

Akron Children's Hospital / Behavioral Health / COVID19 / Elliott / Emmett John / Link / Lockdown / My thoughts

My kids had their first telemedicine appointment yesterday

It's been a few days since I've written. Things are getting rough here in The Autism Dad household and I'd be lying if I told you I was doing fine, because I'm not. Not at all. The kids are absolutely overwhelmed, anxious, overstimulated, angry, frustrated and fucking terrified. They're absolutely terrified and it's not easy to reassure them because they're too smart. They know how bad this is and while I constantly reinforce that we're safe because we're socially isolating, they aren't feeling better about it. I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom but this shit is crazy. This is about as serious as it gets and I can look out my window throughout the day and see countless people not taking this seriously. The boys and I…

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April 9, 2020

Link / Sponsored Post

How to Balance a Nursing Career, Kids, and Still Complete an Executive Program

How to Balance a Nursing Career, Kids, and Still Complete an Executive Program Being a working parent is hard. Throw in a degree on top of it all, and it can seem downright impossible, especially if you are a working parent who has never found the whole parenting part of your job natural or easy. Kids are resilient, but they can also be selfish and self-absorbed. This means that paying them less attention to focus on your degree can feel like inviting disaster into your life, but it doesn’t have to. There is no reason to protect your kids from reality. You are going to need to spend some time each day working on your degree. They are going to have to get used to that. You can be a…

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April 9, 2020

COVID19 / Lockdown / My thoughts

So we’re not homicidal yet and I suppose that’s good

I hope you're all doing well. It's been a longer day than usual and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Longer days seem to slow life down a bit and I'm okay with that. We're still hanging in there and so far, none of us are overtly homicidal yet. That's always a good thing, right? Of course it is. Anyway, first some housekeeping things. The podcast episode for this week will air Friday afternoon-ish. The audio is mixed and uploaded, I'm just needing to finish the artwork and show notes. I'm too tired to get that all done tonight. I'll give you a quick rundown of the this week's episode. I speak with Aaron Shute from Brain Power. They are using Google Glass and augmented reality to help kids and…

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April 3, 2020