Happy (belated) Birthday, Brendan!

Yesterday was not only April Fool's Day, but also Brendan's 12th birthday! It was a school day, but he was
ok with the wait for the end of the school day for birthday fun :) He had requested fruit trays with dip for the school celebration & they were a big hit (the teachers said that the kids appreciated the fruit more than cake or cookies :). When asked how old he was, Brendan chose to make up a math problem to tell them (a school tradition) & even used negative numbers in the equation! (The latest subject in 6th grade math... :) Since Charlie wouldn't be home from work until dinner time he had suggested that Brendan open one gift after school, so I had him open the japanese-language version of the newest Pokemon movie (it hasn't been released in english yet) that I'd found online &, as I'd hoped, he wanted to watch it right away. So I made popcorn & we headed upstairs, where we have Brendan's computer set for region 2 dvds, & had a great time watching it. It's just as visually gorgeous as the other recent Pokemon movies, & there was a great anti-war message, too. We did our usual shout-out of words & phrases we understood, & it really wasn't terribly hard to follow the plot or dialogue at all.

After the movie I showed Brendan the thank-you card I'd printed on the computer, a picture from one of his fencing lessons, specifically for the gift from his fencing teacher of a hand-built foil just for Brendan! He gave it to him on Monday after having him try it our for his lesson. Brendan was pretty floored, to be given a fencing foil of his own, & really excited when he recovered from the surprise :) His teacher told him that he found Brendan's enthusiasm for fencing, at such a young age, very inspiring, & wanted him to have a foil of his own to really get used to. Lucky kid! (Really proud mom, too :)

Another birthday surprise, that arrived in the mail, was a card, sent overnight mail, from Tomoko in Minnesota! She'd had some car misfortune & wasn't able to get a card out in time, so she sent it overnight so it would get here on his birthday (which I found very touching!). Grammie joined us for dinner, too, so she could be in on the birthday fun.

As mentioned in previous posts, Brendan's anxiety has been running higher for the past few months, & he was definitely on higher-anxiety mode anticipating his birthday. Since we really didn't want him to be miserable about his birthday, we asked him to make a list of some legos he really wanted (nothing too expensive!) & told him that he'd definitely get these sets for his birthday. He's been really into the Star Wars legos & has been working hard to earn & save allowance money to buy sets bit by bit, so he was really excited by this plan. That nipped the anxiety right in the bud, too- whew! Just to make things more interesting, I hid the legos & gave him clues for finding them (they were much too easy- next year he's going to have to work harder! :) He even translated my hiragana handwriting (which is notoriously bad...) & understood the clue I'd written in japanese. We told him that he would not be able to make all of the sets before bedtime (he had homework to do, too) & he was ok with just making one... go Brendan!!

As you can see by the above photo, legos weren't the only Star Wars items he got... Charlie got Brendan a lightsabre of his own at the same time that he'd gotten mine, so now Brendan & I have matching sabres! He was soooo excited. So, my sabre is now safe (he's been playing with it a lot...) although the living room furniture won't be until the weather warms up & he can practise outside... :)

And, just a year to go before he's a teenager... amazing...

In honour of his birthday, here's a Brendan story that I've been wanting to share for a while:
A couple of weeks ago we visited the anime store to pick up some new manga. They had some new pokemon plushies, some with light-up cheeks (kawaii!) & Brendan managed to talk me into getting one (not terribly hard- I'm a cute freak, too :). I love how he treats all of them as though they were real friends... Well, when we got out to the car, he pulled the tab from the battery &... the cheeks didn't light up. I sighed & prepared to go back into the store to try & exchange it, but Brendan told me that he didn't want to give it up. "It's ok, Mom, I like this one the way he is. I don't want to take him back." I was a little surprised, & a little relieved... In the car on the way home I mentioned to Brendan that not many kids would be satisfied with a plushie that didn't do what was advertised. He said that he was worried about what would happen to it if he took it back, that no-one would love it. I told him that maybe he's better at loving things no matter how well they work because he knows what it's like to be different. He smiled...

To fight, or not to fight...

Way back in early December Brendan's psychologist asked me to keep a "tic log", essentially a record of Brendan's anxiety moments. The purpose for this was data-collecting, to see if we could get a sense of the patterns of Brendan's OCD anxiety. I have been doing this faithfully, along with recording our responses to his anxiety on the odd chance that we learn anything from that, too, & getting Brendan's input on his time spent at school (everything has been done with his knowledge & co-operation, of course) ever since, filling 2 little hand-bound books with these observances... until just this past week. I'm not sure why I've stopped, but somehow it began to feel more & more like micro-managing, like looking at things too closely. So, without too much struggle (or guilt), I stopped. My researcher past tells me that we probably have plenty of data by now (3 months' worth) & my mom instinct tells me to follow my gut :) Brendan's psychologist is a wonderful, understanding person, so I know he'll understand, whatever the reason.

One of the good things about doing this sort of thing is that it's not hard to spot changes over time (since I'm writing everything down, I can't help but notice what phrases I write over & over again...). A few trends that have been pretty obvious are his anxiety before going to school (particularly Monday mornings) & also the extreme pain that the OCD anxiety has been causing him. One of the things that has changed noticeably in the past 3 months has been Brendan's ability to ask for help when faced with anxiety- he's gotten much more proactive about this & we are actively grateful, making sure that we give him feedback when he's done well with communicating. His school teachers have been noticing this, too. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing to see him starting to use the strategies he's been learning to cope with the anxiety. It's also wonderful to be able to give him the feedback that he is using the strategies. He's not always aware of what he does & one of the main things we've been trying to help him learn ever since the anxiety became a "big player" (almost exactly 4 years ago, just before his 8th birthday) is how to choose the most effective & positive ways to deal with it.

These days Brendan seems most vulnerable to the "fleas" (his word to describe/personify the OCD anxiety) on Monday mornings, & we have had some doozies the past couple of weeks... The first time Monday Morning-itis hit I was not prepared & it was a disaster. He was so immobilised by the "fleas" that he couldn't get dressed. I waffled between explaining that he would be going to school in his jammies if he couldn't get dressed, trying my best to enable the dressing somehow, and then trying my best to deal with the full-body tics that erupted whenever he tried to touch his clothes... There was something bad about the colour green that morning (related to something he'd seen on a show) & he couldn't even look at it. Although his clothes did not have green on them, he was surrounded by green things. Colour difficulties are a pretty common manifestation of the OCD anxiety, but they'd never been quite so intense. Finally, he was able to struggle into his boxers & pants on his own (his is nearly 12 & no way am I going to embarrass him & try to do the nether regions) & I dressed him the rest of the way. He was too upset to eat breakfast & sat in the kitchen & sobbed & hated the "fleas" & raged at the OCD & said he wished he'd never been born until it occurred to me to offer him a book, which distracted him enough to eat a banana & take his morning meds (bless you, Terry Pratchett!). By the time we got to school he was doing pretty well seemed not to have any more trouble than usual. I was a wreck for the rest of the day, though. I felt like a particular failure as a mother & it felt bad. Sigh. That wore off in time, though, & in talking to Charlie, he certainly was able to find bits where I hadn't totally blown it... I think the worst was feeling so helpless & ineffectual in the face of his pain.

Over the following week I thought about what had happened, mostly in the back of my mind as we did our daily thing. One of the things that has really been coming into focus over the past few months is Brendan's pain & resentment of the OCD. I've gone through a few revolutions of thinking since Brendan was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum & one of the main ones has concerned whether or not to "fight" his conditions. I have written before about the use of "fighting words" when it concerns my kid or his differences, & my ultimate conclusion is that is does not add positively to the world when we fight it... but how could I talk about this with Brendan while still acknowledging his pain & his own feelings on the matter?

This week has provided a couple of occasions to work on this... :) This past Monday was definitely a continuation of the previous Monday, with the added excitement of Brendan still being "jet-lagged" from the time change. I was prepared, though, so I stuck with him verbally, from the other side of his bedroom door, as he got his pants on & then took over the rest of the dressing. Green was no longer an issue (the bigger the blow-up the shorter the duration of the "flea", I've discovered) but there is a particular shade of blue that causes problems... we got past that & he was crying on the way downstairs & plopped on the kitchen floor when we got there, so I just handed him his book & he requested an apple to eat & things were pretty ok. While I was eating my breakfast & he took a break from his book, I made an attempt to talk about the anxiety. I told Brendan that it seemed to me that his anxiety about going to school is actually pretty reasonable for a kid with Aspergers, with all of the social difficulties that go along with it. And it seemed to me that the OCD was taking reasonable anxieties & blowing them out of proportion, which is one reason it's so tough to deal with. We started calling OCD "anxiety on steroids" which made him kind of grin. It was a start...

This morning, even though he was off school for teacher conferences, I suspected that he might have some trouble getting dressed because we were due at school at 9:00 for his conference (yesterday he was off, but no conference). I was right- he dithered & "flea-ed" & then asked me to finish putting his shirt & socks on, which I did, & then observed that it was really helpful for him to ask for help. He went downstairs yelling & moaning, so we talked again about the "anxiety on steroids" & he said that he hated anxiety & started crying. So I told him that one thing I've observed is that he has a lot of trouble on schooldays, which did not mean that he doesn't like school or trying to get out of anything (this is a recurring argument- that he feels he's being accused of using the OCD to try to get out of things). I reminded him that this school anxiety is not unreasonable for him, but that the OCD ramps it to unbearable levels. Then I gently suggested that he wasn't alone in dealing with something painful like this, that there are other people around that I've known who were born with difficulties that sometimes cause them pain- like my friends from my wheelchair basketball days who were paralysed or had lost legs in war or accidents, & how they had to get used to being different & being perceived as being different, & used to getting around in a different way, which could be really difficult. I told him that I'd observed that those who found positive ways to look at their pain, who didn't fight it but accepted it as part of them, were happier people. We talked about people we've known who are refugees from war, & how anger & wanting revenge does not make someone peaceful. We even talked about the difference between being a "fighter" in the sense of learning to fence & how that's different from fighting something. Brendan reflected that fencing requires a lot of thought, but when he's angry & fighting the OCD, he's not really thinking, just reacting. Our discussion bounced around a bit, but as we talked Brendan became calmer, more peaceful himself. I mentioned all the ways that I've already seen him using good strategies to cope with the OCD, & how he's gotten so much better at dealing with some parts of it. That it's ok to be angry & sad about how hard it is to deal with life with OCD, but it's what he does with his anger & sadness that's important. He was perfectly calm & able to sit & eat (no book :) after that. We both felt calm & peaceful. We talked about it all again during his conference, as he reflected on how well he's managing the anxiety at school, pinpointed the difficult times of day & how he & his teachers could cope with them. It was all very positive & I felt such a glow of pride for my son.

Ultimately, I think what I really need is a big sign somewhere that says "the intense times are the times when we learn the most". It's so hard to cope with those intense times, when we're all falling apart & no-one knows what to do... but I look at what Brendan & I have learned from our frightful Mondays & I can feel (almost) grateful. We are turning our minds to every important considerations. How we think is how we live, & Brendan is growing into a very thoughtful person indeed... :)

Conscious living...

Yesterday, while driving home from an afterschool visit to Starbucks (a weekly treat for Brendan & myself) I had to hit the breaks because a driver in front of me was doing something funky. Brendan commented that he wished the driver would practise conscious driving... we skipped a beat & then burst out laughing. Brendan, giggling madly, asked me why what he'd said was so funny, so I asked him what the opposite of "conscious" is. We both had taken the mental leap to the idea that the driver had been driving "unconsciously" (therefore, asleep). (In restrospect, I think he meant "conscientious".) So, we came up with the slogan:

Conscious driving: it's not just a good idea, it's the law!!

Being a conscious parent (most of the time) as well as driver, I have noticed that we seem to be achieving a sense of equilibrium in the new year, at least where it concerns Brendan's new, heightened level of anxiety. We've been tracking his anxiety using a "tic log" & I just began a new one yesterday (I've been making little books out of a stack of computer paper cut in half & bound with crochet thread :), which caused me to reflect a bit on how he's been doing. The homework re-organisation has gone very well, & we're all less anxious because we know what to expect. Monday night was math, which meant that it was Charlie's night to coach & Brendan & I didn't have to rush right into homework after we got home (from a quick visit to the pediatrician to look at a rash & then a longer visit to the grocery store to fill a prescription & our tummies with sushi while we waited :). Last night he had language arts homework- my area of expertise- so I scribed his spanish homework for him, which made him very happy (& kept the anxiety level very low).

The anxiety lately has taken the form of an increase in "fleas" interfering with everything from dressing to homework to what activities he can do (when not on the computer). Although he's not been specific, the clothing issues seem to change from day to day, & sometimes it's colour that's the problem & sometimes it's the order in which they've been placed in the drawer. Some mornings he continually puts things back in the drawer & hauls others out. Others he needs me to put the shirt over his head because the "flea" is preventing him from finishing the job. I have learned that challenging him at these times does not improve things or lessen the anxiety, so I do what seems necessary- or what he asks me to do. Any time he can be pro-active & tell me what he needs is great, in my opinion, even if he needs me to dress him. (Note: being a self-conscious preteen, he always gets his undies on unsupervised & in private!) One of the biggest cognitive leaps we've noticed in Brendan is his growing ability to analyse what's going on & tell us what he needs. I am going to encourage this behaviour where ever I see it! Another way that we've been encouraging him to be pro-active is when he needs to yell or scream... he's been pretty good about warning us. We've been discouraging long screaming episodes, since they hurt his throat, & problem-solving other ways to get the feelings out. He's been pretty good about telling us when's about to get loud (particularly appreciated when I'm setting the laptop down or carrying food...) so that we aren't startled... We've also been trying to be aware of how sensory strategies can help him- everything from burning incense or spraying lavender scent to deep pressure can help, if we can just remember to offer (or he to ask...).

The hardest line to walk with Brendan's anxiety is to know how much to accomodate it & how much to challenge it. What I'm learning is that sometimes we need to go with his flow, to keep the anxiety from increasing, to keep things moving (in the morning before school in particular). When his anxiety is lower, then we can revisit things, brainstorm alternatives, point out ways he can be pro-active, look for what's causing the anxiety... The risk is that he'll become anxious discussing these things, but he also responds well to being consulted & treated like the intelligent person that he is. An interesting fallout of recent dances with anxiety is that he's been able to go back to playing some computer games that were a bit too challenging & frustrating for him when he first got them last month. We made a deal with him that he could play them if he self-monitored for increased frustration, or if he would listen to us if we pointed out that he seemed to be getting upset. I had to do just that last night & I was so pleased when he realised what he was feeling & de-escalated things on his own. Whew!! Hooray!!!

Brendan & I are also in the early planning stages of a new & exciting project. I took my precious savings & bought a new macbook a few weeks ago, mainly because my nearly 3-year-old laptop's hard drive was maxxed-out & really slow, & with the help of a friend (thanks Lee!) got it all set up very quickly. This new laptop came with the newest version of Garageband, which means that Brendan & I can now create our own podcasts :) The idea hit me a couple of nights ago, in the shower (of course), & when I proposed it to Brendan yesterday morning he just lit up... because, as he puts it, his greatest talent is talking... :) We have another friend, Santosha, on board to help us figure out how to actually create podcasts (this is the friend who interviewed me a year ago for the UU radio show). Then I'll need to figure out how to get the podcasts on the internet... but anyway, we are on our way to creating a venue for Brendan to talk about himself & autism (& OCD, & Tourettes... :) and how he thinks & feels about lots of things. We are really psyched. He wants to read some of his stories & sing his parody songs, too (the latest is called "Lucy in the Sky with Daggers"...). I am pretty excited about finally finding a way to get my kid's own perspective onto the 'net. It'll probably take us a month or so to get it up & working, so stay tuned... :)