nixtress's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How much more?

Entry #2 for the day.
Trevor's facing some testing in the not-so-far away future. To cut through to the nitty gritty, he's going through some pretty intense psychological testing to either rule in or rule out childhood onset schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This isn't an easy thing as it's difficult to diagnose both of these in kids.
I'm afraid. Afraid I've been right all this time, afraid for his future, afraid I've managed to mess up my boy in ways I never knew were possible, just by giving birth to him and having the genetic background that I do. Now, in future days, I may look back and read this and think I'm being overly dramatic or pessimistic. Right now, I'm scared.
I've touched on my family's history with mental illness before. Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and all the others...I've mentioned numerous times that I never knew that the deck was stacked when it came to my children. And I've said more than once that I'm fearful for them, and specifically--for Trev.
Trev's a different duck, has always been that way. He's always had his quirks (some great, some not-so-great), one of them being night terrors. He wakes up in the middle of the night and he's literally just not reachable. Always, he's in tears and crying, sometimes nearly hysterically. Half the time, I can't even make real contact with him. He just goes back to sleep. The other half of the time, after 15 minutes or so, his eyes clear and he wakes up. Most of the time, his eyes are open but he's not there. He's very clearly off somewhere in his head and carries whatever it was he was dreaming or feeling into the here and now with him. It's extremely difficult.
Keep in mind, these have been going on since he was a toddler.
He's been having more involved episodes in recent months. He comes to my room and stands in the doorway but when I turn on the light and approach him, he shrinks away and it's almost like he's seeing something superimposed over me because it just frightens him more to see me there. It's incredibly scary and paralyzing as a mother to realize your presence is not a comfort, but a cause for tears and fear from your child and for no reason that you can help or see. Speaking to him from a distance, in clear and comforting tones seems to help sometimes, but not every time. Sometimes he says things that I can't understand, garbled and nonsensical. Sometimes he just sobs. Nearly each and every time, he has no recollection in the morning. It's frightening because I can't control these episodes, can't fix them. And lately (within the last year), they're getting more complicated.
Trev's counselor has some concerns. He says that the combination of the different behaviors he's been exhibiting (for years!) point to a need for more intensive testing. He won't say what he thinks is going on just yet, but has touched briefly on a few ideas. I've done some research of my own, though.
Autistic-like behaviors, night terrors (aka parasomnias), family history of mental illness...just those three alone are shared in the criteria for diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In fact, they are often misdiagnosed as each other, as well as autism and all the autistic-spectrum disorders.
We've already ruled out autism and the spectrum disorders.
I know that people live with mental illness all over and alot do it successfully and productively.
It's just not what I envisioned for my son. I don't want him to have to deal with all the loopholes and issues that come with a diagnosis like that. I don't want to see him struggle more than he already has. On the flipside of that, with a diagnosis, we can at least identify what we're dealing with and start taking more proactive steps for his future.
But that doesn't make it less scary, doesn't make it better. Doesn't make me feel less culpability. Logically, I know it's not my "fault", but it FEELS like my fault.
I love him so much. He's just a kid. This is the time in his life that things are supposed to be easy. When does it get easy for him? When can he just be a kid?
It breaks my heart.

11:21 p.m. - 2006-05-09

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next