Making Myself Vulnerable

Most of you reading this already know what I'm about to talk about. But I want, no, I NEED to get it out here "in public."

Ethan's always been high strung. And I mean always. Like since he was a day old still in the hospital. He's always been very sensitive and feeds off our emotions. And oh yeah, he's always had a temper.

There are things he does periodically like throw toys in the playpen where he can't get them out. Methodically break a whole box worth of crayons in half, calmly searching the apartment for every one and breaking it in half. And then immediately crying after he starts breaking them, continuing to break them, and crying when he's done. He went through a period of throwing his sippy/pillow on the floor every night and then screaming to get them back. Not fun when you're trying to sleep. In the car he frequently would throw his sippy/Puppy on the floor and scream to get them back. Not fun when you're trying to drive.

It seems like there's a common thread to all of these - compulsion. And I think he's realizing it himself. He doesn't want his sippy/pillow in bed anymore because he knows he'll throw them down. He doesn't want his sippy/Puppy in the car anymore because he knows he'll throw them down.

I'm trying to walk a fine line. I know mental illness runs in both Jesse's and my families. So the boys do have biological predispositions to it. My degree is in behavioral sciences. Some might say I took just enough psychology classes to be dangerous ;-) I don't want to be looking for mental issues in my kids when there aren't any. On the other hand, I want to notice possible issues and deal with them before they progress to the level of other members of our families. So where's that balance?

I found out about a program at our local state mental health hospital that deals specifically with children age 0-5. They work with the parents and the children and try to take care of smaller issues before they get big. They mainly do play therapy, and they have child psych's on staff that work with that age group if needed. She stressed to me that the focus of the program is on changing behavior, teaching parents how to effectively manage the child's issues, etc versus pushing meds.

I prayed. And prayed. And prayed. I kept asking for confirmation that something really was going on with him. And that this program was the direction we should go. I kept feeling peace about it, no matter how much I deliberated. Every sign I got showed me to take this direction.

We did the intake appointment back in July but weren't able to get all the paperwork together we needed till right before Thanksgiving. Once they get the paperwork from me, we'll go on the assessment schedule. They do many hours of assessments over multiple weeks, fine-tuning as they go. He won't have an official diagnosis (they intentionally avoid labeling at his age), but will have a set of "tendencies" he shows.

I felt much better after the appointment for a few reasons. The lady who ended up doing our appointment is the head of the program. And she AP'ed her kids! That right there put me at ease :) Toward the beginning of our conversation I told her something about how Ethan never let us put him down as a baby and her response was, "So you wore him a lot, right?" Uhhh... Not quite the response I was expecting ;) I was up front that Ethan wasn't vaxed. She said there was another family in the program that didn't either - not a problem. But a lot of the reason I felt better was her reactions to some of the incidents we mentioned. I saw her facial expressions - surprise, concern. It was even more confirmation that we were doing the right thing.

Hopefully within the next week they'll be able to get the rest of the paperwork from us and we'll get on the assessment schedule.

I'll post ongoing updates. Please keep my family in prayer as we take this journey!