Aggression

When Jace was younger, he was fairly aggressive. It's why he qualified for DDA services, on top of being developmentally and physically disabled. He was small though, easy to handle. And then we'd calmed all that down with controlling his environment, like core temp and sensory input. Even when those things weren't controlled, we managed to bring Jace back to reality quickly just using simple techniques.

But he has also always been very sweet and loving. That may sound impossible. But it's true. He never hurt me before, or even his brothers on purpose at least. He would destroy things and sometimes his brothers got in the way. He's always been full of hugs, and kisses and compliments. The first to apologize, the first to say hi, the first to try to lift someone's spirits when they were down.

But this last trip to PCMC, something triggered Jace to go back the aggression. An 80lb punching machine, fuming angry, refusing to listen, overheating and over stimulating himself... No matter how much I listen to him. And oh I've listened. I know what is bothering him.

He has said he is angry he's in so much pain. He's angry the meds aren't working. He's angry he's dying. He's angry everyone is talking about it. And he just wants it over with. 

Wow. 

My 8 yr old that has the expressive mentality of a 3 yr old managed to get that out to me, even in his very confusing seizing language. 

He's been begging for Sandy constantly. Talking about Aidan and Jesus constantly. And talking about death constantly. Both in positive and negative ways. It was all positive before the trip, but now the negative has come into the picture since. When we got to a similar point with Aidan (he lashed out emotionally, not physically) we eventually ended up putting him on an antidepressant. It was when we brought him home from the hospital on hospice and he realized he couldn't do anything he loved anymore. He was understandably angry and scared. 

But right now, with Jace, we are focusing on pain management... and the meds aren't working.

In fact he's allergic to one of them, so he itches all the time.

I can see why he's so angry. I would be too. But he's lashing out at the very people trying to get him help. The Drs aren't working fast enough for him. I get part of it is you have to allow meds time to "wait and see" before changing again. Another is we are working with more than one team of Drs with differing opinions on what to do. I've had my fill of the waiting game though, because I'm so tired of being bullied by my own son. I don't do that to him. So it's heartbreaking to me that he is doing it to me. I know it's the misery doing it, not really him. But... wow!

It's freaking poor Damon out too. Damon even tried mimicking it one night. Of course it didn't work to his advantage and he realized that really quick. I will never give in to such behavior, no matter much it might scare me. There are set boundaries and that's that. And if they go so far as to hurt me or someone else, they lose something like time with Sandy or iPad time, etc. When it's just the 3 of us home, I don't let it escalate to that point. Except for that first time that it caught me so off guard. Sadly, when his dad is home, Jace isn't realizing it's just causing him to overheat, feel quilty, and waste a lot of energy and time on fighting that could be used doing what he enjoys while he still can.