Riding the Roller Coaster

Well, after this morning's drama, things just went downhill. I got DS calmed down for the morning, but by early afternoon I received a call that he had lost it again. When I called back, he first refused to come to the phone, then accused the counselor of lying about my being on the phone. Got him calmed down again, and hoped that would be the end of it.

I got an appointment for therapy for him, and called to check on which day would be the field trip, to try to avoid a conflict. Turns out he was raging again, running down the halls, hiding, shouting, and just darkly angry. In the words of the director, "I've never seen this much darkness in him." Tried to get DH to go get him, but couldn't reach him, so I started packing my stuff. By this time I was barely holding back tears, and when someone asked me if I was ok, I just lost it (I've never been good about lying and saying I'm OK when I'm not). My boss was very understanding, telling me I can work from home however long I need to in order to get this straightened out, but I felt terrible breaking down in front of him. At that point DH called to say he was home, but I knew I wouldn't be any good at work anyway.

Got him picked up - when I got there, he had snuck out the back and was happily playing football with some of the staff. I had specifically asked that he not play any aggressive games this week, because they seem to set him off. He stalked his way back to the car, and when we were almost home, he told me he was at "Black." I told him that I wanted him to get to at least orange before we got out of the car, and in a block and a half he was back to Blue/Yellow. Turning on a dime.

Got inside, tried to get him to write what he was feeling (nothing) and destressed with DH, then went to talk to DS. In a short time he went from being somewhat OK to being furious because, "You won't answer my question," even though I'd told him I didn't have an answer. DS started to hurt himself, and persisted through my countdown and warning, so I had to restrain him. What's odd is that it really seemed like he wanted to test to make sure I meant it. He finally calmed, and afterwards admitted that he really wanted to be held and pushed me to get that. That he feels safer when he's in a hold. I told him that's not unusual, but that I would happily hold him in calmer moments without having to deal with the rage. I asked him that if he closed his eyes, would it sound like there was someone in the room talking to him, or would it just be in his head, and he said it was like someone in the room. I realize that he is trying to verbalize something he doesn't understand, and may be describing it poorly, but I don't believe at all that he is making this up. DH is more skeptical, but I can read DS pretty well when he's lying.

In a matter of minutes, he'd switched to giddy-happy. Giggly, goofy, teasingly saying, "no" when I asked him to do something. He's done this before, and will get pouty if we tell him he's pushing the teasing too far. So when he wouldn't come for a hug (handed me a pillow telling me, "this is me") I held the pillow, talked to it, told it I loved it, rocked it like a baby, sang to it. Played a little patty cake with his feet. Soon he wanted the hugs, and holding. Even wanted me to sing to him. I told him that if I'd had a baby, I would have sung a lot of lullabies (I do a lot of singing). He asked me to sing one, then when I finished asked for another. It calmed him, and he said it made him feel safe.

Later, when I tried to tell him what a great kid he was, how I loved him, he kept giving little jerks of his head (did that again at bedtime). I asked him what it was, and he said the voice was saying, "no" every time I said something nice. I told him the voice is lying.

We're trying to get help - therapy scheduled for Wednesday. DD has a psychologist appt. on Monday that she doesn't really need (maintaining well), and this psychologist takes months to get into, so I'm trying to do a little bait and switch. I want to find some stability before school starts! This is not how we need to start his year at the new school!

Thank you for your support. Sometimes it's just nice to know there are others listening, and that I'm not alone. I really wonder if this is either RAD related, or maybe even a mild manic-depressive state. He's done the giddy-goofy thing a lot, especially when nervous, or getting over a rage, and it just never occured to me that it might be a symptom of something. We just chalked it up to 10-yr-old boy goofiness. Now I'm trying to look at his recent behavior and identify patterns - anything to help us understand what is going on and get him help.