View Through a Window High Up

While sitting, as I rarely do, in the black chair by Charlie's bed as he tossed and turned, I kept thinking I was on the third floor of the Acropolis Museum in Athens. It is directly across from the Acropolis, which you can see fully through all the windows. A replica of the frieze on the Parthenon that Elgin took to Britain is mounted on walls running all around the middle and you get a very strong sense of what was once over there on the Acropolis and why it belongs in Athens.

Looking out through Charlie's window onto the street, I felt as I did looking towards the Acropolis, as if it were behind the pulled-down shade.

Charlie did not sleep all Friday night. Positive feedback, turning off the iPad, gentle urging to 'sleep and then we can walk' all were fruitless. He had slept a lot the previous two nights and we are having a spell of wet air, grey sky, rain, warmish temperatures and sogginess that is perfect for irking Charlie in inexpressible ways. He had more than the usual amount of fiercely repetitive speech, sometimes shouting about Rocco Portia, Gong Gong Po Po, Julie, fries, McDonald's, burritos, grandma grandpa ladder to the attic. He moved a stool and tray table into the bathroom, unearthed a beat-up copy of The Littlest Angel and listened to me read a few words, ran back and forth, turned on the shower. At 3.45 am I turned the iPad back on as keeping it off seemed to be causing only more distress. Charlie had a snack and kept going up and down the stairs and lying on his bed and getting up and sitting in the chair and getting up and wanting socks and shoes and we told him, sleep first then a walk. He fell asleep in the brown chair around 8am and dragged himself up to his bedroom after 90 minutes of sleeping so bent over his head was parallel with his lap.

Some kind of manicness is really running through him. One of the medications he takes addresses this but have to wonder if he might need an increase of something ? We're wary of adding more meds and not a sleep one as that could give him a fuzzy head that has sometimes been a predecessor for behavior storms.

Yes, Charlie is a 'complex' child!

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Comments

[Linda]

High-up, different perspective. Shiting seasons is hard.
Does Charlie Skype with his grandparents?

[farmwifetwo]

But is that drug "rebounding"? Now creating the problems you are having. The child psych mentioned this when we pulled the risperdal and now with the meds we are on (after 4yr hiatus). It may be the problem.

[Kristina Chew]

@Linda, We have yet to try Skype as Charlie has always been troubled speaking to people on the phone. Something about only hearing voices coming out of a device! I've been thinking of maybe trying a little Skype with Jim as a trial run.

@farmwifetwo, some other parents have mentioned about 'rebounding.' we had that effect with risperdal, which was why Charlie stored taking it quite a few years ago. He has been on his current combination of medications for some years: the manic ness manifests itself to this degree only sporadically, and I can think of some instances of it from when Charlie was far younger (under 5). Also, there are quite a few psychiatric conditions in the family, in my father in law and also mother in law, plus all the OCD Charlie has from me, attention and dysregulation from Jim.