Another small piece of the puzzle
Yesterday was a fairly busy day, and for various reasons I was gone quite a bit. I try to have R. engaged with an activity while I am gone to make things easier for the others who are staying at home. The good news is that if I give her an activity box that I know she enjoys that it will keep her occupied for the duration of me being gone. The bad news is that if I give her an activity box that she enjoys that it will keep her occupied for the duration of me being gone.
As I mentioned, I was in and out most of the day. Every time I blew through the house R. was still playing with the same activity box. I kept meaning to change the activity, but would get distracted and would need to head out again before I could actually act on that thought. This means that R. played with the same activity box for a good 8+ hours yesterday with one small break for lunch.
I rarely let her play with something for that long because there is literally no end point. I will always end up taking it away before she is done with it. I am 100% convinced that she uses the repetitive aspect of what she is doing to disassociate; her preferred state as nothing is required of her and no hard or uncomfortable thought can enter her head. When I do insist it is time to put the box away I am not the most popular person in the world. It is never pleasant to leave the nothingness of your own head and have to face life again. Given her state of disassociation over the course of the day, the evening went far better than I had reason to hope. It was actually completely non-eventful.
This morning, however, was a different story. R. was totally unsettled and cranky. I was trying to get out of the door to my driving lesson when I realized she was huddled on a stair step kicking one of the stair spindles in her unhappiness. When I tried to find out what was wrong, all she could say was the name of the activity box that she played with all day yesterday. I reluctantly realized that there was no way I could leaver her like this, texted my driving teacher saying I would be late, and began to think about what on earth was going on and what I could do about it in (ideally) ten minutes.
In a moment of clarity, it seemed as though it wasn't so much that she just was unhappy that I wouldn't give her the box, but that she literally couldn't think of anything else. It was as though all those hours of play yesterday created some pretty heavy duty neural connections that continued to fire regardless of anything else going on. I sat down next to her and we talked about how unpleasant it must be to only be able to think about one thing. (Okay, I talked and she [maybe] listened.) She did agree that the state she was currently in was a fairly unpleasant place to be. I then suggested that if she started to do something else that it might make it so her brain could think about other things, and would she like to come and choose a different box to play with. She then heaved herself at me for a hug, which doesn't happen very often. We went and chose a different activity, I set her up, and then was able to leave for my lesson.
As I have thought about this throughout the day, we have seen over and over in so many different scenarios that R. is just not able to switch from the thought she is having and move onto something else. This extreme perseveration makes it extremely difficult to parent her or feel as though you are making any progress. We all end up just feeling stuck much of the time. We have a psychiatrist appointment coming up this month. Since we have moved from being in crisis mode all of the time, it seems that we can now work on some other things with the doctor. I think this will be issue number one that I raise with her.
As I mentioned, I was in and out most of the day. Every time I blew through the house R. was still playing with the same activity box. I kept meaning to change the activity, but would get distracted and would need to head out again before I could actually act on that thought. This means that R. played with the same activity box for a good 8+ hours yesterday with one small break for lunch.
I rarely let her play with something for that long because there is literally no end point. I will always end up taking it away before she is done with it. I am 100% convinced that she uses the repetitive aspect of what she is doing to disassociate; her preferred state as nothing is required of her and no hard or uncomfortable thought can enter her head. When I do insist it is time to put the box away I am not the most popular person in the world. It is never pleasant to leave the nothingness of your own head and have to face life again. Given her state of disassociation over the course of the day, the evening went far better than I had reason to hope. It was actually completely non-eventful.
This morning, however, was a different story. R. was totally unsettled and cranky. I was trying to get out of the door to my driving lesson when I realized she was huddled on a stair step kicking one of the stair spindles in her unhappiness. When I tried to find out what was wrong, all she could say was the name of the activity box that she played with all day yesterday. I reluctantly realized that there was no way I could leaver her like this, texted my driving teacher saying I would be late, and began to think about what on earth was going on and what I could do about it in (ideally) ten minutes.
In a moment of clarity, it seemed as though it wasn't so much that she just was unhappy that I wouldn't give her the box, but that she literally couldn't think of anything else. It was as though all those hours of play yesterday created some pretty heavy duty neural connections that continued to fire regardless of anything else going on. I sat down next to her and we talked about how unpleasant it must be to only be able to think about one thing. (Okay, I talked and she [maybe] listened.) She did agree that the state she was currently in was a fairly unpleasant place to be. I then suggested that if she started to do something else that it might make it so her brain could think about other things, and would she like to come and choose a different box to play with. She then heaved herself at me for a hug, which doesn't happen very often. We went and chose a different activity, I set her up, and then was able to leave for my lesson.
As I have thought about this throughout the day, we have seen over and over in so many different scenarios that R. is just not able to switch from the thought she is having and move onto something else. This extreme perseveration makes it extremely difficult to parent her or feel as though you are making any progress. We all end up just feeling stuck much of the time. We have a psychiatrist appointment coming up this month. Since we have moved from being in crisis mode all of the time, it seems that we can now work on some other things with the doctor. I think this will be issue number one that I raise with her.
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