Aspie Mood Swings- Hormones or Symptoms?

   I have had a special request to talk about mood swings and Aspergers. Depending on the age of your child it can get very difficult to decide whether the mood swings are related to early pubescent hormone changes, bipolar disorder, or whether they are actually related to the Asperger's itself.

   The dear friend who has asked me, has a nine year old daughter and so early puberty is a bit unlikely. But the mood swings are definitely apparent. The other day when her mother asked her to do something she got a full "hhrumph" and a some real attitude and eye rolling which was a new occurance. She has told me one of the things she has always noticed about her daughter is that she seems " not to care" about much of anything.
She does have some special interests, but when asked by her siblings what she thinks about something she often replies "I don't care".

   Mood swings in Aspie kids are quite common and when negative are often related to changes in routine, sensory issues or some sort of disruption. It can sometimes feel like they are a bit bipolar. They can swing from giggly and cuddly, laughing at all sorts of things that are inappropriate, into a total funk, almost a depression. True bipolarism is exceedingly rare in children and cannot be controlled by a change in topic. A way to test this is when your child is behaving in a depressed manner, try talking to them about their special interest. Someone with Asperger's can be turned very quickly from depression to "giddy" simply by engaging them in this manner. You cannot do this with someone bipolar.

    Some people with Asperger's do end up taking medications or mood stabilizers to help with this, but it seems to me as a parent watching my own son, that a lot of it can be managed with careful attention to schedules, trying to give enough warning of change, and the occasional simple changes of topic. Glorified distraction techniques! Hey! Look over there! I think I see some Lego!

    An increase in mood swings would be an indication that your child is experiencing stress or overstimulation in some area of life, often at school. They are very sensitive to energy and expectation and if in a conflict situation with a teacher or authority figure they can get very upset and start acting very unpredictably, and in fact their normal Asperger symptoms can become way out of proportion to what you normally see.

    They can often be quite exasperated with the rest of us, whom they perceive as quite non-logical! Being highly logical and rational and often very literal means that when dealing with neurotypicals, they are a bit like Mr. Spock, except not so emotionally controlled.  They watch our behaviour with an air of detachment except when it confounds what they want to do! Then it becomes an exercise in frustration and they have trouble disguising their feelings.

    My son is twelve and we are now starting to experience more mood swings that seem related to puberty. The main factor again is the unpredictability of neurotypicals. We make no sense. More so as adolescents. They are all trying out what kind of people they want to be and what behaviours they want to exhibit. None of it makes a lot of sense so imagine watching that from the perspective of someone who finds human behaviour confusing at the best of time. Adults are at least fairly predictable. Kids are not. I do expect that this causes him a lot more stress and the fall out of that is a lot more confusion and frustration.

In love and light,
Kathryn

The Divine Goddess Journey

Well, this is a bit off the track of autism, but it is my journey and a very worthy blog topic so here goes anyway!

  So in the middle of some fairly major life changes for me, the opportunity came up to take a workshop on Divine Goddess Energy and the exploration of the Feminine Divine. Tonight was the first night. I know some of you are already laughing and picturing hand mirrors but that is not what this was about. The facilitator started the evening with the discussion about yin and yang energy. Both reside in all of us whether we are male or female. Yin energy is female energy and yang energy is male. To be balanced is the ideal, as the black and white symbol we are all familiar with shows, the circle must be half and half. The world today is somewhat out of balance in our yin energy. To encourage expression of that in all of us would go a great distance towards healing where we are in the global sense.

   We did some guided meditation about our own beliefs around sexuality and sensuality and we did some creative movement and dance. It was interesting to observe where I got stuck, which parts were easy and the emotions that came up around them. There were a lot of insights that were really helpful about my beliefs about myself. Which things are truly me and which things have been imposed upon me but do not belong to me.

  At the end she gave us a small gift. A silken pouch full of special things. We were to pick one without looking and trust that what was in it was meant for us. I chose the orange one, not because I like orange but because the divine feminine for me is all about the second chakra which is orange. I opened the bag and inside was a goddess necklace for the goddess of water.

   Water is a huge symbol, a recurring symbol in my life. We have had four major house floods, and I am very connected to the image of life as a river, and the flow, not going against the current. The card speaks about the water goddess being constantly in motion ( sound like anyone you know) and being full of depths, darkness and currents only she knows. She mirrors every woman. Her body is home to millions of beings and she in part lives through them.  Although she is whole herself, she absorbs light and air within her fluidity and thus nourishes all things. It is beautiful.

  The scent included was to nourish the green or heart chakra, an area in which I am truly in need of healing right now. The message was perfect. It said Compassion, Self love and Emotional stability. Clears up any chest congestion ( how did it know I have bronchitis) connects you to compassion and self love, opens you up to give and receive. Those of you who know me. know that receive has been an area of challenge for me for a long time.
 
    Interestingly enough in terms of sexuality, the divine feminine is the archetype for receive. We are the chalice, the container of all life, the receiver. So perhaps as always, I have found myself once again in exactly the right place. Thank you to the universe for arranging it all so nicely. Our homework ( and yours should you choose to follow) is to spend seven days exploring all of the senses, smell, sight taste, touch and sound. Reawaken our ability to feel and sense the world around us. Reawaken to the beauty and the sensuality of every moment.

   This workshop is four Wednesdays so tune in if you are interested and I will do some off topic blogs to celebrate the process.

In love and light,
Kathryn

The Invisible Disability

If you are missing an arm or a leg, people can tell there is a problem. If you have a crutch or a cane, accomodations are made. What about if you have a disability no one can see?

  I was speaking to a collegue, who was asking about my kids and how they were doing. He said he could so sympathise as he had just dealt with a family whose son was considered very autistic, and had a discussion about the issues that they face with this little guy. The most difficult thing was the attitudes and comments from complete strangers. They had been travelling by air, and their son went into a complete meltdown as our kids are sometimes known to do. As any of you with an autistic child know, there is no reasoning with them.  The best we hope for is that they exhaust themselves and run out of steam. Sometimes the more you interfere the worse it gets.

   People were telling them to get control of their child, making rude and cruel comments and they basically wanted to fall through the floor. Their stress level was at about a 10 anyway and the jeering comments fell upon them like hammers. An already difficult situation now a humiliating one.

   I have many experiences over the years that were very similar. My added complication was kids that were 98 percentile for size. People expected them to act years older than there were chronologically and add the autism on top of that, you've got a recipe for disaster. It got me thinking this morning, about how we perhaps could preempt some of these issues by educating those around us in a quiet gentle way before we run into issues. A little understanding goes a long way and brings an invisible disability into the light. When people are aware, my experience has been that they cannot be helpful enough. Can you imagine yelling at someone who fell with a cane? Get control of your legs?

   Over the years I am developing thicker skin and a better sense of humour. And I am less afraid to tell people where we are at. And I am happy to say we have not had an incident like the one I heard about this morning in a very long time. But if my spider sense is tingling I do not hesitate to prep those around me about what may happen. I have yet to find anyone who was snarky to us once they understood the issues.

  May we someday get to a place where we all learn to be more helpful than critical of each other.
In love and light,
Kathryn

Contracts of Forgiveness

   Someone once told me that Autistic children actually choose their incarnation. The indigo children, the rainbow keepers. It feels true to me in my heart as in fact I believe we all choose our incarnations.

   A few years ago I came across a book called " The Little Soul and the Sun". It is a children's book, but as is often true there was far deeper meaning buried in the text. The long and the short of it is, that we are all little souls, perfect in the eyes of the creator. One little soul starts to ask questions about itself. It decides that it would like to be light. The creator says " but you are light, we all are". That puzzles the little soul. How to experience itself as light if we all are? Well says the creator, perhaps I could create darkness, and within that context you would then experience yourself as light.

   As the story progresses the little soul begins to understand that before we come to earth we all ask the creator to learn some specific lessons during our incarnation here. In order for that to happen, other little souls have to agree to interact with us down here, sometimes in a positive way and sometimes in a negative way.

   The little soul asks to learn forgiveness, but realizes that to do so, someone must do something that needs to be forgiven. Another little soul steps forward and says " I love you. I would do this for you. Only in the moment I smite you, I will have to make myself so heavy and so dark that for a moment I will forget who I am. You must remember I am also a little soul, for if you forget, we will both become terribly lost possibly forever."

  The little soul is overcome. " You would do this for me? "
  " Of course, you have done it for me many times, for such is the dance of life."

   We live our lives here in the context of many relationships, many joys and hurts. Think of how differently we could live if we only remembered that the people we are in conflict with, although they remember it not at the time, or perhaps at all in this life, have generously agreed to enter into contracts with us so that we may learn what we have asked to learn.  Doesn't that change how you look at the person you are having difficulty with? May it fill you with gratitude instead of anger for the gift and the learning.

   In love and light,
Kathryn

Round Two of Testing

   Well we are now four months into the supplements and B12 shots, and seven months into the diet. The B12 shots are given just under the skin every three days. These were not popular to start but the boys are finding them much better now. Ice cubes to numb the skin really help! We have just completed round two of all the testing, urine collection ( standard, as well as pre and post medication ), stool samples, saliva samples, blood tests that would make any normal kid cringe. We are hoping that some of their levels will have returned to normal now that we have reduced the inflammation going on in their digestive systems as a result of the diet.

   That would mean a reduction in the number of supplements they have to take every day and I have to tell you we are all praying for that. It is late, and it has become once a week routine to count out all of their pills into a daily labelled container for morning and night. It is challenging to fit all of this stuff in around the normal routine of getting everyone ready in the morning as you can all imagine. We are not perfect every day, but we do our best.

   My youngest is truly hoping that this round of testing will have eliminated the yeast from his gut, as well as the bacterial infection and the parasite. This stops him from being able to have anything with sugar in it. Simple things like agave syrup on pancakes. He is allergic to cane sugar, but someone recently told me that Alberta sugar is actually beet sugar! So I need to check up on that as it would make a big difference to baking. He is very thin and so we try everything we can to add a bit of weight to him ( tricky with no carbohydrates! ) I am fairly sure we have accomplished our goal as he has recently gained about 13 pounds which Dr. Hoffman said would happen once his gut was clean. His feeling was that he was not absorbing much of anything before.

  My oldest is suffering through his pills every day as he has a very strong gag reflex. My cousin suggested straws would help and so we are going to try that. I have a feeling that in the end it is the diet that is the big savior for him. What I hope is that his other levels have returned and we can dramatically cut down his supplements. His brother tosses them down without water which drives him crazy. For him every pill is torture!

   One of the things I have had good success with in terms of adding a bit of weight on both of them is a product from Planet organic which is a smoothie mix with vanilla and almond powder. We mix it with an egg, a banana and frozen berries and it is a great source of protein and it tastes amazing.

   Well wish us luck, I will fill you in on the results as soon as we get them back.

Good night!
Kathryn

The Difference Between Lonely and Alone

This is a topic I could really write an essay on. From all perspectives.

    And the two are very different. From an autism perspective, lonely and alone are dramatically different depending on the amount of social awareness present. How able our kids are to take someone else's perspective. Although my youngest has Asperger's, he is developing more and more social awareness as the years and lessons role by. He still has trouble reading social cues, but he is very aware when he "doesn't get it right". It is the worst really, like the early stages of Alzheimer's where you know you are forgetting things but can't quite figure out why. The fear stage. (My grandmother died of Alzheimer's and being very social myself, I always joke that I don't think it would be such a bad way to go for me. Just think, new people, new places every day!!! ) Sounds like the perfect Kathryn adventure actually! 

  He has experienced both in very acute ways. I guess we all have. I know in my own life, and those of you who know me will attest, that I have spent most of my life in a mad rush to fill the space. To never be alone.
I don't really know why. Up to a few years ago I would have told you I hated being alone. I love people. I am happiest in a big crowd, laughing and talking up a storm. It is only recently that I have wondered why I never wanted to be alone with myself. Because that's what it is really about, all that avoidance. Busy making.
It is about ways to avoid being alone with yourself. What was it I didn't want to see? Didn't want to hear?

   It has been the lesson of my life, that it is worse to be lonely in relationships than to be alone. Somehow, alone you expect to be lonely.  With others, you don't. The way will show the way, and thus the path I have been on is perfect and necessary. Beautiful and complete. The meditation has helped me to sit with myself. Be in my own space. To learn to enjoy the simplicity of my own company. The love I have that fills my heart for everyone else, I am now learning to share with myself too. I am so grateful for all of the lessons, easy and hard. It is now time for me to get to really know myself. Really listen to the angel that dwells inside me and just leave the space open for now.

   We spent last night welcoming our new addition, the boys exstatic and puppy drunk. Both boys texting and skyping to share their happiness and photos with friends. My youngest slid over beside me while his brother had the puppy and said " Can we do that sitting thing again, alone, just you and me with that little burning thing that smells good? I feel like I just need some time to be alone."
  
   Absolutely we can. Together, we can be alone. And in the amazing space of allow, neither one of us will be lonely. We will discover the difference between lonely and alone.

In love and light,
Kathryn

Some Things Are Bliss......

   We welcomed a new addition to our family today. He is a chubby little saint bernard puppy named Lakota, or Cody for short. We have had three before, our first died unexpectedly of bloat ( flipped stomach) and our last two were a father daughter pair that we put down in November. When we lost them our family was pretty devasted. Some things just get into your soul. Saint Bernards certainly aren't everyone's cup of tea due to the large amount of saliva and hair, but for me they are joy itself.  The absolute definition of unconditional love.

   There was a TV show when I was a kid about a Saint Bernard named George. I watched it every week and a life long love affair began. I had a dental assistant a few years ago whose family bred them and when she told me they had puppies I knew in a heart beat my chance had come.

   I had a really soul mate connection with our first Saint. Her name was Panda. When we lost her, I felt like one of my kids had passed away. I was ripped in two. I dreamed of her two nights ago. She told me about the puppy.  She said she would put the right one in my hands, and she told me the name. When I woke up, I looked it up. The full name is native and means " friend or ally" , the short version, Cody is Irish and means "helper". Some how, both were perfect.

   I firmly believe dogs choose their owners even without dreams! So I try to be a bit aloof when I am looking. This little pup sat down on my foot when I entered the enclosure. I moved along trying to get a look at all 10 puppies, he sat on my foot again. I started asking which were males and females. The daughter of the owner looked at him and then at me and said " I think that one is yours! " I asked if it was a female, she lifted him up and said "Nope! " A male then. I really thought I wanted a girl. She said " He's number 4. Wait, it says here he's a girl! That's not right!"  I laughed, actually that was totally right. Number four, the boy who was written down as a girl. That would explain the mix up in terms of why I thought I was getting a girl!

   I packed him up and he slept in my arms most of the evening. Watching him sleep was like watching a new baby. They are the picture of peace. The boys were due home tonight. Because it was a pretty quick decision, the boys didn't know and watching their faces when they saw him at the door was priceless. It was love at first sight for all three of them.

   It is late and I finally have all three of them tucked in to sleep. All exhausted but happy. Some things in life are purely about joy, Like little boys and puppy dogs. Made in heaven. Thanks for the direction Panda, he's perfect.

In love and light,
Kathryn