Day 61: Tooth and Claw

Sometimes I feel like I am waging a battle for the soul of my son.

Elliot

It comes, I suppose, of reading too many fantasy novels as a child.  Books that took a fancy to the idea that evils are brought on by demons and curses, and that humanity--without such besetting influences--is ultimately good.  Madeleine L'Engle in particular made a big impression.  She taught me that the fight for goodness can take place on many levels, and that sometimes a simple human emotion like love is what stands between us and an all consuming evil. 

I guess that idea really took root, so that some days--days like today for instance--I feel like I'm fighting a never-ending battle to bring my son out of darkness.  In real life I'm dealing with an epic breakdown, but on some other plane of reality I'm standing on a metaphysical bridge, wiping blood from my eyes, using my bare hands to rip through a wave of dark imps that are determined to cross the bridge and hurl Elliot into the void that stretches beneath our feet. 

Yes.  I'm saying I'm Gandalf.

If you're getting the impression that today was rough, you would be right.  If you're just now learning I can be a bit melodramatic, well, then, congratulations on making it to the next level of character knowledge.  Only three more and then you get to do the ritual to summon a familiar.

Sorry, I'm a little punchy, and the D&D metaphor wouldn't stop.

******

Today was Elliot's first day on meds.  I was sort of curious to see if it would really make that big a difference.

It did.

For one thing, he talked from about 11 am to... well, he's still talking.  It's 10:17.  He should be asleep.  Instead he's awake reading, because he can't settle down, and can't shut off his brain, and I can't watch him lie there, hyperventilating because he's trying so hard to go to sleep, and he just can't. 

 Just like this, only later at night and in 95 degree weather.

For another, apparently his empathy has gone into overdrive.  He was always empathetic, if you could get him to notice how other people were feeling in the first place, but that condition was rarely met.  Now he is noticing, and, apparently, feeling incredibly guilty about it.  Earlier Charlotte stuck her hand in the way when I was opening a sliding glass door, and she got pinched.  She was fine, all was well, and Elliot spent about five minutes apologizing for not noticing that she was going to get hurt and warning us, even after I told him it was in no way his fault.  Later, after he and Charlotte yelled at each other about something, he apologized in case the yelling had hurt my ears.

He does not, however, seem to notice that people do not want to hear the four and a half hour monologue on his favorite YouTubers that he's been working on.
 

 All of that is odd (it's like his personality has been turned up to eleven) but that's not why I'm currently baring my teeth and screaming at the abyss to bring it--

For what it's worth, this is just a front.  You have to talk tough with the abyss.  But the truth is I am only one woman and I am tired and it would be okay with me if the abyss would take a little vacation and leave Elliot alone for a while.  But I digress--

One of the many aspects of Elliot's personality is his tendency to occasionally completely lose his shit.  I know of no other way to describe it.  He isn't violent, but he's basically everything else.  There is screaming, thrashing, stomping, throwing, threatening, and a general all around level of OHMYGODWHEREDIDTHISCOMEFROM? that's hard to imagine from him when he's not in the middle of completely losing it.  My little, rational dude turns into a ball of rage and self-destruction, hell bent on getting his way or taking the whole ship down with him.

Remember how I said it was like his personality got turned up to eleven?

Yeah.  I meant this, too.

This afternoon we descended into madness.  We've been there before.  It's familiar territory.  Each time I grab my son and haul him back towards sanity, while he kicks and screams and fights to stay in the crazy.  Once I get him in sight of the border he starts to see that I'm helping him, and then he sobs and asks what he can do to help, but its a long way to the border sometimes.  A long, long way.  And those damn imps are everywhere.

Many of them are there for Elliot, but some of them are there for me.  They bring me doubt, so that I question my own judgement about how best to help my kid.  They bring me fear, the fear that I will never be able to teach him how to handle these emotions that threaten to overwhelm him.   They bring guilt, that I am doing something wrong, maybe catastrophically so.  Worst of all, they bring my own anger and frustration.  Those are the hardest to ignore, because they're the strongest.  I am not a temperate person.  But the same willful nature that makes it hard to check my anger also means that if my son needs me to be calm, then by god I will be calm.

 So I fight the imps--the ones that come for me and the ones that come for him--and Elliot fights me, and by the time we're safely back in sanity again I feel bruised, battered, on the verge of tears and in need of a drink.

So it sucks.

But, I suppose I haven't actually lost yet.  So, WTF.

Bring it.