What they don't see is when something takes a second longer than it should, the little thing that sets him off. The dvd jamming and skipping because it has been smudged with finger prints, the cat coming too close, or just an overload of too much in one day.
Thursday afternoon Montana and him were watching Bob the Builder for the 100th time this week. The DVD froze and from the living room I hear the LOUDEST bang against the wall... 5 seconds later the most blood curling scream came from Dacotah's room. He was a ball of tears in the moment it took me to run in there. When I asked what happened he just screamed that much louder, finally his sister said "He got mad because the tv froze and I couldn't fix it fast enough so he SLAMMED his head backwards into the wall". There are not enough words to explain how hard he had hit the wall had a stud not been where the impact was, there would be a hole there.
Yesterday morning he was outside barefoot in our driveway and somehow managed to cut the end of his big toe, the blood caused a major freakout, where he started "crying my toe bleeding, ow, ow, ow, over and over." This was not a over and done with a smile, bandaid and kiss. This went over for over 15 minutes.
Soooo while yes, socially he is doing amazing at school and going out to the grocery store (despite trying to run off every 5 seconds, or play hide and seek), his self-harming behavior have increased significantly at home and in the vehicle.
Now here is where the next step in his therapy takes place. We have started the process to switch him over from BTS (Behavior Treatment Services) to TDT (Therapeutic Day Therapy) which he will have daily at the school. We are also looking to set him up for Intensive In-Home Therapy to help with the self harming and throwing things, so that we all stay safe. While he is only 4.5 he is strong, when the meltdowns hit he becomes even stronger. It is our hope that we can find ways to help him cope with not hitting himself when he gets upset. We got rid of the biting, but the hitting took it's place.
Once the therapies are in place we'll update with how they are going. Sleep is another issue for the past month he yells out in his sleep (he has conversations in his sleep that we had during the day.) and he wakes up from 1-330am every nihgt. They can't up his prescription medicine because his blood pressure runs low (takes that after his mom) so we are back up to 5mg of Melatonin in addition to the Clonodine, but for the past 2 nights, he's slept through.
