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November 20, 2005

Spinning

Last night was definitely a "so good, so bad" type adventure as the rest of the past week has been.

Spliggle continued to vomit. He walked around the kitchen spewing his dinner (thank goodness it wasn't on the carpet!) He went to bed early, and I cleaned the floor.

I then sat down to watch "Bewitched," but the DVD was having some trouble. Nonetheless, I fast-forwarded through the scratchy parts and was glad that the Cat wanted to snuggle a bit. At one point, the Cat jumped over the sofa and went to his play area. I heard strong urination. I was horrified to realize the Cat was crouched under his train table, peeing away.

The next half hour or so is a blur of shock, carpet-cleaning, taking the Cat's toys away, attempting to get a straight answer as to why this was a good idea, and anger. Husband and I were outraged and at a loss as to what to do. We sent the Cat to bed after attempting to discover his reasoning. He immediately fell asleep.

It is this sort of thing that leaves me completely confused. Why make the effort to get into the play area and go under the table? Why not just walk to the bathroom?

The pee stains that I have discovered on the carpet upstairs I had attributed to middle of the night confusion. While the toilet was broken, I knew the Cat had been peeing on the floor to avoid that toilet, but I thought we had discussed it with him and that he was using the Master toilet. But I had found some new pools recently, but wasn't sure what to make of it. But this under-the-table situation was a completely cognizant act.

I have not heard of other kids doing this, aside from in my developmental psychopathology course in college when we discussed severely disturbed kids who had failures for parents. I suspect that mentioning it to any behavioral psychologist that we may end up seeing will elicit the big-sigh-knowing-nod look that I have seen so often before being told, “Yeah, he needs lots of help.” (But I won’t tell you how to obtain the help.)

In the aforementioned course, the “reason” for the “acting out” was nearly always because the parents were distant, didn’t discipline the child appropriately and so forth. Either that or it was a kid who ended up being institutionalized. I may be in denial, but I don’t see that in the Cat. I don’t think he is peeing on the floor to punish me. But maybe I am wrong. He doesn’t try to strangle the cat, nor does he empty the refrigerator of all its contents. His difficult days involve throwing or spilling his own toys, and refusing to participate in preschool activities. The peeing is the only defiant behavior that is truly over the top.

Once the Cat was away and Husband had done several passes on the carpet cleaner, I went back to "Bewitched" to discover the rest of the DVD was broken. I put in "Revenge of the Sith." Husband and I attempted to enjoy ourselves, but of course I was distracted.

I fell asleep midway through the movie, but kept awakening in an attempt to keep watching because I was so eager to see it. I was fully awake for the last portions, but immediately fell asleep after it was over.

This morning, Spliggle continues to vomit. The Cat is attempting to be a good boy to earn his trains back, though he is pretty upset that his toys are gone. In a few minutes, I will go outside in the backyard so that the Cat can run around. Tonight I have hockey. I hope to get some aggression out.

I am truly spinning. I absolutely don’t know what to do about the Cat because his actions are so divided. He can be relatively “normal” for days, and then do something like last night to shock and confound me. This entire week he has been wild and “off,” and I don’t know the cause(s). If he were always a disaster, I would feel better about attempting something like medication or a series of therapies, but because he has shown normalcy, I am confused because clearly he is capable of behaving appropriately.

The “professionals” don’t believe me when I explain this. They figure that if he is “off,” he is always “off.” This also lends credibility to the assumption that the problem is me, not him. If he is capable of behaving appropriately, then it must be parental interference (enabling) that causes the wild periods. Well, I don’t think it is so black and white. I will be happy to consider suggestions for various techniques, but I don’t appreciate the blame and condescension.

Posted by karianna at November 20, 2005 09:59 AM

Comments

Posted by: FlippyO at November 20, 2005 11:28 PM

Posted by: marie at December 1, 2005 03:18 PM