What is normal?

I haven't been blogging much lately because all I have to say is sort of depressing and un-fun. Depressing and un-fun is okay now and then in bogger-world, but really, nobody wants to read that all the time. I wouldn't want to read it all the time.

So you have been duly warned.

Yesterday, I went to the grocery store with my littlest. This is always a challenge, so much so that I have totally forgotten what it's like to buy groceries like normal people do. I know as I go from isle to isle people think, "That is a seriously bratty kid, why doesn't her mother put a stop to the behavior." Several years ago that is what I would have thought if I had seen someone like me walking through the store. But I have learned that what you see is not always the whole story.

First, you must know, grocery stores are almost intolerable for youngest. There are unusual and unpredictable sounds. There are too many people. There are weird florescent lights and transitions at every turn of the isle. It is overwhelming on every level and Abby becomes dis-regulated quickly. Dis-regulated is therapeutic parenting speak for when a kid cannot manage what's happening on the inside (i.e.anxiety or nuero-chemical wackiness) or outside (environment) appropriately. Disregulated kids shut-down, or rage, or act really bizarrely.

Now all of us are constantly "regulating" our responses to internal and external stimuli. For instance, loud parties stress me out and make me feel anxious, so I prepare mentally before I go. I find corners to hide away in when the noise becomes too much. I "regulate" my response.

The trouble for kids of trauma, SPD, or brain damage is that they are working with severe disadvantages. Their cortisol, nor-epinephrine, dopamine, and seretonin levels can be totally wacky. From a chemical standpoint they are unable to regualate. Add in a little post-traumatic stress, or dysmaturity and you have a DISASTER in the making. And were not even addressing the sensory regulation that should be happening in the brain stem (but isn't) or the frontal cortex that misfires and causes poor impulse control. Bottom line: what you see as the behavior of a bratty or weird kid, but there is so much going on behind behavior that makes it impossible for kids to meet the expectations of society.

So when you see my kid screaming and hitting at the grocery store please know that both my daughter and I are working extremely hard to keep it together. We've worked hours to even be at a place to make it through. Before we even get to the store we have done "heavy work" or spent time in the therapy swing. We've done joint compression to change brain chemistry.

My daughter will probably go through an entire pack of gum because the chewing motion changes brain chemistry too. She might be wearing tight leggings and no shoes. I do not need your two cents about how to keep my child warm. Her lack of footwear is intentional. It helps her regulate. She might have a potty accident or two, or she might be four years old and wearing a diaper because she literally cannot manage "potty" stuff with everything else going around her Abby might be belligerent, run away, or scream and yell. Please know that we do not allow the behavior, but spanking is entirely ineffective. It might look I am using distraction or bribery; I am. Because when my daughter is overwhelmed typical consequences cause her freak out even more. It would be like trapping a wounded animal in a corner... a stupid thing to try.

You take going to the grocery store for granted, but for us it is a major feat. It takes 2 hours, and one melt-down screaming tizzy fit is progress for us. We've worked hard for that. We will both come home exhausted. We will talk it through, and roll play appropriate responses. And next time it may, or it may not, go any better.