Spilled Milk

Yesterday was just so much fun...I'm beside myself.  We started off with a major meltdown over MILK! It wasn't exactly spilled.  In fact, it wasn't even poured...just touched and not even really the milk, just the carton.  Little Boy Blue went out to Walgreens a few days ago to buy his very own milk because he was sick and tired of his older brother "wasting too much milk, and eating too much cereal!" Does Blue usually buy this milk and cereal? No.  Is it any of his business how much his brother eats? Absolutely not.  Does that matter? No.

'14' wanders down the stairs and stumbles towards the refrigerator.  He absentmindedly reaches into the refrigerator and picks up the first carton of milk he sees.  Blue went ballistic! "YOU TOUCHED MY MILK! YOU bleep di bleep, di bleep!" Not actual curse words but very unattractive, inappropriate words coming out of the mouth of an 11 year old with his 70 year old grandmother present.  I couldn't hear the specifics....I just heard yelling like someone was being maimed and killed. 

I dash down the stairs, snatch up Blue and make him march up the stairs. He's now in full meltdown stage.  Yelling and screaming things that don't make any sense.  He hates the entire world! He wants to get out of this house! "I want to go live in a foster home! I can't stand being in this family! Nobody loves me!" You name it.  There was nothing that I could say to defuse the situation.  Everything I said was misinterpreted. Therefore, I opt to say nothing.  He screams, "Why aren't you doing anything to help me? What kind of mother are you?!" Wow! Un-freakin-believable! He is visibly trembling, his fist are balled up, his breaths are shallow, the tears are flowing.  I urge him to take deep breaths.  He is not to be able to do it.  I coax him into lying on the bed and allow me to rub his back so that he can relax and take deep breaths.  Finally, he does.  He is actually calm for a few moments.

I leave him lying on the bed...still seething, but a little more relaxed.  Somehow he starts talking and the next thing I know he's crying again, inconsolably. I see the pain.  I feel it running through my veins as it runs through his.  I ache with him and for him.  I hug him tightly and apply deep pressure to his body.  Finally he calms.  I put on a movie to take his mind off of his worries and go down to fix him a bite to eat.  He had not eaten anything at all that day.  I knew that was part of the problem.

During his meltdown -he told me that I don't love him.  I know that during these moments he says things that he doesn't mean.  It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.  I obviously love him.  I spend my entire life taking care of him.  But in that moment, he is blind.  I tell him, if I didn't love him, I wouldn't try to understand him.  When he goes off like that, the ordinary parent who has no training or is in denial of their child's diagnosis, would try to spank him in to compliance.  The mere threat of a spanking scares the crap out of him!  In desperation at times I use that threat.  In fact, I used it yesterday when he tried to leave the room while melting down.  He immediately returned -not happy, but he didn't leave the room.

After he came back to reality, we talked and we came to the realization that he is feeling left out by his brother.  That is why he has been lashing out.  He wants some of his cousins time, without interference by his brother.  He also admitted that he needed some fresh air and some sunshine.  Once he got these two things, he was good to go...at least for the day.

And all of this was before noon...