After another pre-bedtime psychological breakdown last night, we have decided to resort to a sleep aid: chloral hydrate. The plan is to use this short-term until we can re-establish bedtime. Give it to him before the breakdowns to make him sleepy so that he’ll sleep even before he has a chance to think about bedtime. Get him into a new pattern.

For the past five years, I’ve been gushing that we never have any sleep problems with E-Niner. He goes to bed at 7:30PM, wakes up at 7AM, and is an awesome sleeper. Rock solid. It was my one thing that I hung on — sure, the days are hard, but at least he’s a good sleeper!

Hopefully we can nip this in the bud (I see those words coming back to haunt me — EVERYBODY, knock on wood, right now!), and get him back in a regular sleeping pattern.

One woman I’ve been e-mailing with whose son has psychotic episodes said that they blow away the images he has in front of his face. It is like a ritual; whenever the images come, they just blow them away. It teaches the child that he’s in control. So we’ll try blowing the fish away this afternoon.

We’re also going to do an all-out fish exorcism tonight. We’re going to round up all the fish in our nets and flush them all down the “poop tunnel.”

E-Niner said he’s been seeing clown fish, star fish, angler fish, and then he named some other species of fish that I’d never heard of and then some sort of crustacean. Of course the child doesn’t just see regular old fish, of course he sees many different varieties and can name them all. I should ask him what kind of whale it was…

Man, when are these things going to stop?

I was trying to feed E-Niner dinner tonight as he screamed out in sheer horror that we had to eat dinner and not watch TV, which he had been doing for the past four hours.

And when the blowout/meltdown/breakdown started, there I sat. Exhausted. Wanting professional help for him in our home. Uninterested in having to physically work so hard again tonight. These psychological breakdowns are relentless.

In round 738 of tonight’s escapade, both Joe and I were trying to hold E-Niner down, and Joe scraped nearly his entire hand on my wedding ring. Oh my god. I could feel his skin getting sliced open by the diamond, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Everything was happening so fast. All we wanted to do was keep E-Niner’s head from slamming on the floor since he was so out of control.

I am going to need to take a picture of the injury for our documentation for the grant we’re putting together. Our family is starting to get these skin abrasions from handling E-Niner during his breakdowns. I don’t want this to ever become normal.

Lots of parents with special needs kids talk about “their normal.” I’ve never hung onto that phrase as a mantra. What happens in my household isn’t normal and can’t be tolerated. No one should be abused, accidentally or on purpose. There is no excuse for abuse, as my buddy James Lehman likes to say.

When my ring sliced through Joe’s hand tonight in slow enough motion to feel that there was some sort of symbolism there but so fast that I could do nothing to stop it from happening, I decided that putting my engagement ring in a safe place would be the best temporary solution. I can’t predict when E-Niner will have a breakdown, and I wouldn’t want him to be on the receiving end of a cut that long and deep.

There is a certain sadness about removing my engagement ring. “You don’t have to take it off for good,” Joe said. “You could just take it off when things start heating up.”

“Which is exactly when I’ll lose it.” I retorted. “I can’t risk losing the ring, but I also can’t risk hurting anyone else with it.”

Joe doesn’t want me to take it off, and I don’t want to have to leave it off; it is another concession we need to make for our lifestyle. Since the day that ring has come back from being sized after we were engaged, it has not left my finger for more than a moment.

This is not normal! My ring goes begrudgingly. I do not accept.

You can always catch new episodes of ER right here at ends with 8741!

In today’s episode, E-Niner wakes up out of sorts because I am no longer sleeping next to him in bed, and he proceeds to meltdown from 6:30AM all the way until he gets into his classroom at school at 8:30.

He has a wonderful day, but when I pick him up, he starts raging again. Fifteen minutes into the trip, he proceeds to have a huge meltdown.

When we get home, he’s in full-on anger mode. I’m able to give him Seroquel (sedative), Depakote (mood stabilizer), and Clonidine (sedative to be used in crisis).

After 45 minutes, nothing happens. We go to the ER, where three grown security guards have to carry him in. They actually called for back-up. Back-up! In a way, it was kind of comical that all these huge guys with guns on their hips (city hospital) need to call for back-up for my five year old son. But you’re getting the picture of how big and strong my boy is.

In fact, we had security stationed outside our room the entire visit. They weren’t taking any chances with him.

It was the first time I had watched medical professionals try to put him in restraints. I think I may need some more time to process that. Luckily, the nurse had her wits about her and was like, “Guys. He’s five. Let’s lose the restraints.”

After raging for another hour at the ER, finally, the meds kicked in. He settled down and was then just crabby the rest of the time — growling at the nurse staff when they came and went.

They wanted to admit him to their psych ward on the spot, no questions asked. Thankfully they didn’t have a male bed available. I asked them what the objective of the admission would be. They said to keep him and our household safe. I said that we can keep him safe. I brought him in because he couldn’t calm down — not because of safety.

I really just didn’t want to put lag into his schooling. I know he’s reacting to going to school and that whole transition. If he were admitted, I reasoned, I’d be back here again for this same song and dance once school started again.

So. School’s going great! Home life, not so hot.

I’ve said it once before today, and I’ll say it again: Thank Goodness It’s Friday!