The two youngest never feel asleep

It was a fun night and by fun I mean awful. Neither Elliott or Emmett ever fell asleep last night. Emmett was in a really weird place and I'm not sure what's going on with him. All of a sudden, he's terrifed of the closet in his room but can't explain why. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be anything we can do to comfort him. He's asked us to remove the closet door and hang drywall over the opening so it's just a wall when we're done. That's simply not an option. Even if we played along and made the closet disappear behind a wall, he'd still know it was there. He's just in a weird place right now and I'm hoping we can help him work through this. As…

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Unfortunately, I might miss most of #Christmas

Our plans have had to be adjusted for this weekend because I'm not doing so well. As of now, I will be staying behind while the boys and Lizze head to the family Christmas party. The boys will be heading to Lizze's parents to spend the day and when it's time for the party, they will pick Lizze up on the way. I feel terrible not going but honestly, I feel even more terrible simply existing at the moment. My hope is that I'll feel well enough to spend Christmas Eve with my in-laws and if I'm really lucky, I'll be okay to see my side of the family on Christmas day. If nothing else, perhaps we can have a quiet, at home Christmas this year.

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This is like a medication induced roller-coaster

I've been trying to rest for a few hours and I'm feeling a little better, thank God. This experience is interesting in the sense that these side effects seem to come and go. It's like a roller-coaster of headaches and nausea.. There isn't really a rhyme or reason, as far as I can tell. It's been a rough day and I'm thankful it wasn't any worse than it was. My back is finally healing up and the hole is almost gone. I left the dressing off for a little while today in order to expose it to the air. Lizze suggested that I remove the bandage at bedtime and until the hole is gone, put a fresh bandage on in the morning. I happen to think that's a pretty solid…

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Who knew it would be this hard?

I'm officially feeling like shit. Coming off of Paxil is a fucking nightmare. I researched this for weeks before making a decision to do this and most people seemed to get really bad withdrawal symptoms. Some people can quit cold turkey and never have a problem. I'm apparently in the first category and there's no way to know own how you're going to react until you do. It feels like I have the flu. My head hurts, I've got the cold sweats and eating anything takes some serious effort cause the idea of food makes me want to puke. It could absolutely be worse because I could be coming off the Paxil much faster. The slower I come off, the less likely I am to suffer really bad side effects.…

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I’ve officially hit withdrawal symptoms

As of this afternoon, my body has officially noticed that there's not as much Paxil in my system as it's been used to having for the 5 or 6 years. Not only has it noticed, but it's not very happy about it. Paxil takes about 4.5 days to leave your system and as I'm now on day 5, my body is beginning to notice. All of a sudden, I'm hit with a headache and nausea. This is exactly what has happened when I've fallen off the Paxil in the past. There were times when I was sick and couldn't take my meds cause I was puking everything up. After day 4, I got hit with a headache and even worse nausea than I was already dealing with. What I don't…

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How often does your kid with #Autism get hurt?

One of the big challenges we face with Gavin is his complete, total lack of self awareness. He's also oblivious to his surroundings as well. Both of these challenges are very difficult to work with and often lead to problems like what we had this afternoon. Gavin never seems to want to sit on the couch in our living room. He always sits on a folding chair, to the side of the couch and close to the fireplace. He's a creature of habit and rarely deviates from this. Unfortunately, there are times when Gavin is moving too quickly and not really thinking. When he goes to sit down, he sorta flings his head back and cracks it on the corner of the stone mantel. I don't know how many times…

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Our plans for Christmas 2017

We're going to be doing things a little differently this year than in previous years. Rather than stay at home for most of the holiday, and try to keep things as calm as possible, we're going to be spending more time with family. The past few years, we've been really trying to limit the excitement, in order to help ensure we physically and emotionally survived the holiday. lol This year we will be going to a larger Christmas party on Lizze's side of the family on the 23rd. Christmas Eve will be spent with Lizze's parents and Christmas Day will be spent with my family. The kids will have a blast with their cousins but like I've said before, it will come at a price. At the very least, the…

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It’s not easy raising a #Schizophrenic teenager with #Autism

We had to temporarily restrict access to the kids Nerf guns as a result of them getting to carried away. They had been shooting each other in the face and that broke a major safety rule. Gavin just came downstairs and asked if he could have his Nerf gun back because he was being called in a mission to patrol Shuazoom. We gave it back to him because we didn't know what else to do. Gavin's Schizophrenic and honestly believes he's going on a real life mission. We didn't want to make anything worse for him by sending him into battle without his trusty weapon. Did we do the right thing? Who the hell knows. Schizophrenia is not easy to live with, whether you have it personally or you're caring…

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