Monday, February 20, 2012

A Beautiful Boy.

I was thinking about that movie, A Beautiful Mind.
Davis doesn't have Schizophrenia but he frequently hears voices.
There are so many things about Davis that is beautiful.
His beautiful smile.
His beautiful creative spirit.
His beautiful determination.
His beautiful sweet soul.
Lately, his mind isn't one of them.
His mind is playing tricks on him
and keeps him up at night.
He's scared and unable to calm down.
He is hearing voices again and
he understands what these voices are trying to say.
I wish they'd keep their big mouths shut.
Off and on for years,
 Davis would hear many voices
mumbled or jumbled together.
Luckily, most of the time, it was difficult
 to understand what each voice was saying.
The last couple of weeks
the voices are speaking loud and clear
and it's frightening.
He has been asking to go to the hospital
because he wants those loud and terrifying voices to stop.
The problem with him going to the hospital is this:
even though he is an 18 year old young man,
capable of easily growing a shaggy beard,
he really is just a young frightened little boy inside.
We like to think of hospitals as being therapeutic places
where you take your loved ones to get well
but it may not be the best place 
for this high functioning autistic boy to be.
We are working closely with his Psychiatrist who happens 
to also have a PhD in Pharmacology.
Sometimes the science of medicating for voices
turns out to be a rolling of the dice.
It takes time for those amazing pharmacological little wonders
to start working on the parts of the brain
 that they were so brilliantly concocted for.
We understand that there may come a point when we have to take
this youngest, sweet boy of ours and hand him over to people
we need to trust to take care of him and help him.
But how can they ever know and love
 that beautiful boy of ours like we do
and protect him like he so desperately needs?

1 comment:

Musings from Kim K. said...

I'm wiping away the tears. Please know that I'm thinking of you ALL. Sending lots of prayers to your sweet boy.