The 'incident'

I had an 'incident' with Rohan yesterday that scared the bejessus out of me. It is an occurrence that is so hard to explain without feeling as if perhaps I was just imagining things, or having a case of the severe over reactions.

I think I had mentioned this on a previous post, but it can take Rohan an extra long time to wake up in the fully functioning sense. He is up and out of bed, but for the most part he sits on my lap and just kind of whines a bit until he is ready to face the day. This can take anywhere from 5 minutes to close to half an hour.

Well yesterday was no different, except it was a bit different. He awoke from an hour and a half nap, only to come out into the hallway upstairs and kind of lean his head on his arms against the wall moaning 'no mama' which is of course his usually mutterings when he wakes up. That's fine, nothing out of the ordinary. I bring him downstairs and sit him on my lap and there he sat, inconsolable for ages. Not the usual mutterings or moaning, but some outright tears streaming down his face. There was nothing I could offer him to stop him from crying. It was at this point that I decided it was time to snap him out of it and get the day going. I figured if I changed his diaper and get him dressed again, we could start our afternoon.


Well it was this move that sent him spiraling out of control. I took his diaper off and put it in the garbage and he lost it. Not in the usual toddler 'I am mad at you' sense, but in a very strange eyes glazed over panic attack. He kept trying to get into the garbage to get the diaper back, and it being filled with urn, I was not so inclined to let him grab it. He was just screaming and squirming and losing control. I have never seen him in this state..............ever. I tried to grab him and comfort him and hold him and talk to him, repeating for him to look at me look at me. He looked right through me with a one track mind for that diaper.

After the struggle had been going on for over half an hour I decided to let him grab the diaper out of the garbage. It had offered me the look of an episode that a child with Autism might have, so in my head I decided that maybe the diaper was some sort of comfort device for him. I was also curious about his next move once he had possession of this diaper again, would he try to put it back on, what did he need from it? So in a daze he grabbed the diaper, ran to the couch and lay down in the fetal position sort of rocking, cuddling the diaper and muttering 'no my, no my'. Scary shit right?

I started to talk to him in a calm soothing voice without touching him, as my touch was just making things worse before, so I didn't want to risk him going off and running in a panic again. Eventually I convinced him that the diaper was dirty and that he didn't need to cuddle it anymore. I picked him up, sat him on my lap and started to softly tell him the directions we will have to take to go pick up daddy. Than snap, back to normal, he asked for ice cream I fed it to him and he slurped away content fully, diaper out of sight out of mind.

That is when I cried. Some of the thoughts running through my mind were (as it happens with all moms I am sure) that I messed up my child, my bursts of emotions as of late have become too much for him, or my past with episodes of super sadness have been passed onto him.........I have already messed up my kid, he is just two, and I have another one on the way, what was I thinking. I also though about how I had no idea how I was going to deal with this, this last straw, this last thing of so many things piling up of things I didn't want to deal with, how was I going to be able to handle this one?

He was fine. I took him to the doctor to pick up some papers, and I started to explain the situation to the secretary, and burst into tears. She made me an appointment for Rohan. I went to work to give the papers to the manager (my official I ain't workin' no mo papers) and explained the situation to the kitchen manager (tearless this time, though just barely). She had had a similar experience with her daughter and it turned out to be sleep walking. He had been up for so long that it hadn't occurred to me that was sleeping during the fit. It was actually kind of a relief to hear that, I think I can handle sleep walking a bit better than psychotic episodes, or whatever else it could have been.

Right now, Rohan is fine, but I haven't yet recovered. That was one of the scariest experiences I have had with him so far, feeling completely out of control, not knowing what to do to snap him out of it.................or whether he was going to snap out of it at all. He was like a different child, as if he was possessed, as if he didn't know who I was. God that was awful.