Progress Report

As most of you know, I've had a very difficult time dealing with my daughter's very real psychological issues.  And some of her confessions have just been startling.  I mean, she broke into Winterly's house for some comic books and action figures? 

Sierra was formally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome the day before she was released from the hospital.  Asperger's is a milder form of autism characterized by difficulties in social interaction, lack of empathy, and strict adherence to routine. The diagnosis was the final answer of a puzzle that had mystified us for the last several years.  We came to realize that Sierra's odd behavior wasn't merely the result of teenage rebellion.  She started college and her behavior was stranger than ever.  

She's on three different mood regulating elixirs, that she has to take for the rest of her life.  These elixirs are to help her focus and concentrate and also modify her intense rages.  She's in counseling and has to meet with her once a week.

AJ had elixirs that he took too, but he's now down to one medication.  Sierra's issues, however, are much, much worse than his ever were. 

 Sierra and my older daughter, Sage, had a tiff in the hospital room before she was released.  Remember Sage is the one who found Sierra lying on the pavement in front of the movie theater on campus and she's been affected by Sierra's issues more than anybody.  Sage has been trying to get Sierra to accept the help she's been given to cope with her struggles.  

Despite Sage and Sierra's hospital-room quarrel, Sierra has been writing to Sage all about what's been happening on campus.  I'm just now getting to Sage's forwarded emails, and they have been especially intriguing to me.  

Sierra talks about winning the school chess tournament, 

 attempting to resurrect a Sim who died of a lightning strike (!), and 

being the only girl in her physical education classes. In fact, a couple of her male classmates have openly taken exception to her being there.  Say what?  What year is this, seriously? 

So Sierra has embarked on a scorched-earth campaign to prove that she belongs, as only Sierra could and would.

She's spent long hours in the gym.

She's gone jogging at night.

She's also putting in the work in the classroom, too.

A young man who threw with her (at the expense of a swollen left eye) was so impressed with her arm strength, he's asked her to try out for the football team. 

All this has come at a price, though.   She's getting allergy shots almost daily and her resistance is not where it needs to be.  She's getting frequent colds and infections, and Sage and I text her daily reminders to take her medication.

 

She talks about one rage incident so far on campus, when one of her dorm mates was watching something on TV when she wanted to use it.  "I wanted to use the dorm TV to work out, but someone was watching a show on it... so I flew off the handle.  I couldn't control it.  The rage had just built up inside of me and I let out a primal scream."  

 But what happened next let me know that she's at least attempting to use the new coping skills she learned at the hospital.   It made me feel much better about her chances going forward.  She went back up to her dorm room, took a gulp of elixir, and calmed herself down.  

The old Sierra would not only have flown off the handle, but taken it out on everyone else. 

 Even more encouraging is that she's starting to make friends, or at least socialize with people without trying to kill them.  Granted, Sierra's social skills are not where they should be for a girl of her age, but that's going to come with time.  (They could only improve, they're practically nonexistent.) It seems like she's around people who are helping that development, not hurting it. And even if they don't come to an age-appropriate level, at least she seems to be making an effort now.  

She's never going to be a social butterfly, because that's not who she is.

She's like me in that she's not the most social of Sims, she'd rather keep to herself.   Still, though, the signs I'm seeing are promising.  She still spaces out from time to time, but I learned in counseling that it's her way of dealing with stimulation and she needs that time to decompress.  

 

She still likes to sleep outside from time to time, too.   That's my husband's genes in her, I think.  He's the outdoorsy type.  All of my kids have gotten the outdoors gene from him.  It's just that doing so in public, in front of public places, just seems a bit odd.  So I've told her, if she still has the urge to sleep outdoors occasionally, she could do so in the woods or areas that are not so public, and it would be okay.  

I'm a perfectionist.  I want everything to be 'just right.' 

For my daughter to have these kinds of issues ate at every fiber of my being. It was like, my daughter is not supposed to have issues.  She's supposed to be perfect. The whole time I was wondering, what did I do to make Sierra like this?  And what could I do to fix her? 

It's taken me awhile to realize, well, she doesn't need fixing.  She's perfect the way she is, even with all of her quirks.  It was my approach to her that needed fixing. 

There are some things about my daughter that are just not going to change, because they're hard-wired in her as part of who she is.  

After all, as I've said many times here, we're more alike than we are different.  She's been through so much, I forget that she's still so very young, still a baby, practically.  She hasn't lived yet, really -- even though she claims to have been abducted by aliens, had a crisis that put her in the hospital, and has basically done enough stuff to make your head spin.  Her life is just beginning now, as are the lives of AJ and Sage and Skylar.  But through all this, even with all this, I think she's going to be okay.