Susan Senator

The light outside is pale green because of all of the green everywhere. So much so that the bits of light blue sky that filter through the branches almost clash with it, to my eyes. The sunlight lately seems eerily bright, absurdly strong. More and more I wonder if this is my perception, or does everyone notice this. Perception is a strange, subjective thing. We never know just what it is like for another person.

This difficult phase with Nat sheds new light on former, similar phases. I feel very certain now that the last time we were “under siege” this much was due to the SSRI he was taking, and the school program’s lack of response to his escalating activation. Back then Nat was on Zoloft; now he has been on Luvox. On the one hand, these SSRIs create more neural pathways and connect information together in his brain, helping him take in more information in a way that is more useful for him (or so I imagine, based on conversations with his psychpharmocologist). On the other hand, Nat is still Nat, and he still has an autistic perception of stimuli. I do not say this pejoratively; I mean that his brain makeup is ultimately different from mine and perhaps even if he can take more information in, he may not know how to process it or make sense of it. I don’t know what he does with it. He does not know what to do sometimes with all the information he is taking in — or so we believe — and he becomes frustrated and reverts to screaming and arm-biting.

The bottom line is, I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is like for Nat and neither does anyone else. We experiment but we don’t know. And the doctor thinks now that the Luvox is “overactivating” Nat. So we have taken him off it. I feel very chastened by this. Even though we were being so cautious, there was a downside and Nat and the rest of us have paid the price.

Up until yesterday morning, when Nat had a meltdown while Max was in charge (we were at Ben’s parent-teacher conference at Ben’s school), I was willing to put up with Nat’s SSRI-driven outbursts because the positive side was that he was more engaged with all of us. But now I feel: at what cost? It was terrifying for Max, it has been terrifying for Ben, and now I wonder if it has been terrifying for Nat. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I can’t imagine his pain, feeling so overwhelmed and out of control that he would scream like that and bite himself. Having no way of getting whatever it is to stop.

Sometimes even the clear, bright sunlight is just too much for our eyes. And it does make me wonder how if you tamper too much with the way something is naturally — like the environment or someone’s neurological or chemical makeup — you sometimes end up worse off.