Sometimes you are on the right track and you don't even know it!

Jake had a rough night last night for a few reasons, I won't go into detail, but two good things came out of it.

1.  There are often triggers that will elevate your levels of frustration and anxiety. 

However, it is often not that one specific trigger that will cause the meltdown, it is the next tiny little thing that sets you off.  Pity the person that is behind that tiny little thing, because they don't have a clue as to what just happened.  Jake discovered one of his triggers last night when his sister was teasing him by hiding and then jumping out at him.  But when she jumped out she also slapped him across the head.  Hard.  And unexpected.  That started a string of undesirable events. 
But, at the end of it all, while I tried to talk Jake through his feelings he said to me:

"When she jumped out and hit me I was so mad!!! She hit me right on the side of my head, does she not know that I have Post Concussion Syndrome?"  

The underlying anger was due to anxiety about being hit in the head again, and his sister's lack of compassion.  WOW! For us to be able to get to the root of the anger is huge!

2.  Sometimes you have coping strategies that you don't even realize! 

After the $%&* hit the fan last night, Jake was in his room.  This is the time that he often lashes out in anger, even resorting to physically damaging things.  But last night it was pretty quiet, which led me to go and talk to him rationally and eventually come to the revelation above.  However, before that conversation, I opened the door (carefully, after knocking, as I was not sure what I was going to be walking into!)...he was cleaning..??!! Hanging up clothes, sorting Xmas presents and putting them away.  "Wow, I love it when you get sent to your room and you clean!"  I said, jokingly. 
"Cleaning makes me feel better" he said.  WOW again!  I was pretty quick to point out to Jake that he had just revealed a coping strategy that worked for him.  We have done a lot of work on those when dealing with anxiety, but for him to actually say it, that simply put, was profound. 

Yay Jake!  (And to think that all of this is happening while he is OFF the anxiety medication.  He has been off for 6 weeks now.)

While Jake was at his treatment at MMTR Health today I knew there was another accomplishment that I had wanted to share with the team there but could not recall it at the time, and this was it!