Brain Drain

This is what brain drain sounds like:

Me: Do you want macaroni and cheese or pizza for lunch?

T: What's macaroni and cheese?

Me: Those candy canes are hard to get out of the box. Bring them to me; I'll help you.

T: Why?

Me: I had to bring a gift in for Ms. (name of the teacher assistant in his classroom)

T: Who's that?

T, on a snowy day: Why does the road look different?

Me: How do you mean, "different?"

T: Well, all the things that are usually white are covered with brown stuff. (slush)

T deliberately puts his boots on the wrong feet. T deliberately puts a polo shirt on backward. And then acts dumb when it's pointed out. "What's wrong with my boots? Why do I need to look at how I have my boots on?"

Me: Go find a pair of shorts and put them on.

T: Why are they called that?

Me: Because they are short pants. So shorts. For short pants. Shorts.

T: But why are they called that?

Me: Time to read your Book Buddy Book.

T: What's a book buddy book?

Me: It's the book that your teacher sends home in the Book Buddy Book bag for you to read with us.

T: That's not a book buddy book.

Me: Here's the bag. It says "Book Buddy Book." Pointing to the words as I read them.

T: But the book is down there -- points to the bottom of the bag, below the second "book" word, not THERE. (as he points to the second "book" word.)

Me: I'm done arguing; read the book.

T (sits there; silence)

Me: NOW

T (mumbles under his breath): Oton

Me: Oton? That doesn't sound like the two words I see.

T (mumbles under his breath AGAIN): Oton.

Me: READ THE TWO WORDS.

T: I SAID "OUR TOWN!!!"

Me: Good job enunciating the words so I could understand them.  (Turn page where the title is repeated. Wait. Nothing.): READ!

T (mumbles under his breath: Oton.

Me: Time for your shower. You had a busy sweaty day today. Plus you ran and played basketball yesterday, so you really need a shower.

T: But I took a shower last night. (not in the least bit true, and he knows it)

T: Yesterday you told me that Christmas is in 12 weeks. (not in the least bit true, and he knows it)

These are just a few of the mental gymnastics we go through every day -- all.day.long. Three years home and T no longer tries to beat the crap out of me, but he tries incessantly to beat me mentally.

I found out there is actually a term for it. It is called brain drain. And I don't know exactly why it happens; I just know it falls under the behavior umbrella for developmental trauma/attachment disorders. And it's maddening.

It's easy to get sucked into, because he can so easily ask a seemingly innocent question and the next thing I know I'm spiraling around and around and around the same question and answer. In the first example, we eat mac and cheese at least twice a month. He knows dang well what it is. He tried then to pretend he didn't know if it was what we had for dinner last night, which was my version of Welsh rarebit made with some of our summer tomatoes. Ah, but now that I know about brain drain, I was able to avoid getting sucked in. He knows the name for what we ate last night and he knows dang well what mac and cheese is. He was trying to cover for himself, and I wasn't biting. 

In the shorts example he had asked me why they are called shorts. Seems like a question you might hear from an ELL child, right? But when I answered him, he asked again. As if I needed to find a different way to explain, because the first answer didn't make sense to him. 

And I've spent a lot of time finding different ways to explain the same answer, thinking that he wasn't understanding me. Now I've learned that if I look him in the eye and say, "You're just asking to get to me," I get a "busted" grin. 

How do you deal with brain drain? You engage in it as little as possible. For the mac and cheese example, I told him, "Since you don't seem to know what it is, that's what you're having for lunch. No arguments." And then when he wanted a cookie after lunch, the answer was, "No, since you decided to be difficult before lunch and pretend you didn't know what macaroni and cheese was, you do not get a cookie."

For the shorts example, my response upon hearing the question repeated after I answered it once was, "Asked and answered." And I walked away. 

The M&M thing I mentioned in a previous blog is a technique, but it works more for calming me down in my responses than in actually getting him to stop. Because I have to sound so HAPPY to be getting the M&M, it stops me from being short with him -- and getting under my skin rewards him, so if I sound aggravated, he's won. So yes, he announces I'm going to get even fatter, but I just smile as I pop the treat in my mouth. So as long as it has a calming effect on me, it's effective -- for me. 

One of my favorites is to respond to a question that is asked not out of curiosity, but an attempt to start a mental battle with me -- as in asking why the road looked different with snow on it -- by saying, "You're a smart boy. I bet if you think about that for a while, you'll figure it out. If you haven't figured it out by tomorrow, you can ask me again then." Of course, the first time I used that "trick," he retorted with, "But I have daycare tomorrow."

"Oh well," I said. "You'll have to wait until after daycare to ask."

Without a doubt, one of these days he's going to take me up on it. He will remember a question from the previous day and he will tell me he still doesn't know the answer. And then I will ask him, "What do you think? You tell me." 

In the book incident, I decided he was clearly overtired and needed to go back to bed. Under the covers. Lights off, door closed. No singing. No talking. No noise at all coming out of that room. About an hour later I went in and asked if he was ready to be cooperative reading the book. Yes he was, and he did a terrific job reading the entire book without further ado.

Tonight's arguing over the candy cane box and asking "Why?" after I had told him why he needed to bring me the box as part of telling him to bring me the box? Resulted in a delay-of-hanging-them-on-the Christmas-tree game. "Since you argued with me instead of just giving me the box even after I told  you why I needed you to give me the box, we are not going to put the candy canes on the tree today. We'll try again tomorrow." 

The art of most of this is the walk away part. No further engagement is allowed once the boom comes down. "Asked and answered." And walk away. "Ask me again tomorrow." And walk away. "Here's your mac and cheese." And walk away. Of course, a lot of this happens when we are trapped in the car. It's marvelous how loud one can crank a car radio and listen to that gawd-awful "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" song. It's the trapped in the car version of walking away, as nearly unbearable as it is for me. 

I understand that brain drain is covered in one of the few attachment books I don't own and haven't borrowed yet from the library: Love and Logic. I was kind of glad to hear about it, because I seriously thought I was the one going crazy. Well, I was, but it was because he was trying to make me crazy. But it wasn't something I'd heard about others encountering. Raging, extreme competitiveness, back seat driving, disrespectful behavior, dysregulation around the holidays and traumaversaries -- all familiar to me and much discussed around the older-child adoption world, but this trying to trap me with my own words thing -- it's kind of a relief to find out that it's known and even has a name. Brain drain. 

Someday again, maybe, I will get to read a book because I want to read it, not because I'm trying to understand my son and his needs and how to parent him to a healthy -- and happy -- mental place. Some day maybe we'll find the magic pot of gold that cures him. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my brain from being drained. Because I really need it to stay one step ahead of him.