What Is It About Spring?

I know I’ve been writing mostly book reviews for a long time here, and that is partly due to some serious issues that have been going on in my personal life and especially with my marriage. I haven’t felt comfortable writing about day to day stuff while so much was in flux.

I am hoping to start sharing more about what is going on in my life (and Michael’s) going forward. After several months of painful back-and-forth over a variety of issues, I have decided to separate from my husband. Michael (my 10-year-old son) and I are actually moving into an apartment this weekend, while my husband will continue to live in our house.

While there are a lot of issues to work through on all fronts, I do have a question about another topic. For the last couple of years Michael has had a very difficult time in the spring. He becomes much more emotional – crying easily where he would be apt to whine or argue or even to let something slide – and also is more quick to escalate when things don’t go well.

Last May, we finally started him on a low dose of Risperdal, which has had a tremendously good effect on his overall mood over the last several months. I know it’s not a magic solution, but it has seemed to help him maintain more of an equilibrium than before. I am noticing more emotional reactions to things over the last couple of weeks, however, and it makes me nervous because it’s the exact time of year it has started in the past. While I hope the medication will help it not get so bad, I have to admit I am worried about it.

When I was talking to my own therapist yesterday, she wondered whether he possibly had allergies and said that sometimes allergies can look like depression in terms of some of the symptoms. Has anyone else seen this in their own kids? I am thinking about trying an over-the-counter children’s allergy medication and seeing what happens. This question actually came up before but I can’t remember what I tried before or whether it worked (too much has happened in the meantime to hold on to that information!!).

Obviously, this could be a reaction to the major changes coming up in his life. So far, the only sadness he has expressed about the move is over changing schools in the fall, although he is happy that I will continue taking him to his current school through the end of this academic year.

Any thoughts? Anyone else seeing patterns like this and what have you done?

Tagged as: allergies, emotions, separation