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Taylor has now completed 50 sessions of PrTMS and continues to show overall improved behaviors at home and at school. Her teacher reported to Emily last week, “I’ve never seen Taylor so happy. It’s a night and day difference between now and a couple of months ago.” So awesome to hear. I asked Taylor on the way home from a treatment session if she thought PrTMS has been beneficial for her and in what ways. Without any additional prompts from me, she responded that she felt it has helped her sleep better, have fewer headaches, and not have to run away as ...

“I just want to die.” It was 8am and we’d heard Taylor say those words nearly on repeat since 5am, when I’d jumped out of bed with my eyes still closed and stumbled down the hallway and into the kids bathroom to relieve my 8 year-old Makenzie, who was trying to pull a screaming, thrashing Taylor down from the small, open window she was attempting to fit through. It is the only upstairs window we have not hammered nails in to keep from opening more than a couple inches so that Taylor won’t be able to jump out. Now I’m realizing ...

This morning we woke up to this sweet note. Taylor had the idea that she and Makenzie would make us breakfast. They made me a peanut butter and honey toast and prepared Emily a bowl of Raisin Bran cereal. This doesn’t seem like anything significant, but Taylor has never really done anything like this so for us it was pretty huge. According to Makenzie, this was all Taylor’s idea. This morning Taylor pulled out some little cards she got when we were doing ABA therapy last summer that each have a suggested activity to help her figure out what to do ...

Taylor has now completed 35 sessions of PrTMS and its time for an overdue update. We have seen improvements in her sleep (falls asleep faster, wakes up fewer times during the night), improved behaviors at school (fewer elopements, less frequent suicidal ideation), and an overall improvement with her impulse control and behavior at home. We first started tracking Taylor’s suicidal ideations and elopements from home in the middle of December (I wish we would have started tracking this sooner!) and overall we have seen a decline in both of these since then. See chart below: Each column shows a full week of ...

As I was tucking Taylor into bed the other night, I turned to leave the room and said, “Goodnight, Taylor. I love you!” Her response? “I read that pitbulls are only aggressive if they feel threatened or if their owners teach them to be aggressive.” Yup, just living that autism parenting life, lol. In all seriousness though, many parents of autistic children rarely hear their children reciprocate feelings. It wasn’t until Taylor was 9 years old — when I had literally told her thousands of times that I love her — that Taylor responded one random night with, “I love you too, mommy.” I left ...